My rule for my every-day car is that it has to be
fast, good-looking and able to handle anything I can throw at it, from the
high-speed twisty school run through the hedgerows of Essex, to battling with
stop-and-go London traffic, to long-haul road trips across Europe. I have
loved my 360 hp, straight-six BMW B3 Alpina Biturbo, a.k.a. “Panda”, for the
last 22 months, and she has hardly put a foot wrong. Until our family ski
trip to France this month. Three things came up, which cumulatively added
up to my saying good-bye, with a little tear in my eye, to my beloved Alpina.
First, the car was packed to the gunnels with at
least 500 kg of luggage, sports gear, groceries, two adults and one small
child, as well as a large Thule roof-box for the snowboards. I tried to
reduce the drag a little bit by fitting electrical tape to the roof bars to
cover the gaps and lower the rumble noise, but there ain’t nothing to be done
about the fact that here you have a thoroughbred trussed up in a harness like a
cart horse. Like any thoroughbred, she stepped out willing and lively,
and we cruised at 160kph down the French motorways, leaving all the nasty
Renault Clio’s and Peugeot 206’s in our wake. That is, until ‘reduced
engine power’ came up on the dash and the engine light came on, reducing power
by 50%. Suddenly we were down to 120kph and all those Frenchies were
zooming by with two fingers stuck out the window. Ouch! But I could
forgive this – after all, the car was not meant to handle high speeds for hours
while carrying a heavy load and a high-profile apparatus creating huge
drag. We limped into the Aire de Bourgogne, had a coffee and let her cool
down and catch her breath, then she was right as rain and we slowed down a bit
for the rest of the journey. This happened on both the outbound and
return. This I could forgive.
Second, everyone knows high-powered, rear-wheel
drive cars in general, and BMWs in particular, are crap in snow. BMWs are
fair-weather friends. So, anticipating this, in November I bought
Michelin Alpine mud and snow tyres specifically fitted for the Alpina.
Additionally (since as an engineer I always look for problems and try to solve
them before they happen), I bought “snow socks”, specifically fitted for those
Michelin Alpine mud and snow tyres, in the unlikely event we ran into heavy
snow. The Alpina’s low ride height
means you can’t fit chains or they’ll rip out the wheel arch, so skinny
snow socks that slip over the tyre seemed like a good solution. I didn’t
field-test the equipment on this car, however, trusting that they would fit the
Michelins as they claimed on the packet. Hah!
The first 1000 km went by without a hitch, except
for the temporary power reduction from the overheated coil. However, the
hard yard came just 7km outside Montgenevre, when we hit a blizzard that turned
the hairpin turns into a patinoire that Torville and Dean would have
loved. We were doing fine until the guy in front of us stopped to put on
chains, and I was forced to stop behind him. And I could not get going again.
Those winter tyres spun like a top as I could not get enough speed (5mph) to
turn off the traction control. The car was gently power sliding as the
TCS argued with me (eventually gave up and let me drive. After five
minutes of this, making about 100 metres of headway thanks to some lovely
Italian guys that gave me a push, I gave up and parked on the side of the road
to put on the snow socks. In a blizzard. Facing uphill.
Can I just say at this point that snow socks are
really, really hard to put on. In fact, in this case, they were
impossible to put on. And we tried. For quite a while. The
Alpina’s low ride height meant that we could not get the top half elastic bit
behind the wheel, much less then roll the car forward and then slip on the
bottom half. We tried to raise the car a little bit – we unloaded the
luggage, we tried to physically lift the car up to get a centimetre of play –
no go. We even viewed the instruction video on YouTube - gosh, VW Polos
are easy to fit, thanks. All this time, of course, whilst we are
kneeling in the snow, getting soaked in a driving blizzard, the Renault Clio’s
and Peugeot 206’s are cruising merrily up the hill with two fingers stuck out
the window. My six year-old son was getting antsy, and we had to let him
out for a pee break on the side of the road. After about an hour of
this, when we were considering abandoning the car, the weather finally broke
and the temperature went above freezing, the tracks were down to the tarmac so
we decided to risk it for a biscuit and try to drive up. My skills at
extreme driving came in very handy at this point, as I felt the car drifting on
all four wheels sideways around the hairpin turns and managed to prevent myself
from obeying any impulse to either brake or accelerate – the margin was about
nil for going into a spin…. But we made it, safe and sound, without a
scratch. Whew!
Even that I could forgive the Alpina, kind
of. Those are the kind of conditions that would challenge most supercars,
and we were not the only ones struggling.
But the last straw was more basic. We are a
growing family. With my son having put on 5cm in height this year and my
new partner riding shotgun, the Alpina is just too small for us now. When
we got back to England on Saturday after 14 hours of driving, my poor car
looked like a Turner Prize winner called Tracy Emin’s Back Seat. Three
ski jackets, six fuzzy toys, Eurotunnel Flexi tags, handbags, snot rags, trash,
food, blood (don’t ask) and hot chocolate spilled over the Recaro leather
seats, and a six-year-old boy strapped into a child seat, his little sleeping
face barely visible among the detritus. The valeting service at the
Maldon Tesco earned their £16.99 on Sunday, that’s for dang sure.
So what is a girl who has to juggle the needs of
the school run, family holidays and a love of powerful cars to do? I need
a four door car with a big boot, four wheel drive and at least 400 horses.
And I am very picky about my cars, as my regular readers know. I cannot,
just cannot, drive a Porsche Cayenne, that favorite of gangsters’ wives.
Every time I see one I think of Edie Soprano saying “Tony bought me a
Cayenne. Like the peppah.” No. No. No. I adore the Maserati
Quattroporte, but the boot is small, I can't fit a roof box, fuel consumption
is ‘interesting’ and I already have a hobby car. The Jaguar XFR is
a possibility - there are tons of good ones out there but no indy in Essex so
servicing is going to be expensive.
For everyday global domination, you can’t beat
the Germans…
