Alex Unleashed on Cars

  If you read my Greatest Cars Ever, you’ll know I championed the Ford Focus as one of the greatest cars ever made and I’ll stand by my decision. For those of you who didn’t read that blog, I championed it because it was such a giant leap forward over the old Escort and its various rivals, and in general was a great car in all aspects particularly as it was both a nice car to drive but was also well built. The Focus was actually teased all the way back in late 1995, where frankly, it looked out of this world, especially when most other cars of that type and time were boxy and looked like saloons with the boot chopped off.   Amongst the various plans for the Focus included a planned a Mazda sourced V6 engine option though that was later scrapped. Either way, everyone was excited at the prospect of the Focus going on sale in the near future. So, if the hype when the Focus was teased was high, then the excitement when it reached show rooms in late 1998 was ecstatic. And unlike ...

  For some, buying your first car is a big ordeal especially if your not very knowledgeable on cars and what to look for, so I’m here to provide you with a guide on what cars to buy, what resources to find them and resources to help you find the best cars. So, let’s break this down into steps. Step 1: establish a budget Sounds easy enough but depending on how much you know about used cars you may find you need more money than first anticipated, my recommendation is a budget of between £1400-£3000, this should get you a reasonable car that won’t break the bank when getting insurance. But if you want to spend more or less, you should be fine. Step 2: Decide What Your Looking For in a Car Most first time buyers want a combo of: economy, reliability, performance, quality and refinement. But knowing where to find these qualities can be tough and I’d also suggest putting aside your personal prejudices towards brands or countries as you don’t have excessive amount of choice in t...

  Whilst it would be easy to simply list my 10 favourite cars here are what I think are the 10 objectively best cars ever made. These are the biggest game changers, the most revolutionary and genuinely good cars to date. But just like last time, I’ll list a few honourable mentions that didn’t quite make the cut. Honourable Mentions Audi Quattro (1980-1991) The reason the Quattro didn’t make the top 10 was because the 4-wheel drive performance car had already been done by Jensen with the Interceptor. But the Quattro was the first to popularize 4-wheel drive in both rallying and in road going performance cars. The only problem is like I said, it had been done before, add to that in reality it was the Peugeot 205 T16 that was the dominate Group B rally car at the time. But it was a very good car, capable of 0-60 in 6.7 seconds in 20 valve spec (which was supercar fast in 1989) and had strong grip from it’s 4-wheel drive system and as I said, it did revolutionize rallying and di...

  My Top 10 Most Disliked Cars I’m sure we’ve all got cars that we hate but here’s my list of my most disliked cars. Please bear in mind that this is purely opinion based and not a list of the objectively worst cars ever built, though aspects like reliability, value, performance, looks or the car’s history are deciding factors. But first it’s time for Dishonourable Mentions. These are the cars that whilst bad weren’t quite deserving enough of the top 10. So here goes: Ssangyong Rexton- I’m just going to say it, this is the 2 nd ugliest car ever made, I mean look at it. Ssangyong has never had a good track record when it comes to designing cars but this thing is just repulsive. Your probably familiar with the Rodius but frankly this makes that old barge look like a Ferrari 355. But let’s also not forget that Ssangyong still has no street cred or recognisability even after being in the UK since 1996, if you buy one of these you either know nothing about style or taste or are j...

  Plenty of countries have their own regional race series such our own BTCC as well as America’s ALMS and Germanies DTM. But you may not have heard of Japan’s JGTC. The JGTC (Japanese Grand Touring Championship) began in 1994 following the European GT1 & GT2 regulations with a rather unambitious start. The series was 5 races long and mostly made up of homegrown Nissan Skylines, who’d having previously dominated the All-Japan Touring Car Championship from 1990 to 1992. But the season did contain a variety of machines. 2 Porsche 962C’s and 2 Ferrari F40’s entered by team Taisan who both proved to be close rivals to the Nissan’s, a Lamborghini Countach (built by the Japanese Lamborghini Owner’s Club) and for Round 3 at Fuji, an ex-Group B Lancia 037. The winner for GT1 was team Calsonic’s Nissan Skyline and the GT2 winner was Korg Kegani’s Porsche 964 RS. Immediately the series was a hit, and it’s easy to see why, the races were always close, mainly because for every point you...

  The original Honda NSX is one of those cars and things in general that isn’t truly appreciated until years after its gone. If you read/watch sources from the time you’d never get the sense that this car really evolved the supercar genre and high-performance cars as a whole. Whereas now, if you read/watch retrospective pieces, you see lots of the same admiration and praise for what was a car so far ahead of the game that made all the other manufactures take a good look at themselves and make an effort to improve their offerings, I mean compare the Ferrari 348 to 355 or Porsche introducing both the Carrera 4 and the 4-wheel drive Turbo, some of the most highly praised cars of their time and class. The general consensus is that these came about because the NSX showed that the supercar could have the usability and exploitability of a hot hatch and the superlative performance and exclusivity of said supercars. The concept for the NSX began back in 1984 and was highly advanced techni...

  A quick reminder before I begin, this blog focuses on political which can be a very volatile issue so I shall be looking at the topics today from an impartial perspective. I shall also include links to any sources I refer to, in case some accuse me of making them up. Question 1: Is the Conservative Party, really the “party of the motorist”? Short answer. No. they are not. Realistically, no political party is a “party of the motorist” as Labour’s idea for road pricing back in 2003/4 would have charged people for taking children to school or going to work. I sight two examples as to why the Conservatives are not the party of the motorist. Reason 1: Speed cameras were introduced under the Conservatives in 1994 and reason 2: their 2003 manifesto. During 2003 the Conservatives said that if they came to power they would “up the motorway speed limit to 80 MPH, do away with the vast majority of speed cameras, a purge of speed bumps and abolish the M4 bus lane” (*). None of these ...