Each morning I get up and die a little. My street is an automotive wasteland, each nondescript utility vehicle slightly duller than the next, in a parade of mediocrity stretching towards the horizon. The odd Prius prowls past, cloth seats smelling faintly of the last ten passengers. A dog-eared Nissan Micra quite literally bats its […]
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The Bentley had been winking at me all afternoon, a brilliant lozenge of luxury making all the cars around it look decidedly underwhelming. The hour came, finally, and I found myself sauntering towards the Continental GT clutching the beautifully machined key. I was Charlie in the horsepower factory; here was my golden ticket.
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What is the purpose of the Audi RS5? It’s a question I had on returning the beast to its holding pen. Not that you’d ask that when you first set your eyes on it. The RS5 squats at rest, all dark greens and blacks, daring you to take a ride. It is a car which […]
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As readers of Fitzroy Motor will be aware, the evocative phrase “Race Car For The Road” is a particular favourite of auto manufacturer marketing departments. And no class of consumer vehicle sees as much warfare over the right to be the definitive example of that as hot hatchbacks. An archetypal hot hatch is the ultimate everyday […]
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The eternal wisdom of James Brown echoed in my mind as I eased myself into the Levante. In the world of luxury cars, you pay the cost to be the boss. Look at me, a Maserati says; you know what you see. Quite. Designed for the people who want to be a bad mutha while […]
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The weather in Hampshire was terrible. Rain, wind, and misery poured from the skies; it seemed like punishment for not being at work on a Thursday morning. But I was feeling pretty good about it all, because in my hands I had the keys to a boxy and muscular off-roader, the Jeep Wrangler Overland. It looked […]
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It’s hardly news that Germany and the automobile have a pretty tight relationship. From Bertha Benz’s pioneering first road trip to the relentless industrial output of today, it is a country that doesn’t even have its own word for “petrol-head”, so presumed is an underlying affinity for the car. My mother, a proud Westphalian with […]
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Cars are a medium for all kinds of romantic ideas. Sit behind the wheel of an Alfa Spider and you’re suddenly a 1960s Italian stud, all smouldering side-eye as you toy with the limit on a Mediterranean coastal road. Jump into a vintage Bentley in thick English drizzle and you become that honking combo of […]
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Three days, two drivers, and one race-striped tearaway – the Fitzroy Motor team get to grips with the 620R, Caterham’s most extreme offering yet… “So, what next?” I thought back to my first time in a Caterham – a year ago, roaring through Kentish villages in a Seven 270, my senses straining to keep up. […]
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A sunny afternoon in the Eifel. I was on the Nürburgring Nordschliefe, a coil of unforgiving racetrack wrapped around the castle of Nürburg in the Rhineland Palatinate. Jackie Stewart had christened it the “Green Hell” in far less cosseted times, when race drivers risked their lives on every lap. The name has stuck, perhaps because […]
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