OK, it was for the Tribeca as well as the Impreza WRX STI, but the STI was the fun bit. After a morning’s rampage through the back roads around Taupo in the Tribeca we got to experience the STI on the race track. First up though was a demonstration in Subaru’s Legacy to show the effectiveness of VDC (Vehicle Dynamic Control). This consisted of entering a wet chicane at speed to invoke a diagonal slide (something that would usually result in a spin), and slamming on the brakes to let the car sort it all out.

Instinct tells you to steer in and gently push the brake (which I did the first time), but on  the second go I slammed the anchors on and the Legacy just pulled up like nothing was wrong. This VDC is really something for drivers who don’t know what they’re doing!

Next up was a slalom course around part of Taupo’s track. It formed a loop with some very tight corners, and the whole thing was done in second gear. We each had four runs, 2 with the active centre diff on auto, and 2 with it locked. With the locked diff I set the fastest time of the day, 0.6 seconds ahead of anyone else at 27.75 seconds.

Then we got to drive it around the track for two lots of two laps. The VDC means you just cannot get this car out of shape (well, a heinous excess of speed will see you come off the track, but you can’t spin it). Even rally ace Sam Morgan didn’t get it into a spin. I’d write more, but I’ll save that for the review (plus, it’s nearly 10pm and I have to be at the airport again tomorrow for 5:50am and I haven’t packed yet).

So, a good day was had by all. I would buy an STI if it wasn’t sold out until August! That’s how popular they are.

We receive lots of information from the world’s car manufacturers and distributors, and because most of them are from non-English speaking countries, sometimes the quality of writing can be less than brilliant. Now, I’m not talking about the Fiats and BMWs of the world because they have whole teams of PR people whose first language is English. I’m talking about the small tuning houses and custom car manufacturers, which brings us to Mansory.

Mansory make bling bits for the worlds GT cars – if you want to turn your Rolls into a pimp-mobile, Mansory have the bodykit for you. In this case it’s for the Aston Martin DB9, and here is the sentence verbatim:

“The Aston Martin DB 9 series is one of the fascinatiest and prettiest sportcar in time, but MANSORY is sure there is a more sportier and stable style to do”

Fascinatiest - that is a truly splendid word. I’m partial to making up words myself, for example strokage (a measure of how much time you’ve had patting a dog or cat…or girlfriend), but fascinatiest is significantly better. I shall submit it to the Oxford English Dictionary for their consideratiousness.

Everyone loves diesels. Let me rephrase that: everyone loves new diesels with particulate filters. Everyone hates old diesels because they wipe out rainforests and cause abnormal births in extra-terrestrials. Subaru just launched the world’s first boxer diesel engine in its new Legacy and Outback. Only the UK is getting this car initially, but given the planet’s love of fuel-efficient cars, it’s bound to make it to other territories.

Sports car makers are already on the bandwagon. If Audi can bring out a diesel 12-cylinder R8, how long will it be before Lambo and Ferrari unleash an oil burner?

And if it’s not diesel, it’s electric too, though electric is definitely uncool. But that doesn’t matter to the Israelis, apparently.

BMW is trying valiantly with hydrogen, but it’s still deeply uncool because it’s cool with celebs (mainly because Beemer had lots of people like Jay Leno and Paris Hilton to test drive them…ok, maybe not Paris Hilton because she was drunk).

I predict the next cool fad will be a car that uses teleportation. Why would you need to have a car if you teleport? Well, how else would a large number of  commuters put on their makeup, drink coffee, text or pick their nose?

When a new car comes onto the market every journalist is champing at the bit wanting to drive it. It’s like we’re all hungry for something new. But the problem with getting a car when it’s fresh off the tree (or boat, in this case) is that it’s unripe.

The worst and best thing that can happen to you is to be the first journalist to drive a car. It’s the worst because when you get a car with just eleven kilometres on the clock it’s sour – everything feels tight, and it’s slow (because you don’t want to rev it too high). Once it’s done the rounds for a month and there’s a few thousand kms on the clock, everything starts to feel much better. It’s like waiting for the fruit to ripen; delayed gratification at its most extreme to make things sweet and juicy.

Of course, sometimes the car distributors will make you wait, in which case you have no choice, but when you’re given the option, it’s a dilemma.

I’ve just picked up the Mitsubishi Lancer VRX. It has 3750km on it, which means some grubby journos have already thrashed it around the countryside. Conversely, when I picked up the facelifted Suzuki Swift Sport a few months ago it had all of eleven kilometres on the clock.

The Suzuki was a great car, even while not run in, so I had to imagine what it would be like with 10,000kms – probably stunning.

I would accept a low kilometer drive in a car with a surplus of horsepower, but for everyday cars, they’re much better when ripe.

We’re not sure who started it, but blue is the new green. Green is far to ‘hippy’ for the car manufacturers to stand behind – they don’t want their products being seen as for lentil-eaters and tree huggers because it alienates the great unwashed. But blue; now blue represents sky and water. Everyone loves sky and water – it’s like beaches and sunny days. Plus, it’s the only colour that makes sense: brown (yes it’s earthy, but it’s brown for god’s sake); yellow (polarises people, and also means cowardly); purple (a royal colour, but t’s not a pretty word, and it doesn’t rhyme with anything); black/white (racial overtones); red (too passionate and sporty). You could argue that to feel blue is to feel depressed, but a spin doctor might say that we should feel depressed about the state of our environment, and buying a VW Polo BlueMotion helps it. As well as Volkswagen, Mercedes has its Bluetec diesel and BMW has its advanced diesel with BluePerformance. I’m hoping a car manufacturer brings out an advanced in-car entertainment system with BlueMovies. One auto manufacturer who is flying in the face of all this green blueness is GM with its Corvette – the Blue Devil pumps out over 600bhp, and the trees wince at the thought.

Here’s some advice Chinese car manufacturers: don’t call your cars names like Detroit Fish, Piece of Cloud and Book of Songs, and don’t make them look like the fun shopping carts that you push kids around in when you go to the supermarket.Read the full story here (shift-click to open in a new tab).

This highlights the huge disparity between Asian and European preferences in design, though it seems that we now have enough cross-cultural immigration in most countries to create a market for Asian-styled products that then spreads.

Any ideas for names that are better than Book of Songs?