Watching the IOM TT this year, I was inspired by Mark Higgin’s drive in the Subaru to break Tony Pond’s long standing record of a 100mph average speed lap. Watch his ‘moment’ here

Of course, IOM is all about motorcycle racing at it’s best but I have to say, why not keep the roads closed one more day for a four wheeled challenge? On most race circuits, cars generally lap quicker than bikes by the nature of the amount of rubber they have on the track giving more lateral grip. So wouldn’t it be a great contest to have a car sprint event around the entire TT course, all 37 miles of it? Sure, it will take some setting up and there will certainly be problems, but here’s my thoughts:

Higgins was in a ‘standard’ Impreza with minimal modifications, as Subaru USA wanted to show how quick a standard car could be. I can think of several cars better suited. Porsche 911 GT3RS springs to mind, Lexus LFA another that would be spectacular and that’s just street cars. What about a GT racer like Aston’s DBR, BMW’s M3 GT, McLaren’s new GT3 car or even a WRC car with the right gearing? Don’t forget, of course, that the circuit layout will require a combination of several things. Big horsepower to hit the high speeds, probably up over 180mph. A car with a very adjustable ride height, as it’s not a race track, neither is it a rally stage. Plenty of underbody protection and the ability for the car to ‘fly’ as there are several ‘yump’ points that must be taken all four wheels off to maintain a good average.The driver could be either race or rally, so a co-driver would be optional at the team’s discretion.

From a logistical viewpoint, the problems are mainly accident related. A superbike crash will be bad news for the rider. A high speed car ‘off’ would undoubtedly be very bad for the surrounding buildings and scenery……

Yes, I know we have the Manx rally, but come on, you’d love to see it, wouldn’t you? Dreaming for a moment, it could be the IOM version of Pikes Peak. Ask any car manufacturer with balls big enough to have a go. “bring your car, choose your driver, set a time..” The average speed on a motorcycle is currently over 130mph. That’s going to be one spectacular lap in a car.

So the question is, what would you like to see lapping the TT course and which driver would you like to see behind the wheel? My money would be on Sebastien Loeb in a Porsche 911 GT3R, what about you?

You might want to grab a coffee or something for this one, it’s 23 minutes long. Normally, YouTube videos of that length just don’t cut it – everyone knows that after two minutes your average visitor has itchy feet. But this is something else. A superb display of concentration and team work by Petter Solberg and his co-driver Chris Patterson. What this and you’ll see why they’re not called navigators any more. Watching WRC and seeing the stage times split by tenths of a second you fail to appreciate just how long some of the stages are. To maintain concentration like that, constantly listening to the commands takes a special skill over that distance. The next time the old arguement of who is better, race or rally driver, comes around, send them here. If you can drive, you can drive, but both have their own unique talents. Like this one…

I was looking through some hard drives the other day and I stopped to look at these shots from a couple of years ago. I was actually looking for some scans of car documents, as it’s getting close to that time when I have to go online and search for the most competitive car insurance quote. I had to smile when I looked at the shots as it had memories of a great day and totally at odds with the car insurance information I thought was stored on that hard drive. Even though my job of the morning was to look for some car insurance quotes, I couldn’t help but waste a little time looking at the images once again, as it’s much more pleasurable that finding scans of no claims bonus letters.

The foreground car is a Ferrari 288GTO, shot on the wilds of the North Yorkshire Moors for a feature last year. The car must be worth close to half a million pounds and probably not the type of thing you’re typically going to get an online insurance quote for. Behind it is a Porsche 959, again with a six figure value these days and equally rare. I’ve owned older, classic cars in the past, including a lovely old Porsche 930 Turbo and insurance for that one was actually pretty reasonable, but I can’t help but think that these two icons are going to need a slightly larger cheque writing out.

