Sep 2018 – Driven To Write

The Scent Of The Diorite, The Smell Of The Gabbro

It really has been a busy September. That said, I don’t know how I missed this. The new Jimny appeared to the world in the middle of the month and I only found out last night.

And it is something of a huge relief to see someone give it a clear and fair review. Quite plainly, after twenty years of not caring what the press thought, Suzuki now have a legend on their hands. Thus Autocropley accepted that the Jimny is for swivelling, skidding and slopping around in mud and not about 10/10ths blatting around Castle Combe.

All the downsides the car has, such as they are, are there because it is a vehicle designed to Continue reading “The Scent Of The Diorite, The Smell Of The Gabbro”

Quintessence

William Lyons’ masterpiece.

“Without any doubt at all, the XJ6 is my personal favourite. It comes closer to than any other to what I always had in mind as my ideal car.” Sir William Lyons.

One bright spring morning in 1967, two men strode towards a lock-up garage in the grounds of an imposing Edwardian stately home, amid the rolling Warwickshire countryside. As the dew shimmered on the immaculately tended lawns and borders of Wappenbury Hall, Sir William Lyons, Jaguar Chairman, Chief Executive and spiritus rector regarding all matters aesthetic, led his European Sales Director, John Morgan to where Jaguar’s vitally important new car lay sequestered, in seemingly definitive prototype form.

An autocrat to the tips of his highly polished brogues he may have been, but Lyons nevertheless regularly canvassed the opinions of those he trusted, although having done so, he would Continue reading “Quintessence”

History in Cars – Rituals and Symbols

The editor recalls his early forays into motoring.

Owing to the poor quality of the originals, stock photos have been used. Image: autoevolution

The starting procedure: Insert key into ignition slot. Twist key. Lift floor mounted enrichment (choke) lever fully^[1]. Engage clutch. Lift spring-loaded, floor mounted starter lever. Hold until engine fires. Ignore the intense vibration of the little twin cylinder engine on its mountings as it settles into life. On no account Continue reading “History in Cars – Rituals and Symbols”

Bang! Bang! Click.

The following is a counterfactual version of a news-story published recently at Automotive News. Chery plans to tackle the European market, they say. They are moving in as General Motors abandoned the market entirely as it was all simply too much trouble for them.

To understand the weirdness of GM’s decision, try reading the ANE story with “GM” in place of Chery. Here is how it now reads:

“Detroit, MI – American automaker General Motors (GM) has selected Germany to be the base of its coming move into Europe. GM says it is America’s largest car exporter. The company is determined to Continue reading “Bang! Bang! Click.”

Class Act

Still waters run shallow.

The ideological direction change enacted by Mercedes-Benz for the 2012 W176 A-Class not only precipitated the dying gasp of the German marque’s engineering-led ethos, but went on to vindicate its adoption by becoming a huge commercial success for the carmaker.

This much we know, but the scope and reach to which Mercedes has developed its successor gives eloquent voice of its ongoing significance to the three pointed star. Since its spring 2018 launch, the newest A-Class in five door format can Continue reading “Class Act”

The Factory’s Shadow Over Oporto

Today we turn our attention to the 2017 Nissan Micra. This offers us a chance to learn the Nissan project code for the car, K-14.

We also get to canter through a potted history of a car that has lurched from banal to brave and back, like a drunken tide. The current car has a touch of brave and also a few dollops of busy. Before we get to that we shall Continue reading “The Factory’s Shadow Over Oporto”

The Quintessence : (Part Four)

Fifty years ago this week, Sir William Lyons announced his magnum opus.

On the 26th September 1968, amid the opulence of the Royal Lancaster Hotel on London’s Bayswater Road, Sir William Lyons revealed Jaguar’s long-awaited saloon. Neither a particularly confident nor enthusiastic public speaker, the intensely private Jaguar Chairman was persuaded to record his introductory speech to the assembled dealers, dignitaries and members of the press, as the still secret new XJ6 was revealed over four successive nights.

The lavish series of functions climaxed with Guests being directed to a darkened function room where Sir William, picked out by spotlights, announced, “ladies and Gentlemen, I should like to introduce to you my new car.” The lights would then gradually brighten to reveal a single XJ6 on a raised turntable, surrounded by nine further examples arranged around the room’s perimeter. The reception throughout was rapturous, with dealers and motoring press alike lining up to Continue reading “The Quintessence : (Part Four)”

The Marmot’s Second Worst Fear

In eight days in July I covered about 2000 kilometres in this car and I have to check now which model it was**.

