Built for the Wild West but sentenced to a life on the road, the Wrangler could be a country & western ballad

Price £24,190
MPG 30.1
Top speed 107mph

The sweaty-headed banker sitting next to me at a charity comedy evening didn’t know what to make of the first act. “Is it a man?” he whispered, as a pencil-thin female impersonator whooped on to the stage in a blizzard of sequins and intimately subdued body parts. Tina C introduced herself as a “country music artiste from Open Throat Holler, Tennessee”. And with songs like “No Dick’s as Hard as My Life!” she went on to brilliantly eviscerate the country & western stereotype, grinding it under the heels of her rhinestoned cowboy boots.

As I listened, I could only imagine what Ms C would have made of the bizarrely appropriate vehicle I’d pulled up in that night. Jeep’s Wrangler Ultimate is a bristlingly macho, red neck stereotype all of its own. With its bloated wheels, thigh-high bumpers and die-hard looks, it’s a vehicle that’s almost impossible to sit in with a straight face. It feels like a theatrical prop rather than a car. It’s a motor that’s immune to the sensibilities of our times, virtually unchanged from the dark decades before the sexual revolution, when off-roaders were thrashed by men who wore chaps, neckerchiefs and fearsome moustaches even when they weren’t parodying the Village People.

This 4×4 has its roots in the CJ (Civilian Jeep), the public version of the famous US military Jeep first introduced in the Second World War. Since then many variations have come and gone but the basic vehicle has always stayed the same. However, after you’ve taken away the yee-haa, what are you really left with? So much of the all-American Jeep is about image that it’s difficult to remain objective.

The two-door version with clip-on, clip-off roof system that I drove was certainly brilliant fun (once I’d worked out how to get the roof off and found a garage to store it in), though it did sometimes feel more like wrestling than driving. And the 13-year-old boys I ferried around over a long weekend thought they’d died and gone to line-dancing heaven. But is that really what you want in a car as an adult?

The Ultimate weighs 2.5 tonnes and can happily tow a 2-tonne trailer. Its 2.8-litre diesel engine delivers a top speed of 107mph and will take you to 62mph in a dozen seconds. Remarkably, it will do about 30mpg – a figure that’s higher than you’d expect from such an unreconstructed brute.

On the open road the Wrangler Ultimate’s imperious height means it feels slightly unsteady at speed, and the super-responsive steering makes motorway driving twitchy and exhausting. But that’s to miss the point of the Jeep. Beyond all the Wild West posturing the Wrangler is an off-roader with real pedigree. Its hard-plastic interior and no-nonsense finishing are made to be hosed out after a long day in the dust, rounding up those longhorns. It has a ground clearance of almost a foot, it can iron out a 38-degree slope with ease and will wade through water that’s half a metre deep without hesitation.

But trapped on the tarmac, this bulked-up Jeep is like a performing sea lion, a powerful beast sentenced to a life of meaningless tricks. If only Tina C could set it free…

On the road: Do you hate garages?

When it comes to choosing a new car, we consider its safety, its speed and its sexiness. But surely its reliability should be the ultimate arbiter? What Car? examined Warranty Direct’s data on breakdowns for 50,000 insurance policies and found, for the fifth consecutive year, that the most reliable cars on the road were all made by Honda (below).

The most expensive car to repair, not surprisingly is a Porsche, with an average bill of £717. Conversely, Renaults may break down all the time, but at least they are the cheapest to repair – an average of £226 per garage visit.

The endless grey ribbon

Like most of us I spend 50 weeks of the year driving on congested, pot-holed, over-signposted roads. The other two weeks of the year are all I have to remind myself that there is another way. Last month, we headed for the southeastern corner of Spain for two weeks of sunshine. My wife organised the villa, the passports, the dog (and cat) sitter, the holiday clothes… All I had to do was sort out the flights and rent a car. Easy, 20 minutes on the computer and return flights to Alicante for five were booked and a car was reserved at Sixt.co.uk. The only problem was that the villa was actually near Almeria – not Alicante – a mere 300km away. A boring waste of time for the rest of the family, yes. But for me, a chance to drive at speed down a great chunk of the glorious E15/N7. Also known as the Autovia del Mediterráneo, this incredible strip of virtually vehicle-free, velvety smooth tarmac slices through the desert-like scrub and rugged mountains of the most arid corner of Europe. The road is actually 1,300km long and runs from Barcelona in the north to Algeciras in the south. And the best thing of all? I got to do it all again at the end of the fortnight…

Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/martinlove for all his reviews in one place

Technology: Wheels | guardian.co.uk

Suffering from back pain? Chuck out the Nurofen and buy a new Vauxhall Meriva – soon to be hated by osteopaths

Price £12,995
MPG 57.6
CO2 per km 129 grams

It’s one of the trickiest and potentially more embarrassing manoeuvres a driver has to perform – the roadside loo break. Crouching in the lee of an open door, the wind of passing traffic whistling between your bare thighs, the silent prayer a car travelling in the same direction won’t suddenly appear and leave you hopelessly exposed… Well, worry no more. The new Meriva, a stylish small family car from Vauxhall, features rear-hinged back doors which mean when you open back and front together you create a small pocket of privacy. The relief!