The owner of both cars is a well known car collector, based in Yorkshire and with the resources to both own and run cars like these two so the issue of no claims bonus is unlikely to be of any relevance whatsoever to him. His willingness to get the cars out and drive them on a regular basis and even loan them to photographers and writers is testament to his passion for seeing his cars being driven hard.

In these times of rising driving costs, it’s good to see someone with a can-do attitude and the funds to not have to worry about how much next year’s premium will be.

It’s time for me to confess now. I drive a lot of miles across the UK and into Europe each year, but until recently, I didn’t have breakdown cover. I know, I know, I should have done it before, but like many people, I’ve simply been winging it along the lines of the ‘it won’t happen to me’ attitude that many of us have as we pass a steaming car by the roadside. Someone of my driving history really should know better.

Indeed over the years, I’ve been very lucky, never more lucky than around ten years ago, when I bought a Ferrari 308GTB from a guy in Hendon, London. Living in Yorkshire, it was a bit of a drive home, but hey, it’s Ferrari, so no hardship, this’ll be fun. Pulling out onto the A1 North, I opened up the Ferrari V8, but was concerned about the smoke in the mirror. Hmm, it’s been stood a while, probably just needs a bit of a run…. More power, more smoke… Time to stop…

Oil leak. A big bugger, too, all over the rear bumper and tail lights. It’s instantly clear by the smell that it’s not engine oil either, but gearbox oil and that this car ain’t going much further. The Ferrari seller’s mobile is now, of course, turned firmly off. I’m sitting in an oily, leaky Ferrari and around 250 miles from home. Bugger.

How was I saved? Well remember this was around a decade ago. A young guy pulled up behind me almost right away in the most beat up Fiat Punto you’ve ever seen in your life. Turned out he was a mechanical engineering student and couldn’t bear to drive past a stranded Ferrari. It also turned out that he had one of those breakdown cover deals that covered him, not the car, for full recovery in whatever he was riding in or driving in…….
I’m sure you can guess what happened and I’m not about to go into details, but within three hours, my poor, dead Ferrari was strapped safely onto a low loader headed for Yorkshire, me sitting beside the driver munching a McDonalds and ever so thankful of the generosity of a fellow car enthusiast. The breakdown provider, who shall remain nameless, were less that thrilled, as I subsequently discovered that my pal had previous form for this and had helped mates with destroyed cars at several points over the last 18 months and they were becoming a little tired at being his personal recovery support…. Still, he helped me that night and for that I’m still grateful to this day.

I was working on track recently and a couple of young lads, in their late teens, were down to drive a Lamborghini. They had a great time and at the end, we were standing talking about what they drove, what they’d really like to own and why they didn’t or couldn’t. They were talking about buying car insurance online and the frustrations they faced trying to get insured.

Inevitably, the biggest stumbling block for any newly qualified driver is the one of insurance. The whole subject is a chicken and egg one. You need an insurance policy to get a no claims bonus and driving history. But all too often, you can’t afford the premium to get on the bottom rung of the ladder to get that driving history. For many young drivers, this means they’re relegated to being a named driver on Mum’s embarrassing shopping car until enough funds can be scraped together to get their own policy.

Of course, they found the whole process desperately unfair and where at a loss to understand why an insurance company will not insure an 18 year old on the latest GT car…..

Looking back to my youth, I can tell them exactly why. They reminded me of myself at seventeen. Crisp new licence burning a hole in my pocket, a load of mates who’d also just passed their test. All of us with a very small amount of skill and a huge amount of over confidence. You can imagine what happened over the following 12 months.

We were the same profile exactly as today’s young driver statistics – under twenty years old, a car full of us on a Friday night, with the ones in the back egging us on to greater speeds. I consider myself fortunate that I was able to gain the experience of competition cars fairly soon after and moved on to become a motorcycle instructor for a while.

My advice to young, newly qualified drivers? Make it your business to improve your driving and get trained to a level far, far beyond that required just to pass a driving test in the UK. Take a pride in your driving skill and constantly read about it and find ways to improve. There are a great many companies out there offering realistically priced training in skills such as skid control and high speed handling. Get yourself trained. Not only will you love it, so will your insurance company….

