Firstly this is the 2011 hatch back made in sunny Swindon in the UK, not the sedan made in poor old flooded Thailand. This car should actually be quite old hat but for the Fukushima earthquake somewhat soiled Honda’s replacement plans. But I’m told a new gen 9 Civic is due around May-June. Yes Honda’s had rather a hard time of it lately.

So enough guff. It’s a 1.8 VTEC manual. Sadly the auto is a bit anemic. But the manual goes free up the revs a bit for a bit more power. Surprisingly it’s fairly torquey considering the number of S2000s I’ve seen revving at 9000rpm yet still doing 60kph because of a slight incline. It’s no Golf GTI but it is fun and capable.  If you hold a gear, you can zip around very nicely. Or just putter along changing gears with the frequency of a truckie and stay frugal. At 100 something kilowatt, it will do. No sir this is not the Full Monty Type R. Because that doesn’t have 5 doors.

After putting down some hard kays on the highways and around town, she handles firmly. The ride is verging on sporty but comfy enough for the daily grind. When giving it the berries, there’s a little bit of body roll, though thankfully no sick passengers. Torque steer, hah! Not really. After all it’s a Honda. It does have a super notchy gear shift and a great little clutch. Something that I’ve come to admire from my limited experiences with Hondas.

Fit and finish is superb. Great quality plastics and leather all with a nice bespoke feel. Nothing feels like it’s borrowed from somewhere or outright stolen from VW. Nor are the seats rock hard, again like in VWs. Oh yeah and what can’t be done with the back seats isn’t worth mentioning. They have the flexibility I’ve been looking for in a double jointed gymnast girlfriend all my life. Dogs, drum kits and mountain bikes, you’re welcome here.

In essence this model launched in 2006, with a facelift in 2009. Aussie readers would see very little of them because they were quite expensive when launched. But I’ll be damned if it feels like an old car. Any left standing have dropped significantly in price. She still looks fresh as a daisy. Not in a BMW 1 series way that takes 10 years to grow on you. Shes a peach. Put quite simply a design that still works. Touch wood, it will prove reliable as hell. It’s going to need to!

A few months ago, I was driving the big ape Camaro around Oahu in Hawaii. A place devoid of lonely highways,  straights that stretch on for hundreds of miles all with not a cop awake in sight. These roads seem not to exist; the kind of place a muscle car longs for You wanted to like it the way you want to think Aerosmith still look young. But while it still is cool, there’s a whiff of unsightly old age to this Canadian muscle car. Like Brian Adams without the Botox (actually he just sucks). Strangely though, the Golf GTI has kept with the times by barely changing at all. If there was an analogy, like The Scorpions in their leather pants could be retro cool in some ironic kind of way.

So how did this come about? Someone threw me the keys to a three door Golf GTI mark VI manual. It makes you question why cars need twenty inch rims and big gaudy bulges. The smile that all six of those gears puts on your face leaves you dumbfounded. The thrumming of the engine is a noise I’d only thought Italian thoroughbreds are capable of. Clearly not. Suddenly the most important thing in life is getting past the losermobile hatchback in front of you post haste. Every single gear has a sweet spot just niggling at you to lose your license ever more subtly. All this in an unashamed hatchback built like a titanium drum. Better still on a suburban street, you can get the big toothy grin that ought be beaming out of the helmet of a V8 Supercar driver.

It’s quite a shame it’s taken me this long in life to realise hot hatchback genesis. It’s just a fucking sensation. Yes sliding around sideways is nice. But darting around on 3 wheels in an incredibly well sorted German buzz box is a sheer delight.

Frankly the car is gobsmackingly powerful. It spins those 20 inch hoops with extreme prejudice and absolute ease. Unlike the Mustang, it does have a smooth 6 speed manual mode for the auto, though with this much grunt who needs it. But great power brings responsibility. While in theory this car is a Holden Commodore, it feels far bigger and has way less rear visibility. It’s a massive leap of faith parking the thing as it’s fairly wide and those fat rear guards are hard to see. There’s just no getting around how big this car feels. You constantly feel like your squeezing a hallway down a hot dog!

For a humble Aussie not used to big muscle cars, keeping it in its lane is a challenge – although I’m sure you’d get used to it. Again like the pony car, it’s definitely not a sports car. The handling is firm and comfortable considering those massive rims, but you wont be chasing any Lotus Elises down twisty roads. Though you might beat it to the bottom of the cliff. The front brake calipers proudly display ‘Brembo by Chevrolet’ and while they stop OK, they’re definitely Brembos in name only. This puppy don’t stop that good!