You won’t be surprised to know I wanted an Astra estate. Sadly, on the July day in question Europcar in Flensburg offered me the choice to either
Continue reading “The Marmot’s Second Worst Fear”

Songs of Praise

A holy mortifying shame

The sight of a Maestro parked outside a churchyard in a small English village might once have been as common as the prayer books the car’s putative churchwarden owner would distribute amongst the darkening pews, yet here in September of 2018, it strikes a rather more rarefied note.

It’s rather lazy of this writer to Continue reading “Songs of Praise”

Lionel Rewrote A List

In recent articles we’ve been looking at over-styling of one form or another. I’ve also been considering the driving forces behind the phenomenon. Counterfactual time…

Let’s take a trip in our time machine. It looks like a W-114 Mercedes but when the car gets to 45 kmph and the fan speed is set to high the car slips back in time to 1990. It also gives the driver the power to Continue reading “Lionel Rewrote A List”

End of the Adventure?

Brand-MINI is facing its biggest adventure yet. This one however, may not end well…

It has been a fairly interesting week for BMW’s Oxfordshire outpost. MINI has been one of many UK-based carmakers predicting doom-laden scenarios should the British government’s hapless negotiating team fail to obtain a workable deal to exit the European Union early next year.

As part of its ongoing (and increasingly necessary) catastrophe-planning, BMW’s Cowley plant is set to Continue reading “End of the Adventure?”

Here’s Your Samarra, The Tinders And Brush Await You

Today we have a Twix of an article, a consideration of recent offerings from DS and BMW, with a side-order of architectural musing.

At the risk of being pretentious, these designs ask one to reflect on what Farshid Moussavi discusses as the function of style (in relation to buildings, but it is true of design generally).

“What is style? Whether used to identify an individual architect’s oeuvre, or to indicate some common features in a place or a period, “style” has historically been the word employed. Embedded within this usage,” writes Moussavi “are several dubious and conflicting assumptions. Firstly that style consists in the repetition of formal elements. Second that style is the product of an individual personality. Thirdly, that style relates to something larger and less tangible than the actual buildings that Continue reading “Here’s Your Samarra, The Tinders And Brush Await You”

Lost For Words

It doesn’t happen all that often, but the latest confection from DS Automobiles has your correspondent utterly confounded.

I don’t know. I genuinely don’t. What does one say nowadays, when every recent new car announcement feels like another assault? Does there come a point when through exhaustion or simple attrition, one is forced to simply Continue reading “Lost For Words”

More Cruel Than Pombal, Lovelier Than Life Itself

Driventowrite is in cheeky, quizzical mood today. So, a gauntlet will be placed carefully and politely at your collective feet.

After all the hard work and testing, the result of the collective labour of hundreds of women and men over several years, every car gets summed up in a few short words. The following is a selection of verdicts on cars produced in recent years. Can you Continue reading “More Cruel Than Pombal, Lovelier Than Life Itself”

The Quintessence : (Part Three)

In 1968, Jaguar put all its saloon car eggs in one decidedly comely basket. We examine the likely causes.

In 1964, a series of factors led Sir William Lyons to take the momentous decision to replace Jaguar’s multiplicity of saloon models with a single car line, betting the entire enterprise upon its success. Retrospectively of course, one could say he needn’t have worried, but at the time, it must have been a deeply anxious moment.

How did this state of affairs come to pass? To answer this, we must Continue reading “The Quintessence : (Part Three)”

A Photo For Sunday: 2011-2017 Ford Focus Saloon

Driventowrite is the name and to some extent the “driven” part corresponds to a form of sub-clinical obsessive-compulsive disorder related to arm-rests in mid-size passenger cars. But there’s a bit more to it than that.

Good grief. It’s a 2011-2018 Ford Focus saloon.

That’s why today’s car is here**. I would absolutely love to know what decision-making process led Opel to drop the rear-centre arm-rest in their “J” series Astra (2009-2015) while Ford decided that the rear-centre arm-rest would grace the saloon version of today´s Focus (but not the estate or hatchback). Actually I think I know… we’ll
Continue reading “A Photo For Sunday: 2011-2017 Ford Focus Saloon”

Formula Libre

Today we remember Ford’s 1998 roadster concept which championed the freedom of the open road for four, and pay tribute to its designer.

While four-seater convertibles are reasonably common commodities, four-door roadsters, have never quite caught on. But just as nature abhors a vacuum, car designers tend to view received wisdom as something to be challenged.
At the 1998 Chicago Auto Show, when such events took place in the ‘Windy City’, Ford’s US design team, under the leadership of J Mays presented a concept, while not entirely new, had not really been attempted at this scale before. Continue reading “Formula Libre”

Design Semantics: why simple gives way to complex

We return once more to my desperate attempt to make design semantics interesting to people outside the design profession.