Subaru Impreza Ice Driving car in Sweden

The chances of that happening are, or course, very remote, but nontheless, there’s no doubt that young drivers out posing with their mates are at risk. The combination of the urge to show off, inexperience, massive belief in your own invincibility at that age, plus of course, girls, is a risky thing. I know, I have the shunts to prove it from years ago…. But stopping them driving at night won’t be a solution.

Next off, the IAM tell us that the measures taken over the last few years have resulted in a downward trend in road deaths, something that we should not be complacednt about, they warn. Quite what the measures taken were are not mentioned in the press release.

On the very same day, good old ROSPA chime in… They reckon that we’re not looking enough and for once, I have to say that they may well have a point. Try sitting behind someone in the middle lane of a motorway, brains on standby to save the batteries, while you wait for him to wake up and take a glance in the mirror and you’d agree with ROSPA.

But one thing I’m amazed to find myself agreeing with ROSPA once again on is the fact that improving driver skills would have a major impact on road safety. Halleluya, at last someone has said it. ROSPA have come out with some real tripe at various times, but this time they’re got it right.

If I cast my mind back to the skills I had when I first qualified, it’s frightening. And the only way to get more skills was to get out there and hopefully survive long enough to have a few ‘wobbly knees’ moments and learn from them. I’m heavily involved with Ice Driver in Sweden each year and every year, we have a long list of people who recognise that wherever they are in their driving careers, they need more training. And it’s not just new drivers, we’ve had everyone from 12 year old future rally drivers to multpiple world motorsport champions. One thing they all have in common is that they know that they still have things to learn about driving.

And that’s something that everyone who holds a driving licence should accept. World championship golfers, tennis players, footballers all have coaches. If you value your driving skills, why shouldn’t you have a driver coach?

We’ve become accustomed to seeing lovely, lightweight, nimble cars from Lotus this last few decades. Little is spoken about the days of old when they had aspirations with the Esprit Turbo to go Porsche and Ferrari hunting, but judging by the price tag of £115,000 for the new Lotus Elite, they’re jumping right back in. Only the sketchiest of details so far, but it’s sounding promising, with a 5.0 litre V8 and KERS enegery thingy providing a bit of hybrid action. They think there’s a market for it, here’s their soundbyte from the press release:

Dany Bahar, CEO of Group Lotus said: “There’s no denying that the Elite is breathtakingly beautiful to look at but it’s so much more than that, it’s a car that over delivers in all other aspects as well. One could say it’s a car of perfect contradictions, it’s compact yet spacious, high performing yet low emitting, lightweight yet still reassuringly solid. It’s a car that we are exceptionally proud of at Lotus and we truly believe that there is nothing else like it out there both in terms of styling and performance.

“Make no mistake, there’s a definite market requirement for the Elite – it’s the ultimate sports car feel with comfort and space. There will always be those who believe that Lotus should stick to small sports cars but we didn’t take the decision to design something like the Elite lightly, it’s based on months of careful research and planning. It’s worth noting this sector has been very successful for us in the past and now the Elite raises the benchmark higher still.”

More details at the Paris Motor Show, apparently when all will be revealed, but for now, I’m wondering what on earth is going on with those wing mirrors? Let’s wait and see more!

