German Car Zone

When you stop and think about it, there’s no real point to this newspaper’s travel section. Or any of the few remaining high street travel agents. Or indeed the BBC’s Holiday programme — wait a minute, that’s already gone. Because when it comes to taking a vacation, we only really need France.
It has beaches on the Atlantic coast where you can surf, and more on the south coast where you can spend all day pretending not to look at breasts. It has mountains for skiing and hiking. It has the best cheese in the world, the best mustard in the world and the best wine in the world.

I could go on, so I will. It has the best weather in the world, the best scenery in the world and it’s even replete with funny-looking little locals who sit outside their houses in baggy clothes. But unlike poor people in, say, India or Brazil, they don’t pester you for money, or try to sell you paper napkins and hot dogs at the traffic lights.

You could go to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon but what’s the point? France has canyons too. You could go to Russia for the culture, but why? The popes never lived in Moscow. There are no Roman viaducts in St Petersburg. You are simply wasting jet fuel.


James May once said that France only exists so we can drive more easily to Italy but this, I’m afraid, proves the man is mad. Because France has everything anyone could ever want from a holiday destination and, of course, it’s right next door.

There is a similar answer to the question of food. Every night, someone comes on the television to explain how to make a lemon sauce for your halibut and how jalapeno peppers go very well with pineapple. But I’m afraid Gordon, Ainsley, Jamie, Marco, Raymond, Nigella, Delia and the countless others I’ve forgotten are wasting their breath because we all know that what we want is bacon and eggs.

You can have it for breakfast, lunch and supper. It works with ketchup just as well as it works with wine. You can make it in five minutes, even if you are eight. And it’s impossible to get the recipe wrong.

Indeed, I have decided there is a simple answer to every choice we face in the world today. Brand of television? Sony. Music? The Stones. Pin-up? Carla Bruni. Religion? Buddhism. Phone? IPhone. Newspaper? The Sunday Times.

And that brings us on to sport. Rugby is too complicated. Cricket is too dreary. Golf is for freemasons from the Order of St Onyx. The fact is that you can’t beat football. It’s easy to understand. It flows nicely. And there’s always a local team you can support. What more do you want?
Sadly, since I’m talking myself out of a job here, it turns out there is an answer to cars as well. Over the past 30 years or so, I have road-tested thousands of models, driven hundreds of thousands of miles and written millions of words on the subject. But all the while, the answer to absolutely everyone’s motoring problems has been right under my nose. The Range Rover.

This is the automotive equivalent of France, the Sony Bravia, The Sunday Times and Mick Jagger. It is the answer.

Let us imagine for a moment that you would like to have a Rolls-Royce Phantom because you want to bathe in that glorious art deco cabin full of timber and hide. Well, a Range Rover offers exactly the same sense of wellbeing for a quarter of the price.


Plus, a Range Rover allows you to look down on the chap in a Roller, and over the car in front, which means you have more warning of any impending unpleasantness. Of course, the figures suggest that if you do have an accident, you are no better off in a Range Rover than you are in a Renault Laguna. But if I were to give you the choice of which car you’d most like to be in when you hit the tree . . .

And it’s not like you are left wanting for toys either. You can even have something called a VentureCam — a wireless hand-held camera that feeds its picture to the sat nav screen on the dash. The idea is that you hang it out of the window while driving off-road so you can see what the terrain directly ahead of the wheels is like.

However, since its docking port is in the passenger footwell, it can also be used for looking up your wife’s skirt. And trust me, you aren’t offered that facility in any other car I’ve driven.

You want to go to a point-to-point? Well, there is nothing to beat a Range Rover, which can not only deal with the muddy entrance but also comes with a handy drop-down tailgate on which you can perch while enjoying a glass of sloe gin and some cake.


Thinking of driving to the slopes for a bit of late skiing this Easter? Well sure, there are many luxury cars that can eat up those autoroute miles. But none do so more elegantly than a Vogue — providing you avoid the 20in wheels, which look good but spoil the ride a bit — and none will be quite so accomplished once you’re in the mountains, on the snow and ice.
You might imagine that in Knightsbridge, a Range Rover is as cumbersome as a pair of wellies and, that as a result, it is most definitely not the answer for the city dweller. Wrong, I’m afraid. Other off-road cars are indeed too large and unwieldy to make much sense in urban areas but the Range Rover — dicky throttle response in the diesel aside — never feels like it’s too big or unmanageable. And let’s be honest, when you put money in a meter, you rent an entire parking bay, so you may as well use all of it.
The Range Rover is often called a dual-purpose vehicle but it’s so much more than that. It has the anatomical properties, and abilities, of Kali, which means it can glide, hurtle, waft or lug depending on your mood. You shoot? Get a green one. You ski? Go for blue. You deal drugs? Make it black and have the Sport. The Range Rover, quite simply, answers every motoring question that’s ever been posed.

When the snow came back in February, schools were closed because people couldn’t get there. My kids could, though. Because I’ve just bought a 15,000-mile TDV8 Vogue SE on a 57 plate. It cost a smidgen over £30,000. That’s less than half price. And you can halve that again if you go older. Or go petrol. It’s almost cheaper than walking.

And it’s better for the environment too. Yes, you could buy a Toyota Prius, but let’s be honest, the nickel for its batteries is mined in Canada, and shipped — not on a sailing boat, I might add — to Norway or some other intermediate location where it’s processed and then shipped on again to Japan where it is put in the car, along with an electric motor and a normal engine. The finished product is then shipped halfway back round the world again before it arrives in a dealer near you. You may think of it, if you like, as an Israeli strawberry.

A Range Rover, on the other hand, is made in the Midlands, which means, if you buy one, it only has to come down the road. You may think of it, then, as an organic, farm-fresh product, sourced and grown locally. And I know how important that is to shoppers these days.

Without wishing to sound pompous, my heart swells with pride that humankind can make such a wonderful, graceful, dignified and beautiful thing. And while patriotism may be the last refuge of a scoundrel, I’m proud too that this car was conceived by the Germans, who are basically British but with a bit less humour.

Often, over the years, I’ve been asked by passers-by in the street to name the best car in the world. I’ve never known quite what to say because my mind has swum with all the options. The fact is, though, there aren’t any options at all. There’s just one island of brilliance in a sea of also-rans.

THE CLARKSOMETER

Range Rover TDV8 Vogue SE

ENGINE 3630cc, eight cylinders
POWER 271bhp @ 4000rpm
TORQUE 472 lb ft @ 2000rpm
TRANSMISSION Six-speed automatic
FUEL 25.1mpg (combined)
CO2 299g/km
ACCELERATION 0-60mph: 8.6sec
TOP SPEED 124mph
PRICE £68,026
ROAD TAX BAND G (£400 for a year)
RELEASE DATE Out now

Clarkson’s verdict


Simply the best, so buy one. I have


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/dri...ffset=0&page=1

Amusing as usual. I'm surprised Clarkson didn't mention TATA in this test even once.

Ree, you probably agree with the outcome of this particular test?

As always a very "colorful" review. The RR is becoming a modern day classic.

M

I totally agree with him, especially when he mentions France...

Well, yes!! I agree with the outcome - definitely!! Still love the Range Rover!!