Inside the car is fairly Spartran – cool but very basic. There’s no fluff, just four retro temperature gauges at the bottom of the centre console. There’s a huge Boston brand stereo with enough pure volume and enough bass to keep the doof doof brigade happy. Though when a V8 sounds this good you have to wonder why they bothered. I literally switched the stereo off 2 or 3 times just to listen to it. It sounds like Satan gargling or something! It does iPod integration in ‘one click’, which believe me is one of the ’stangs short comings. But how they started with a four door Holden Commodore and there’s no back seat room at all I don’t know. In terms of driver position and interior fit and finish, the Mustang kicks its arse. The leather, seating position and virtually every other design facet Mr Mustang is far cooler.

To answer the obligatory question ‘would I own one?’ the answer is no. The Commodore would go so much harder, carry less weight, handle better and in HSV spec kick it would kick it right in the grits. The Mustang GT also feels like it would be easier to live with than Mr Broad Shoulders ‘maro. Also for such an outgoing car, no one but a Korean tourist batted an eyelid at it (well I guess the locals like their monster truck lift kits…). Hell it’s a cool car but it’s definitely a holiday romance.

So what sucks about this car? Well there’s the laughable transmission. I thought the lowly 4 speed automatic with no manual mode or sports mode was taken into the woods and murdered years ago? This from the company that give you fantastic ZF German automatic gearboxes in Australia? Like any old Auto, it buggers about for a second or two trying to find the right gear. This is excusable, but the absolute gutless dumbkopf lack of power below 2 thousand revs is just plain idiotic. This car will go hard above 50 miles an hour, but it just refuses to rev in low ranges.

After recently driving an Audi on a long road trip, you realise what’s missing from the Mustang when you go on a long drive. There is no graphic communication or symbology on the controls. So you have to ‘read’ everything. This is tricky when driving. There is no central screen for your car controls or GPS, just a stereo LCD screen. So bits of this car instantly feel very simple and old fashioned. Especially that dopey looking T bar auto.

Also get used to the ‘clump’ noises as your passenger tyre constantly goes over highway emergency lane markers as this car is bigger than it looks. Not big inside, just big. Like a regular sized bloke with size 20 feet. The suspension as far as I can gather is still deeply routed in the sixties. On Haiwaii’s narrow B roads, it certainly is more prone to dopey understeer than Lotus like agility. It looks like to placate rental companies they’ve fitted seventeen inch wheels with fairly high profile tyres which make a bit of noise with the top down and make the handling a bit vague.

No doubt in higher spec versions this car addresses all my gripes. But compared to say an Australian Ford XR6 (not the turbo) it has absolutely nothing going for it. Flintstones, meet the Flintstones…

Clearly these are things that Deutschland specialise in. A whole wedding could’ve been had in the boot itself and yet there are still heaps of secret compartments to play with and masses of legroom in the back. On the open road, despite big seventeen inch rims and low profile tyres, it’s silky smooth. Even pot holes at 110kph are no major drama. The only complaint if any I’d have about this car is that the steering is super sensitive. You’re constantly doing micro corrections on the steering wheel and a minor distraction will just about have you in the weeds.

This particular Audi had the 2.0 litre four cylinder turbo FSI engine that’s usually found in a VW Golf GTI. I guess German car companies are more incestuous than ever! 2 litres might sound a little skimpish in a full sized sedan. Believe me it ain’t. It wont crush you with kilowatts but it’s not meant to either. Put it in sports mode and it’s all turbo [a gas guzzling turbo too].By and large this engine is very lazy, barely turning over. Put her into sport mode and suddenly she works, and drinks, a lot harder!

Remember this is an unassuming executive barge. If it were human, it would have a name like Hans or Gunter and you’d forget them the second they dropped you off at the foyer of your chain hotel. And clearly the A6 is this way by design. If you want the grunt, get the A8. If you want memorable and sexy, get the S5. Whether there’s still a place in the range for an A6 is a different story. Whether or not it’s a good car depends on what you’re after.

So what we have is a large executive saloon that gets the job done, and gets it done very handsomely. What a bloody good car.

Palmyra

When they’re coming out of the desert, the Roman ruins you see are in the city of Palmyra. It is clearly amazing, but what is really good about Palmyra is you buy one ticket for basically all the attractions in the city are included. The ticket lasts 2 or 3 days and costs about 500 Syrian pounds (10-12 US dollars) each.

Palmyra is about 300 kilometres away from the Syrian capital of Damascus. It’s quite a long drive down undulating desert roads. It will cost you about $90-120 US dollars a day for a taxi driver that speaks a bit of English (off season – and the same in Euros in peak season). We took a taxi from Aleppo to Palmyra and it was a long day of driving through the desert, nicely punctuated by a visit to stellar attractions like Qala’at Samaan and the Dead Cities.  The next day the driver took us from Palmyra to Damascus with time to stop at the pork serving Christian village of Maalula and a weird hippy, non demoninational Christian convent (it’s the only time I saw pork anywhere in the whole 3 weeks I was in the Middle East!). Be warned, the “mid range” Ishtar Hotel we stayed in at Palmyra had no fancy luxuries like a Television in the room, carpet, or a fitted sheet on the mattress. Rest assured there are poncy luxury hotels with a view of the ruins, just not much in between that and the Ishtar.

