Have you ever imagined what it would be like to resurrect a Formula One car that’s been hibernating for 12 years? No, me neither, but it’s certainly the sort of thing that’ll stir your imagination if you’re an F1 fan like me.

Rock Motorsport were apparently the team tasked with giving Damon Hill’s (almost) 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix-winning Arrows the kiss of life. Watch in this video as the team hop around the car like excited teenagers, waiting to hear the noise a Formula One car makes when it’s awoken from a deep sleep.

We’re used to hearing F1 engines bark into life, or chirp I suppose if we’re talking about the current crop. But this one sort of splutters, coughs and yawns into a rage as the starter rips at its internals. Before long it does make the sort of noise you’d expect, but not without a lot of fuss, and also a lot of smoke.

Just as you’d expect a Yamaha grand piano to have kept its magic after 12 years, the Yamaha V10 in Damon Hill’s Arrows racer captures the imagination just as it did back in 1997 when the Brit did the unspeakable and dragged the car to the podium.

Like that old Piano though, the engine might just need a bit of a tune-up – it’s not meant to sound like a Triumph Dolomite when it’s cranked, right?

Are you on Twitter?

Today, I saw an Austin Maestro and I got excited. Why? Well when was the last time you saw an interesting car on the road?

At this point the petrol head in you will be nutting the desk, and you’ll be screaming “INTERESTING????!!!” at the screen. I can understand why, and until today I would have agreed entirely with you. So let me explain, but first a brief history lesson…

In 2009, the UK Labour Government – at the hands of Gordon Brown – decided it would boost the motor industry. The idea, we all agreed with. The approach, however has done irreparable damage to the world’s motoring heritage. Classic (or ‘old’ if you read the marketing of the time) car owners were encouraged to trade in their old high-maintenance machines for a new car deposit. Taken at their word, some of the promotions back then appeared to suggest you could all but push an old rust bucket onto the forecourt to qualify.

But, as we now know, a significant number of cars entered in the scheme were not rust buckets, and were quite happily driven to the crusher under their own four-star steam. In fact, if you’ve got the stomach for it, you can see exactly which treasures were lost by clicking here (Make sure you’re sitting down – with a stiff drink for comfort).

In moments of such tragedy, it’s natural to find comfort in making sense of things in any way you can. The way I made sense of it goes back to my childhood fear of the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. You’ll probably remember he lured the children into a cage by offering them new toys. Well the children grew up, bought classic cars and got lured by Gordon Brown, who is quite clearly the child catcher.

Dick Van Dyke is too old to care, and the Tory reinstatement of the rolling tax exemption for classic cars is a flawed consolation. After all, you need classic cars in order for them to qualify for free tax, and we have a lot less of them now, than we did five years ago.

So maybe now you can try and understand why I got excited when a faded blue Austin Maestro, in all its rusty E reg glory trundled into the petrol station while I was filling up my 1984 Porsche 924. This is how distracted I got; having been carefully nursing the decimal point to zero to avoid the dreaded “and a penny” I pulled the nozzle out and dribbled some go-go juice on my trainer. Take that as you will.

As a young boy serving my petrolhead apprenticeship, I would gaze out of the window of my mother’s road-rally Saab 96 on the way to school in awe of the variety and character of the cars on the road. The sight, sound and smell of motoring in the late 1980s was without doubt richer in every way than your average school run these days. I actually wonder how I will give my two young boys a proper upbringing in a world where the Honda Jazz is most people’s definition of a funky car, and Alfa Romeo ‘borrows’ technology from GM.

So while the Austin Maestro has never been a car you’d associate with words like ‘passion’ and ‘character’, there can be no doubt that it has more of both than the majority of cars you’ll see on an average drive around town. Even if you have to dig deep and attribute the ‘passion’ to the British Leyland Christmas parties, and the ‘character’ to the strength of will needed to have kept one running this long.

I can only blame Gordon Brown for so much of this horrific situation however. For the rest, we as classic car owners must take responsibility. So I appeal to you – regardless of what the weather’s doing in the morning, regardless of how far through the winter waxoyling you’ve got, regardless of whether you’ve got a Ferrari 250 GTO or a Ford Sierra LX tucked away, set the alarm for 10 minutes earlier tomorrow and get the classic car out of the garage.

