BUSINESS FIRST INNER 39-82:Layout 1 9/6/08 16:55 Page 71
CARS 71
What you should buy
ago. The materials are better and the precision of manufacture is
way ahead. Just look at the tight panel gaps on virtually any cheap
hatch back and compare them with the chasms on 20 year old
I suspect that Business First readers like these 5 seat hot rods but the
luxury cars.
green lobby and anti motoring types are fighting for their extinction.
Even the EU is at it now. According to Neil Winton, ex-Reuters ‘man-
So what is a more ‘acceptable’ car to replace the big Germans
made global warming’ sceptic: “Fascist zealots who control the EU
once the Greens and anti-car lobby have won out? How about the
plan to bankrupt manufacturers of cars like this in the name of
newly improved Mazda6 2.0D which for a car the size of a
saving the climate, but really because of class war fanaticism and
Mercedes C-Class has a very impressive CO2 figure of149. Its 125
envy” . Extreme perhaps but not far from the truth. Despite the
mph top speed will be irrelevant in the new order of course but its
huge progress that manufacturers have made in reducing fuel
excellent mid range acceleration will get you up to legal speed
consumption and CO2 emissions they will soon be subject to
very quickly and allow you to overtake effortlessly. There is also that
billions of Euros in fines if they don’t reduce their average CO2
wonderful new Skoda Superb with the room and comfort of an S-
emissions to new low levels by 2015.
Class Mercedes and a very clever bootlid which either opens
completely like a hatch back or just the rear metal lid like a saloon.
Mind you it may not be the anti-car mob that will kill these fabulous
This car will be available with the stonking 170 PS diesel which, as
cars but bureaucrats in Bremen, Germany’s smallest state which
well as 47 mpg and around 160 gm/k CO2, will probably do 135
has just imposed the country’s first ever motorway limit. It might only
mph. Just don’t tell the green police.
cover 60 kilometres but its significance is far greater than that.
Frighteningly, Reinhard Loske, Bremen's environment minister said at
Source: Robert Couldwell
rcouldwell@btinternet.com
the time, "This is a good day for traffic safety and we are also
sending a signal about protecting the environment and climate”.
Even more significantly, Loske, a member of the Greens who share
power in Bremen with the Social Democrats (SPD), continued: "Our
goal is to introduce a general speed limit on motorways in the
whole of Germany together with other states."
It is said that the British motor industry declined after the imposition
of the 70 limit in 1965 and there is no doubt that a similar blanket
limit in Germany where drivers routinely cruise at 130mph will mean
that there will be no market for performance cars and they will die.
So if the EU and the man-made-global-warming warriors get their
way what will/should we be driving? Actually the news could be a
lot worse. It may be trite but it is true that there are really no bad
cars these days. Thanks to the Germans and the Japanese, the
quality of mass-market cars has improved out of all recognition.
Skodas, Mazdas, Kiayundais (sorry, Kias and Hyundais) or new SEATs
are built as well if not better than Bentleys or Jaguars of 20 years
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