Far from being a distant irrelevance to those practicing design, researchers cotton on to things which merely take time to be understood. If we are wondering today why current design is so over-wrought, there are those to whom this will not be a surprise. Should you be so diligent as to

Continue reading “Design Semantics: why simple gives way to complex”

“What It Is Really Like To Be A Fictional Person”

Coincidences happen and don’t mean anything. Still, they add a touch of poetic interest to our otherwise unstructured and meaningless lives. Here’s one that actually happened to me!

About a week ago I was walking home from the supermarket. I think I’d bought some onions and some sliced bread (I like toast in the morning sometimes). Exactly as I passed the doorway of the rather good hamburger joint on the street, my subconscious mind notified my conscious mind that I could not Continue reading ““What It Is Really Like To Be A Fictional Person””

Surf’s Up

Sometimes it’s necessary to look back in order to move forward.

It’s a slightly forlorn image would you not agree? An elegant, if vaguely unsatisfying looking 1960s Italian GT is parked upon a deserted beachscape. The photo comes courtesy of the estimable Mr. Christopher Butt, he of the influential and painstakingly curated Auto-Didakt. The car? Well, you can read Christopher’s well-chosen words on this carrozzeria unicorn here, should your curiosity get the better of you.

The image serves as something of a visual metaphor – for the demise of the carrozzieri, of course, but also for something more. But first, some background. As our Auto-Didaktic cohort points out, during the post-war period, French and Italian coachbuilders struggled to Continue reading “Surf’s Up”

Selling England by the Pound

In an anti-climax to the series on the Triumph Acclaim, we summarise the legendary LJKS’s first review of the car for Car Magazine.

Car November 1981 — Oddly, Car failed to feature BL’s Triumphant Acclaim on the cover of its issue in which LJKS’s legendary review appeared (Source: Pinterest).

“It is a delightful car to drive, but it is so ugly that too few people will ever discover that. Or so I thought when I was fresh from trying the Acclaim, lamenting the need to fetch customers into the showroom and put them into the car and onto the road before they closed their minds to the purchase. If only they could Continue reading “Selling England by the Pound”

The Last Letters Of Carpenter

Very recently this author was immersed for three days in the world of the aesthetics of design. Dieter Rams’ name came up.

2011 Nissan Juke rear: carmagazine.co.uk

Deiter Rams worked as Braun’s chief designer, having a desk there from 1961 to 1995. It occurred to me that I agree with the whole lot of Rams’ principles which are opposed to zany, aggressive styling and yet I am a known liker of cars such as the Nissan Juke and Toyota CH-R.

People will also know of other zany and aggresssive designs which offend to a degree and I don’t dislike all of them. I have come to accept some zaniness is quite okay (maybe it’s resignation). Is there any way I can Continue reading “The Last Letters Of Carpenter”

The Quintessence : (Part Two)

In this second instalment, we examine the XJ6’s technical package.

Proving engineers, Don Currie and Richard Cresswell with a disguised XJ4 prototype, sporting Lyons’ ‘Studebaker’ grille. (c) Classic Cars

Sanctioned in 1964, XJ4 was intended to launch in 1967, which seems in hindsight to have been a rather optimistic timescale. The project team would be led by Bob Knight, Jaguar’s senior development engineer and one of the finest conceptual minds of his era. The Browns Lane engineering department at the time was something of a collection of minor fiefdoms, most of whom Continue reading “The Quintessence : (Part Two)”

After The джудже The исполин Will Be Among Us

A few days ago, I wondered which marque offered the most badge engineered cars in its range. So, shall we make an effort to investigate this?

Naturally, I will have to go back to Fiat first. What do you think the result will be? Well, Fiat didn’t really Continue reading “After The джудже The исполин Will Be Among Us”

Flicking the Switch

“Electric now has a Mercedes.” Yes, but have you seen it?

“EQ or Electric Intelligence by Mercedes-Benz is our electric mobility brand. EQ represents ‘Emotion and Intelligence’, two Mercedes brand values. It comprises of all essential aspects related to customer-focused electric mobility and goes beyond the vehicle itself.” Mercedes-Benz.

A recent conversation with an industry insider prompted an observation that at Driven to Write, we tend to give Mercedes-Benz’s Chief Creative Officer a bit of a hard time. In this individual’s not entirely unwarranted view, we have a tendency (as one might say in football parlance) to Continue reading “Flicking the Switch”

Only Then Can The Quietude Commence

DTW’s keen eye for a bad detail espied this mechanically adequate A-pilllar recently.