And by the way – if you do, Tweet me a photo of your ‘interesting’ car on the road – @paulwoodford84 – I’ll retweet you, grateful for the service you have done for motorists everywhere.

#Woody

P.S. Have you ever wondered what a ‘Thatcherite super saloon’ is? The answer’s here.

(Article written for VW Festival)

If you’re a Porsche fan, you’ll know this as the VW with a Porsche badge. But then, it is the VW that saved Porsche. Here’s the short story of the VW that so nearly was, and the Porsche that will never be.

In 1972 development started on a project, code named EA425 – a Volkswagen-Audi sports car project developed by Porsche.

The intention was to build a sports car that could rival the best, but would take advantage of the VAG parts bin and mass production techniques. Sounds good, right?

Not if you were part of the new VW Management Team in 1974 at the time of the world oil crisis, with a focus on a sustainable future. (Clearly the R32 and Audi RS models weren’t even a twinkle in their eye at this point?!)

Having spent $50m on developing the car, VW simply decided to end the project. At this time Porsche was struggling financially, and in terms of volume sales.

Porsche bought the project back from VAG for the bargain price of $40m, and struck a deal to build the car on a VW-Audi production line due to a lack of mass production capability.

Production of the 924 began in 1975, and in 1976 the first cars hit showrooms. The first front-engined, water-cooled Porsche, and the first VW with a Porsche badge.

In a lot of cases the job of signing off motorsport sponsorship packages falls to the cleaner. Right? After all, if the marketing team did it, they wouldn’t let us forget the fact that they are sponsors of a race or rally team, would they?

Take for example Total. When was the last time you stood filling up your car and glanced around to notice a photo of Sebastian Loeb’s Pikes Peak Peugeot, or a Citroen DS3 World Rally Car? I’m guessing those decals cost a fairly substantial amount of money, and yet they’re not making the most of the sponsorship by raising their profile to a captive audience.

I don’t know about you, but I’m at one of my most receptive times when I’m stood folding ten pound notes up and feeding them into my car’s fuel filler. I’d much rather look at a photo of a Rally or racing car than a sign offering me a microwavable hedgehog for a fiver when I spend £20 or more on fuel.

Is it the fault of the motorsport industry itself? Should the marketers at marques and teams be pushing sponsors to raise the profile of their sport as part of the deal, rather than being that surprised and grateful for the money that they run away and count it as soon as it graces their palms?

At the risk of sounding like I’m on a mission to compare fuel brands (I’m not!), even my Auntie who doesn’t drive could probably hazard a guess as to which Formula One team is in partnership with Shell. Probably.

Falken Tyres do it well, too. Nearly every journey I make down the M1 I pass a truck with a Porsche 911 GT3 racing car on the tailgate. Thousands of motorists just like me also pass these trucks, and although most of them probably have no idea what the Nurburgring is, there is brand recognition at work there.

Football sponsors shout about their marketing spend more than those who put their company logos on the side of world famous competition cars. I grant you, football is a little less niche than motor racing, but both represent significant investment by the marketing team, so at the very least a mention of the sponsorship association seems like a logical idea.

We can’t all be as awesome as Redbull at marketing. But if we’re going to raise the profile of motorsport it has to start somewhere. Where better than by encouraging those who spend millions of pounds on corporate sponsorship, to get a bit more value from their investment.

So next time you walk into a Total petrol station, do this; ask them if they’ve got a picture of the race or rally car they sponsor. If they haven’t, tut audibly and tell them to ‘shove’ their microwavable hedgehog.

Gumball in London – electric atmosphere, petrol cars

The weather on Sunday might have had something to do with the electric atmosphere in the nation’s capital. But I’m going to make a bold statement – I think a bunch of millionaires (and the rest! – #JC) driving supercars across the world had more to do with it.

“How can that be!?” comes the cry from the non-motoring public (who probably won’t be reading this).

Well how about this;

Sat in the Rainforest Café with my six year old, the waiter asked if we were going to watch the “racing” cars.

Walking around Hamleys, the featured displays happened to be themed towards the four-wheeled attractions outside the door. They were also three-deep with excited money spenders.

A couple of police officers preparing for a royal parade down the Mall were excitedly discussing which supercars they’d seen so far down Regent Street.

Lining the closed-off route on Regent Street hours – yes hours – before the Gumballers were due to arrive from Edinburgh were ‘real’ people. Not race fans, not supercar fans, not celeb spotters, and probably not people who’d ever heard of the Gumball 3000.