The Souqs of Damascus

Where the boys buy their gold, frankincense and murryh is in the souqs of the old city. You can easily spend a few days here. Nuff said. If you make it to Damascus you can’t miss the souqs, almost literally. You enter the old city by going through the Bab Touma gate (most taxis drop you off there as the streets are very skinny for cars), find your way to Straight Street, turn right and you’re in the souqs. Even for this part of the world, there’s a special crazy chaos to the old city 24 hours a day. I preferred Aleppo (not visited in Top Gear) up north, but Damascus is a very special place.

Getting from Damascus to Amman for their next stop can be done by a service taxi very cheaply ($50-100) and takes about 4-5 hours. It all depends on how quickly you can get through the border checks. Going form a developing nation like Syria into Jordan is an interesting contrast. One the Syrian side the cop cars are all buggered old Mercedes and Peugeots 404s. The Jordanian cops have new Audi A6s!

Jerash

The last site where they’re doing the Roman chariot racing their convertibles is called Jerash. It’s about 50 kilometres out of Amman, capital of Jordan down the King’s highway. It was such a cushy drive I thought I was back home in Melbourne! And despite seeing loads of Roman ruins (Apamea in Syria was probably he dumpiest), this was definitely a favourite. It has loads of mosaics, an excellent ampitheatre, a small museum, the lot! You could easily do the citadel and Jerash in 5 or 6 hours without rushing. A guide is essential.

We went to Jerash by chance when we went to the Amman Citadel (be warned no average Joe Arab has a clue when you say ‘citadel’. You might as well be asking them for Mila Kunis’ phone number and when she’s most aroused in Icelandic), our citadel guide offered us a day trip out there for about 80 Dinars. If you are in Amman, there are 3 other things I can recommend for you:

1. Visit the King Hussein car museum. I mean come on you’re planning your holiday around an episode of Top Gear, it’s a no brainer.
2. Eat at the Reem Al Bahwadi restaurant. A grandiose display of Middle Eastern hospitality and truly amazing food.
3. Get the hell out. Little wonder the guys didn’t spend long here. It’s a bit of a shit hole (at least it is down town)! Not really much to see here

I can’t vouch for all the destinations in this episode, but I hope it helps. Any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I’ll do my best to help.

Helpful tips:

• Be warned, even during the winter the desert sun is hot in the car. In summer it would be excruciating. I’m told spring is the nicest time to visit.
• At the time of writing 45 Syrian Pounds equals about 1 Aussie dollar/US dollar.
• One Jordanian Dinar was about 70 Aussie/US cents.
• Taxis and accommodation are your biggest expenses. Food is cheap, tasty and in ridiculous abundance and there’s very few trashy malls or duty free stores to buy stuff you’d buy at home.
• Most taxis are nuggety little Korean cars. So you’d struggle to fit more than 3 passengers in with packs, making car pooling a bit difficult.
• You take taxis everywhere in the Middle East. Even Service Taxis will take you into other countries. It becomes very normal after a few days. Even over long distances it’s fairly cheap.

The DS3 is meant to be anti retro. The real reason I went for a drive though is because it’s meant to be anti Mini, despite sharing same 118Kw turbo charged engine. Mini or not, it’s an absolute hoot to drive. The tight six speed manual (borrowed from Mini) has plenty of grunt in any gear. Almost enough to make the automatic option futile. Just pick any gear and put your foot down and you’re in that sweet power zone of the turbo. Almost reminds me of our old friend the XR6 Turbo! There’s no noticable turbo lag. Only a car that’s geniunely easy to drive and fun around town. Although when you rev it, it sounds a bit weedy until the turbo kicks in!

While I’d love to tell you what the car was like around the twisties, this was after all just a test drive.  Unlike other little super minis like the Suzuki Swift though, the handling is sporty without a bone jarring ride.  There’s active steering to so it’s featerlight in town but has plenty of feel when you’re giving it the stick on the backroads. Again sadly I can’t vouch for the later.

While it is funky, the interior is not exactly high camp. Gone are all the fiddly bits and bobs and quirky oversized gauges of the Mini and what remains is a proper, luxury go kart. The front bucket seats are massive, sort of mocking racing seats but far more heavy and luxurious, trimmed in Alcantara, mesh and cloth. The exterior regretably doesn’t come in many blokey colours. Belle de bleu will have to do… Typically the roof is a different colour to the bodywork and there are several vanity options such as artwork for the roof available.

