Motoring
Eighth wonder of the world
Alan Judd
The PR team at the makers of that most talked about of new cars, the XXi (as it is popularly known, but known to cognoscenti as the Twenny One), must be eating their hearts out; the car is so famous that the maker never gets a mention. But everyone knows, so it doesn't matter. At £47,000 for the base model with no extras (which essentially means running gear, engine and four — not five — wheels), buyers are fighting to get into the show- rooms and the makers are laughing all the way to the bank they now own.
And it certainly is a car with a difference, or differences, despite, obviously, lingering similarities. Among the latter is a conven- tional steering-wheel and an equally con- ventional-looking single, clear, unambi- guous dial. Appearances are deceptive, however, since it is blank much of the time, functioning as a kind of electronic window that gives the driver only that information the computer decides he needs. This leaves all his attention free for the road ahead for, in effect, driving, which is surely what this car is, above all — breathtaking aes- thetics notwithstanding — about, When the four litre, 385 bhp, twin-cam, 24-valve, straight six combustion propulsion unit roars into soundless life (offering, with con- summate tact and quiet confidence, a mighty 425ft/lbs of torque), not at the turn of an old-fashioned key but at the touch of a button on your personal computer at home or in the office (so that everything is warmed up and ready to go by the time the door opens to receive you), you know you're into something radically different. Something new. You know that with this car (the word itself now seems inadequate) the late industrial revolution has taken another decisive step and that nothing in motoring, perhaps nothing in life, will be the same again.
And yet getting into it is not quite so simple. Such is the versatility of the Twen- ny One that you have first to decide into what you want to get. I've never come across a car that so successfully combines the handling and aesthetics of a genuine race-bred two-seater with those of an ele- gant al fresco tourer capable of transport- ing four adults and their luggage while still managing, at a pinch, to suggest the load- carrying capabilities of an MPV. Not to mention its truly astonishing four-wheel drive cross-country ability. Each of these
configurations is available at the flick of a switch.
Having selected that day's driving mode, you settle into the environmentally-sound porpoise-skin seats (grown in a laboratory from unwanted tissue donated by still-living healthy porpoises) and approach, with due humility and respect, the revolutionary, clutchless, six-speed sequential gearbox (switchable, of course, to intelligent' auto- matic for those who want the car to do the work). Even experienced motorists unfa- miliar with the development and the equal- ly radical new suspension system featuring floating double wishbones and hydrogas should be wary in the first few miles of pushing the car anywhere near its potential of 0-60 mph in 5.3 seconds or its electroni- cally limited top speed of 155 mph. It is particularly important, when driving at speed in vehicles of this potency, to select the right gear, though fortunately the auto- mated traction control, the Total Impact Protection System (Tips) and radar-activat- ed dual-circuit ABS are life-savers.
I picked up the replacement in Scotland, where roads are clearer, and on a fine Scot- tish morning was able, without too much violence to speed limits, to put it through its paces. By lunch-time we were in Lon- don, where its manners in grid-locked sta- tionary mode proved as impeccable as in subsonic touring. A crawl around the M25 demonstrated the worth of its innovatory TEC system (Total Environmental Control, a sophisticated form of air conditioning that constantly measures the occupants' body heat), with two stops for petrol (the EU simulated averaged-out figure of 37.7 mpg always looked a trifle optimistic). Calais, Paris and Lyons passed in quick succession but it was only on the excellent EU taxpayer-funded Italian autostrada that I was able to prove to my own satisfaction that that very high top gear is, once locat- ed, the revelation I had been led to expect. Sublime is the only word. Swinging round Siena (the lock is amazing for a car of this size), we took in Milan, Vienna and Ams- terdam before relaxing over tea at the Waverley in Edinburgh.
The Twenny One is a car to savour. More than a driving experience, more even than a lifetime's experience, it is a land- mark in the evolution of our species. With its intelligent gearbox in automatic mode, its computer-driven engine management system, its automated traction control and radar-driven ABS and with the addition of an internal navigation, global positioning and road-ahead CCTV system linked by computer to the steering (a not too expen- sive extra, given all the others), this eighth wonder of the world has, with one press of a computer key, freed mankind from mil- lennia of slavery to the burdensome neces- sity to travel. Now, with the advent of the Twenny One, you need never go anywhere: you just send the car. I booked in for the night at the Waverley, set the computer and sent the thing packing.
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