These people were members of the public; just the sort of people events like the Gumball need to attract, and just the sort of people who hold the key to closed road bills for motorsport events.

Now I’ve probably upset the purists, who don’t accept the Gumball as a true motorsport event, and who are now about to check their Facebook rather than reading on. But before you find out what Auntie Sue had for tea, believe me – I’m a motorsport purist too.

I’ve driven race and rally, and I’ve been to closed road motorsport events where public support has been questionable – at best. So whether or not you see the Gumball as motorsport, the public interest at the weekend in London was a welcome sight, and one which I hope will have been seen by councils up and down the UK.

There is something about supercars that gets people excited – me included. Max Cooper and his band of Gumballers have harnessed that power for good, somehow presenting a bunch of wealthy petrolheads as role models.

My six year old was certainly inspired – he thinks I should do the Gumball next year. So do I.

#Woody

The end of the petrol head?

I saw a story this week about Google getting a driving licence in Nevada…for a driverless car. Gulp. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m all for innovation in motoring. But the kind of innovation that makes me smile is a 600+bhp McLaren supercar that is as driveable as a Ford Fiesta, not the kind that removes controls from cars.

I would imagine Google have invested an awful lot of money in their latest project car. Probably more money than has ever been invested in UK railways, which is ironic because the idea of a driverless car isn’t a million miles away from reality;

Who’s been to a theme park recently – hands up…Ok, so you’ll be familiar with the world’s first commercialised driverless cars. They’re quite long, hold lots of people and run on tracks 15ft up in the air. BUT, they’re doing the same thing as Google’s driverless car – they’re ferrying people around to their chosen destination without anyone having to drive, and are relatively risk – and fun – free.

If Google really are set on creating safe and fun-free transport for people who don’t like driving, then surely their money would be better spent on improving the world’s railways, or on teleportation technology.

Google have been quick to point out that during the testing phase over 700,000 miles have been completed in driverless cars, with a ‘trained’ driver on board ready to take control should the software fail. Now a trained driver who spent that many miles as a passenger when he could have quite easily taken control is, well not a driver at all.

Ok, I know this looks like I’m moaning, so I’ll say one more thing, then be done with it…

Why, WHY did Google start with a Toyota Prius when money was no object – don’t they know that Infiniti have built an electric supercar?

#Woody

Paul took a V6 diesel Infiniti FX for the weekend, and came back a rally winner. But that’s not all he won on at Oulton Park – here’s what happens when you take a sports SUV to the racetrack.

The launch of the brand new Infiniti Centre Hull last Thursday in my role as presenter at 99.8 KCFM started off a weekend that ended up being a bit of a whirlwind for me. Firstly to be involved with such a big story for motoring in Hull was brilliant, and I’m sure I speak for all those who attended the VIP launch bash in saying the team at Humberside Motor Group did themselves, and the brand proud – what a night.

Fresh from a Formula One-inspired launch party, I was then en-route to Oulton Park in Cheshire to compete in a World Rally Car in the Neil Howard Memorial Stages Rally alongside top European rally driver Graham Coffey. Which seemed like the perfect chance to show off an Infiniti to a circus of petrol heads whose daily modes of transport – between Helicopters – originate largely from Germany. Plus, Sales Manager Ben had offered me the chance to test one of the cars out for myself to fully understand what ‘inspired performance’ was all about, and it would have been rude not to, right?

The FX 30d S ‘Premium’ was my appointed transport for the trip to Cheshire, and although I was looking forward to the novelty of a weekend driving a different car, what I wasn’t prepared for was the actual Infiniti experience, and how much I would come to love the car as a driving machine.

I consider myself a deep-rooted part of the afore-mentioned ‘petrol head’ fraternity, and have driven a range of performance cars over the last few years, as well as competing in everything from a Group B Metro 6R4 to a Ford Focus World Rally Car. I also present a Motorsport TV series on Sky and have written for a number of motoring magazines. So my motoring ‘experience’ gave way to the thought that I had the concept of the ‘SUV’ pretty much nailed down. I was wrong.

‘SUV’, for those of you who are unsure, stands for Sports Utility Vehicle. A phrase which is fairly ironic when you consider the driving characteristics and legacy of many of the cars which proudly squeeze themselves into this category. I’m setting the scene for this review, I know, by saying the Infiniti FX puts the ‘Sport’ into the acronym.