Over rivals like the VW Golf (OK that’s a fairly long bow, but remember this is Australia) the interior is a much nicer place to be. It’s not ladden with features (namely the lack of sat nav and a color screen) but it feels bespoke and well put together. Unlike the Golf where ‘feature rich’ feels like you’re sitting on a leather appointed plank, staring at the control screen from a tank. At first it looks like there are no steering wheel controls for the stereo. Being French, Citroen didn’t want to spoil the good looks of the wheel and have cleverly concealed them on the console. But yep, the stereo and cruise controls are all there.

If the Citroen had an ace up its sleeve, it would be the interior size. I’m about 5′ 11” and I had no problem getting in the back seats. In the front or back I still had what felt like a few inches of head space. So cramped it’s not.

What is a bit damning though is the price. Don’t believe the hype that this puppy will go for low-mid thirties. The price as test driven ‘drive away’ was $40,000 without options. That sadly makes a second hand Golf GTI look pretty sexy.  But for those who can justify the out lay, the Citroen is a gob smackingly great little car.

Quite literally Johnson have time-lined his life in cars. There’s plenty of highs and lows. From lights randomly popping out of his Lotus to the abject misery of owning anything made by British Leyland. There’s the odd insight into life on the road. Whether it’s bunking on the tour bus or being chauffeured around Europe in an executive limo in style. His band mates don’t make it out unscathed either and there’s plenty of falling in love on the road. Only with British convertibles and not slutty groupies.

It’s full of short, funny (some very funny) and punchy anecdotes. Via cars, he manages to leave no part of his life unscathed and that’s what’s truly miraculous and perhaps why Johnson decided to go this route for his biography – and it does work. There’s a sense that as a standard biography it would be too tight lipped and laconic. No question he has no problem opening up over some put banter about his cars though. But sadly it kind of lacks substance. Honestly I read this book cover to cover in three days. A decent reader could easily do it in a night. Not to Johnson’s detriment. This is a fantastic read. If only it could be longer.

Dream Car
71 LT Celica – 13B Turbo
42mm waste gate  – shod with 305/28/18 (?)
plenty o poke – jaw dropper – ball tearer
goes like stink – chick magnet
no tyre kickers

This shit is a GTR XU1 Torry and looks bloody awesome.

But it wasn’t in a newspaper ad in the Trading Post or a bulletin board. It was on a T shirt. Yes a proper, well fitted, stylishly put together t shirt. And it wasn’t on some iron on transfer or crappy shirt the quality of toilet paper either. Proper artist designed, screen printed cool Aussie car t-shirts! Finally!

The bloke behind the stall, behind the shirt is a Sean Carver. Not someone I know from Adam to be honest. But as Merrick and Rosso would say “what a top little Aussie!” Sean has designed a whole bunch of t-shirts around the kind of cars that are Aussie folk lore. From the HQ coupe driven by the Night Rider in Max Max, to the Kombi van, to our very own Sandman vanel pan! All are done in the classified newspaper ad style with a liberal dose of Aussie slang from the ‘very toey’ to ‘the duck’s guts’.

Thankfully, Sean’s caught onto the interweb at seancarver.com.au. He must know how much I usually loathe going to Shitney!  Anyway, I honestly was blown away by the design, coolness and originality of his shirts and wish I could’ve have got a load more.  So if you have a man in your life that still rushes home to read the Trading Post every Thursday to look for dream cars, this could be their bogan haute coture! God knows it’s now mine. Nice one Seano.

Despite never driving a Getz, it doesn’t reek of likability in the same way the Suzuki does. With the GTI of old fondly in peoples’ memories, it’s not hard. But how does the modern Swift stack up? First of all on streets of Sydney, this car is an absolute god send. Being on holiday, who wants to park a barge? This car easily fits between 4WDs and much bigger pieces of metal.

On the road, the Swift definitely has aspirations that in this basic rental car spec didn’t quite stack up. On its fifteen inch rims, it’s a very, very firm ride for a small car. While I don’t mind a firm suspension, it must knock the false teeth out of old ladies’ mouths, who I assume this thing’s targeted at. Also the base spec engine seems more suited to the highway than tight corners around town. While it doesn’t mind sitting on 110kph, it’s certainly not rev happy. In fact I think someone hypnotized mine and told it is a six cylinder taxi running on gas. By comparison the Seat Ibiza I had in Croatia had a smaller engine, but far more revs and aural charisma. To my mind that makes for a much more enjoyable and better small car.

For such a small car with so much spirit (well potential), it just whezzed its way through the gears, providing something that wasn’t quite torque or power. Just enough to get you around. Oh and did I mention the 3 speed auto? Come on Suzuki, you can do better than that! Build quality wise, the little Swift is easily on par with anything from Toyota – if not better.It feels incredibly solid and all interior fit is pretty decent.

All in all I’d love to drive a sportier model. It is a fun car to drive, at least in its grip and handling. It’s poised and champing at the bit to go. But with that boring engine and transmission, it’s not quite the thrill ride. More the jarring ride!