Off-road
Skoda Yeti
May 25th
With the recent winters that the UK has experienced, are we going to see a huge demand for 4 x 4s? From the many conversations I’ve had with women responsible for getting their kids here, there and everywhere, their thoughts are definitely turning that way. Yet there is a reluctance for the traditional monsters we see in Chelsea and a desire for a useable family car that isn’t too heavy on the gas, but can get you out of trouble and gives a feeling of safety.
The Skoda Yeti could be the answer. It’s such a pleasing car on so many different levels. While zooming around town (as the 1.8 petrol TSi does) it’s hard to believe that this easy to drive and manoeuvrable car can actually cope with very rough and unpredictable terrain. While it vaguely has the looks of a four-wheel drive in a cheeky, urban type of way, it certainly doesn’t scream at your 4 x 4 coming through, move over or else!
Ford Ranger
May 24th
Just an hour before clambering into Ford’s strongest vehicle, the Ranger, we had been pottering around the Cambridgeshire countryside in a Ford Anglia. Chalk and cheese, although both shared a noisy drive! I reminisced about my childhood (not that we ever had a Ford Anglia) with memories of tense holiday journeys, three kids squashed in the back and home made sandwiches and cakes in a carefully prepared picnic basket – again possibly imagined rather than real - but you get the general idea.
So back to clambering into a Ford Ranger and my first thoughts being, who would buy such a monster, and my finishing thoughts were…rather nice if you have the matching lifestyle – and off my mind went yet again into fairy tale world of living another life. Or maybe I’m just fickle. Show me a bit of nice paint work and a pleasant car to drive and I can convince myself it’s what my life is missing. Mind you, husband would love it, not for any adventurous activities that he takes part in (because he doesn’t), but for the maleness of it all.
Once you’ve banished thoughts of those dusty trucks so prevalent in the Mid-West, with supped up wheels and men in cow boy hats, and actually driven one, I can understand the need for such a vehicle for certain businesses and lifestyles. And what makes it all the more appealing, setting it worlds apart from other 4 x 4s, is the fact that you can’t label this car as having kerb appeal or as a status symbol.
This is a true work horse, a dressed up truck with no illusions of grandeur, yet with a fair amount of comfort and one that’s easy to drive and manoeuvre, to the point where I kept forgetting I was driving a truck apart from when glimpsed in the huge wing mirrors!
Peugeot 4007
Jan 28th
While I do drive a rather large car, it’s too big and cumbersome to be looked upon as fashionable and chic. More like a white elephant that we will have to endure until it falls apart at the seams.
I could quite happily see myself in Peugeot’s rather magnificent 4007 which would make me feel rather at home with all the yummy mummys in their large, expensive vehicles. We have quite a few where we live which is a very pleasant, normal area. But come the weekend it becomes transformed into yummy parent land. The weekly farmers market seems to bring them out in droves.
Honda CR-V Cruise Control
Jan 28th
I’m just not a cruising type of girl.
To me it smacks of being out of control and has the potential to be highly dangerous. I still have in the back of my mind my father telling me the tale of someone’s cruise control getting stuck with disastrous consequences. Where he’d heard such nonsense I’ve no idea, but it still spooked me to the point where I’ve gone for 30 years of driving never having operated this button.
Very recently, I stepped out of my comfort zone and pressed it. I actually felt I had very little choice in the matter. I’d been given strict instructions and a practical demonstration – while the car was stationary, so not that practical – by tech man Paul. I was preparing for my journey north with three kids and two cats in tow – alone again as John, true to form, was playing the absent father.
Land Rover Discovery
Jan 25th
Big Bold and Beautiful
I do love Land Rover Discoverys – big and powerful, exuding style and money. We followed closely behind one after going to the dump – a favourite pastime of mine, not just because I love the fact it’s so organised and clean, but just that feeling of getting rid of stuff which will be used again, albeit in a different form… More >