Immediately, you climb into a ‘cockpit’ (interior just doesn’t do it justice) that feels like a sports car. The seats are supportive, with a pattern on the leather which briefly hints of supercar. The dashboard and dark headlining which adorns the raked roof add to the sporty feel, and are of a quality and design befitting a premium car, but it is the view immediately outside of the windscreen which steals the show.

From the outside, the bulging front wings make for an unmistakable profile, and they give the car real character. They match nicely the marque’s marketing claims that the “perfect line is a curve”.

But from the inside, sitting there looking at the sweeping bonnet which intrudes proudly on your line of sight, the design just makes complete sense. It might sound strange to say that being able to see the bonnet from the driver’s seat is enough to classify a car as sporty. But if you’ve ever driven a ‘60s sports car, or sat in a new-age supercar, you’ll know it’s a less of a characteristic, and more of a key ingredient.

It’s no surprise to report keyless entry, auto-opening tailgate, more parking cameras than the Big Brother house and a whole host of gadgets you’d expect of a car with a ‘Premium’ title. But rather than being gimmicks, or there to make the FX look good on paper, they have all been well thought out, and work very well as an overall package. They have to of course – the car’s pitched against highly acclaimed rivals, and these are not ‘nice to have’ features when you’re competing on the front line against BMW, Mercedes and the like.

From the minute you press the ‘start’ button and the dials flick round before settling down in anticipation, the car lives up to its sports car roots. On the move, the steering has plenty of feedback and is nicely weighted, not too light as you might expect. In sport mode, the suspension is firm enough to give the steering and balance of the car a very confidence-inspiring, precise feel. Not in-keeping with the car’s size, in the slightest.

The diesel V6 may lack the refinement and economy of some of its rivals, on paper. But luckily this is something which the designers clearly came to terms with at an early stage in the car’s development. Choosing, instead to concentrate on giving the FX a handling and drivetrain package that is so well thought out that you’re too busy reminding yourself you’re not in a sports car to worry about the minor oily details. The technical bods at Infiniti even mounted the engine at a specific angle to maximise efficiency.

With some revised engine options joining the Infiniti model range next year, and the promise of additional product development which invariably follows a brand’s launch in a new market, things can only get better for those looking for a bigger compromise between economy and performance.

The soundtrack is pretty good too, whether your ‘thing’ is to listen to the engine note, or your favourite driving songs through the ‘BOSE’ speakers. Again the trait of a high-end sports vehicle, the cabin does a good job of keeping the less appealing sounds of traffic and road noise down, while giving enough of a feel for what’s going on under the bonnet.

It’s the attention to detail though which really makes the car, for example the huge, purposeful performance 4-pot brakes and the wheels displaying the same ‘Enkei’ logo as the RedBull Formula One cars. In a market saturated by premium ‘this’, and exclusive ‘that’, the FX’s subtle, quality touches give it a quiet confidence – and I would strongly argue – the edge.

Back to my weekend’s activities, and the car became a part of the furniture in the pit lane at the Oulton Park race circuit, getting admiring glances and the customary hand-cupped peers through the windows from intrigued rally drivers and team members. The Infiniti is still a rare enough sight on UK roads that it gets double takes and sparks random conversations at the pumps; something I’ve previously only known while out on the road in a competition or classic car.

The car’s practicality, to a certain extent is a pre-requisite. It capably handled luggage for myself, my girlfriend and a youngster. The versatility of the FX means it won’t – or shouldn’t – be over looked by people looking for a good all-round premium family car that can double up as a unique, and attention-grabbing daily driver.

And in the same way that Infiniti has partnered with double Formula One World Champions Redbull, the FX played its part in a double victory this weekend. After a hard fought day of full-throttle action in the ex. Petter Solberg World Rally Car, I achieved my first ever rally win.

Amidst the celebrations in the team pit garage, I also fulfilled another ambition in proposing to my girlfriend, to take the double and top off a very special weekend that started, and ended with Infiniti.

So, it was with a heavy heart that I drove the FX back to the Infiniti Centre Hull. Because not only had the car exceeded my expectations, changed my preconceptions, and given myself, my fiancé (!) and our five-year-old a fun-filled motoring experience. It had also, in a strange sort of a way, become a part of our new family.