Specification so far is from the press release:

Elite Specification*
Layout: 2+2 seater, front-mid-engined, rear wheel drive
Dimensions:
Length: 4.60m
Width: 1.90m
Height: 1.32m

Engine: Petrol, hybrid optional
Hybrid technology: Hybrid gearbox with integrated electric
motors and KERS
Cylinder: V8
Capacity: 5.0 litre
Power/Torque: 620 PS / 720 Nm
Rev limit: 8,500 rpm
0-100 km/h: 3.5 to 3.7 seconds
Top speed: 315 km/h
CO₂ approx (CO₂/km): 215 g/km**
Weight: 1,650 kg
Seats: 2+2
Transmission: Full Hybrid transmission
Drive: RWD
Start of production: Early 2014
Enters the market: Spring 2014
Price indication: Circa £115,000

Here’s an unusual press release from Lamborghini. As long as anyone can remember, Lamborghini’s have always had outrageous top speeds. I’ve first hand experience myself of the stellar acceleration of the big V12′s, so it comes as a mild shock when the latest press information says that they’re giving up on thier quest for ultra high top speeds.

Remarkably sensibly, they reckon that there are lots of cars out thyere now with a 300 kmph top end and that it’s a speed that you can’t often hit anyway…. Erm, yes well we’ve known that for quite some time. I needed the generosity of the Royal Air Force to get the best from the LP640.

However, let’s not be too cynical, there’s lots of good info too. They’re shifting the whole emphasis of their design philosophy away from engineering cars for top end speeds and more towards shedding weight and improving handling. So future Lamborghinis will have less weight and better handling. Good or a bad thing?

I read it with mixed feelings. On one hand, there’s no doubt that these cars are extravagant and that they don’t really fit in with the future plans of the human race. On the average handling circuit that I work on, an LP640 can feel muscle bound and caged, lighter, sharper handling cars like Porsche’s GT3 snapping at their heels and once past, screaming off around the tighter bends.

But get one on a wide open expanse of tarmac, as I was lucky enough to do and there’s no doubt you get a huge huge buzz out of the big acceleration beyond 100 mph. Even at 150 mph, when most cars are running out of steam, it’s still hard on it and with two gears left.

So yes, Lamborghini are right, they don’t fit with the carbon future. But really, they didn’t fit in with our past either, but people still bought them and loved them.

I‘ll always (hopefully) have the memory of the first time I ever saw a Stratos. I can’t recall how old I was, probably around ten, standing in a forest in Yorkshire, waiting, waiting, getting a bit bored ( I was at the “are we there yet?” stage).

I heard it before I saw it, echoing through the trees, crisp, sharp exhaust bark, driver sending the revs soaring skywards through the gears, then it seemed to be moving away again as it grew quieter. Then a few seconds later, much louder, it bursts into view, rear snaking as it slows for the downhill hairpin left. Big big slide, traditional Scandinavian flick and blasting off into the forest. The whole thing probably only took 20 seconds, but it’s one of those moments, like opening the box of my Corgi JPS Lotus 72, that forms your future in ways you never realise until decades later…..

Years later, I saw a Stratos in action at Harewood Hillclimb, in fact a whole brace of them at an owners event, the best example in my view being a beautiful bright red Group 4 car owned by Christian Meneef with the full headlight pod and bright yellow magnesium alloys wearing sticky slicks. He was driving well and saved a few tenths of a second at the aproach to the final bend by hanging 10,750rpm on it to avoid a gearshift. Sounded fantastic.

Move on more than a decade and I’m working at the Goodwood Press Day and There’s a wonderful Alitalia coloured car driven by none other than Sando Munari himself. Another memorable day.

So when I first hear that there’s a new Stratos, I’m dismayed…. Why? Because I love those memories and I’d hate to see the name sullied by a bit of badge engineering to make a profit. However, from what I’m hearing, there;s no need to worry. The shots we’re seeing and the story appearing elsewhere is an exciting one. Wealthy philanthropist funds production of a worthy successor is the story, it seems.

At first, it was talked of as a one-off project for the mystery funder’s collection, but now, Racing Deal and other sources are reporting that there may be a short production run and now there’s a website set up to give more details of the project at New Stratos. Engine is a Ferrari V8, but other then that, they’re being a little tight lipped right now, but I’m sure time will reveal more. Now form an orderly queue at the end of the street….

Have you got any Stratos memories? And what’s your thoughts on New Stratos? I’d like to hear them.