Monday 16 February 2009

All in all, a busy couple of weeks for aluminium cars.

No blog would be complete without mention of the light snow flurries that brought UK PLC to an abrupt halt a couple of weekends ago. But did it bring the Defender to an equally abrupt halt? Did it heck. The Land Rover simple laughed in the face of six inches of snow. I tried not to laugh in the face of those who, in automotive terms, put style before function and went down the German route. Alas BMW do not fit tyres called "Grabbers", they fit near-slick performance tyres with names like "Sport", or the name of a bird of prey. From the toasty comfort of the Land Rover, parked majestically at the crest of a hill, I came to the conclusion the "performance" in the title of BMW tyres refers to what can be witnessed when a company director tries to drive his 5-Series up a slight hill covered in compacted snow. Now, in those "Describe yourself" questionnaires you get in in-flight magazines, Smug isn't a box I'd usually tick but with this winter being the coldest for twenty five years, I considered the past time of rescuing BMWs and its quarter century occurence to be reason enough to feel a little bit superior. But not as much as declining BMW Man's offer of cash to drag him even closer to home in favour of rescuing a mum and four kids in an equally inept Astra. Or maybe it was the driver.