While some Chryslers left the showrooms wearing Lancia badges in recent years, Fiat also had a chance to Continue reading “Only Then Can The Quietude Commence”

Ripples

The bland Triumph which owed everything to a low-key Honda led to the next collaborative effort which Car Magazine headlined as a ‘Bland Rover’. From such inauspicious beginnings came something of a revolution.

Project XX in launch guise. (c) Classicandperformancecar

“England Expects – but Austin Rover Struggles to Deliver”. Cover of Car Magazine in the issue which covered the launch and first drive of the Rover 800.

Looking back, the 800 could probably be acclaimed as a commercial success, in the UK at least, but its launch and early years were dogged by poor quality, bad reliability and uneven capabilities. It represented a faltering of the emerging track-record of BL-Honda cars in terms of reliability.

From the outside looking in, it is easy to Continue reading “Ripples”

Welcome to the Cheap Seats

Or to put it another way, a week with an Aygo. How did we get on?

It began with a bump. Somebody reversed into the Jag, while it was innocently minding its own business. The damage while not great, will likely be expensive, given the manner in which cars such as the XF are constructed these days. Still, with the guilty party’s insurers footing the bill, such matters are perhaps somewhat academic. The upshot being that while the Jaguar is in for a course of rhinoplasty, we’ve been slumming it in a courtesy car.

I must dutifully point out that Toyota’s smallest offering is not exactly a stranger to DTW’s pages, our resident Mr. Herriott having already written at some length upon his experience with a conventional manual version, but the example we are considering today has been fitted with Toyota’s X-Shift automated manual transmission.

Employing a manual gearbox with an electronically automated clutch, it allows the driver to Continue reading “Welcome to the Cheap Seats”

Great European Cars: Number 3

The tension must be mounting at this point. Driventowrite is nearing the summit of the European motoring pantheon.

The thin air makes every upward centimetre a struggle against gravity. The cold gnaws into the core of your bones. To put it another way, the competition is fierce as more and more cars struggle to be near the epicentre of the best European motoring has offered. So many vehicles and only one can Continue reading “Great European Cars: Number 3”

Micropost: 2018 Kia Venga

Among my pet hates in Photoshop imagery is lens-flare. This advert for the Kia Venga adds some extra hatefulness and incompetence to that.

The scene depicts not martians landing on the roof of the Vatican but a kid and a parent playing gleefully around the car. This could have been done in real life – why spend a whole day messing with Photoshop? The perspective is wrong as well. And the light is wrong: the sun is casting light towards the camera but the shadows are falling away from the camera.

Why spend a whole day on what is really a scene of cringe-making sentimentality? Finally, the setting: the almost bare front yard. It’ll be baking hot on a summers’ day and horrible at night too. Ads like this contribute to the worsening of our public spaces.

The Quintessence : (Part One)

William Lyons’ masterpiece. In a series of articles, we celebrate an automotive high watermark as it marks its 50th anniversary.

“Without any doubt at all, the XJ6 is my personal favourite. It comes closer to than any other to what I always had in mind as my ideal car.” Sir William Lyons.

One bright spring morning in 1967, two men strode towards a lock-up garage in the grounds of an imposing Victorian stately home, amid the rolling Warwickshire countryside. As the dew shimmered on the immaculately tended lawns and borders of Wappenbury Hall, Sir William Lyons, Chairman, Chief Executive and spiritus rector regarding all matters aesthetic, led his European Sales Director, John Morgan to where Jaguar’s vitally important new car lay sequestered, in seemingly definitive prototype form.

A Photo For Sunday

It’s in many ways just an ordinary sight south of the Alps yet I can’t help my fascination with these fine cars. You don’t see them much in Denmark, so rarity is part of the appeal. But…

… I will concede this interest is definitely peculiar to me, that among the short list of cars I will always stop and look at for as long as I can is included a car like the one above: Continue reading “A Photo For Sunday”

Manchester, patronage of tanning salons in (1983-1987)

Quite possibly the most exciting aspect of today’s post is this rather splendid photo. The rest of it is about product semantics.

I never tire of looking at this car. Source

After having considered why is difficult to understand the visual (it’s about cognition), the next tricky thing is to understand design as compromise (all design is failure). And the next level of complexity deals with understanding that even geometrically exquisite lines are open to interpretation. That means semantics or the meaning of the thing or the meaning of the parts of things. If you think you somehow Continue reading “Manchester, patronage of tanning salons in (1983-1987)”