Much as I’d like to believe these back-to-front doors were created as the ultimate mobile comfort stop, they were designed to make access and egress to the back of the car as undemanding as possible. NHS statistics on back pain make for grim reading. Half of us will have lower-back pain this year (you may, in fact, be reading this while lying on a hard floor – in which case, I hope it passes soon); and our dodgy backs account for more sick days than anything other than, well, dodgy prawns.

Working with chiropractors, physiotherapists and design experts, Vauxhall has managed to reduce twisting and loading on the lower back by up to 58%. They have done this by creating taller doors which open wider so you don’t have to bend over as much to get in. To make that more technical: the Meriva’s rear-hinged door opens to 84 degrees – 17 degrees more than a traditional door. A grab handle on the inside of the central B-pillar also makes it easier to haul yourself out, something older passengers will appreciate. The RAC estimates that in the next 20 years there will be twice as many male drivers over 70 and three times as many female drivers over 70 – that’s a whole lot of back pain.

The sexier name for “rear-hinged back doors” is suicide doors. So named because if the door becomes unlatched at speed, the wind will snap it open. On a conventional front-hinged door, the wind forces the door shut. The Rolls- Royce Phantom and London black cab – and now the Meriva – have got round this safety problem by having a special lock that prevents the door from being opened unless the car is at a standstill. The only other cars with rear-opening back doors are currently Mazda’s RX-8 and the Mini Clubman. But they have front doors which overlap the back doors so they’re not strictly speaking suicide doors, they’re clamshell doors.

The old Meriva was the best seller in its class for seven years, so this new incarnation has a lot riding on it. It’s wider and longer than the outgoing model, but a great deal funkier. Clever cut lines around the front spotlights and below the grille give the face an expressive appeal and the wave in the window line and the stepped door panels give it a slightly zany, sculptural look.

Inside, the car follows in the soft-soled footsteps of Vauxhall’s reworked Astra and its new Insignia – it feels comfortable, contemporary and unexpectedly swanky. The car is also a compulsive hoarder’s dream. It has 32 separate storage cubbies, including a removable central console – Vauxhall came up with a list of 100 items that the typical Meriva owner would want to fit into these spaces. Engine wise, I drove the economical turbocharged diesel variant which was lively and responsive.

The Meriva won’t win awards for smoothness or the quietness of the engine, but this is a model determined to take some of the back (and bladder) pain out of family driving.

Talking dirty: white van slogans

Car sales have been in the doldrums recently, but vans have been a different story. The past year has seen purchases increase by almost 130%. So, plenty of fresh canvas for our streetwise and hilarious “dirt sloganeers” to display their wit on. Here’s a list of some of our favourites, compiled by the insurance specialists Hastings Direct. Why not see how many you can spot on the road? “I wish my wife was as dirty as this”; “I’m a Porsche in disguise”; “For sale: sponge and bucket, never used”; “Don’t wash me, plant something” and “Born to roam, no time for foam!”

Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/martinlove for all his reviews in one place

Technology: Wheels | guardian.co.uk

The DS of the 1950s may have been divinely inspired, but will Citroën’s new DS3 win a cult following?

Price £10,875
MPG 48.7
Top speed 114mph

For some fearful souls, danger lurks round every corner. But when I told my young daughter’s friend that there was a shark riding in the back of Citroën’s new supermini, the DS3, I didn’t expect her to burst into tears and refuse to get in. It seems being a “fun dad” is itself pretty hazardous. What I was (hilariously) pointing at was the car’s jagged B-pillar. An angular fin which breaks the surface of the window line with a plausible Jaws impression. It’s swimming towards the back of the car, so at least it’s moving away from you.

The dynamically stylish DS3 is named after the legendary Citroën DS of 1955, one of the most technically advanced and radically chic cars of all time. The divine Déesse was always going to be a tough act to follow, and a name can be both a blessing and a burden, but these days DS probably means Nintendo to most people, so maybe customers will just imagine that Super Mario is at the wheel.

The car is the first in Citroën’s new DS line, a range which will eventually consist of three distinctively styled and attention-grabbing vehicles. The DS4 and DS5 are set to launch in 2011 and 2012 respectively, though there seems to be no real reason to begin at 3. Maybe it’s like public school, where they start in the third form.

The little DS3 finds itself swimming in shark-infested waters. The market segment it has dived into already boasts some of the finest “premium” small cars around – there’s the Mini, Fiat’s 500 and Alfa Romeo’s MiTo. These three are a bunch of show-offs, so any mere breaststroker will quickly find themselves sinking. The DS3, therefore, comes with a raft of stand-out, head-turning design features that aim to give it a fighting chance. Simply having an efficient engine, comfortable seats, comprehensive active and passive safety features, a decent stereo and a bunch of doors is, like… whatevvvvvvur. So the DS3 has twinkling daylight running lights, a handsome double chevron chrome grille, those killer shark fins and a ”floating roof”. The rear pillars have been wrapped in glass to create the impression that the roof is levitating above the car’s low-slung rear end. It’s a brilliantly eye-catching device, but it comes at a cost – you can’t open the rear windows.

If the fins and floating roof have done their job and hooked you as a buyer, you’ll be faced with a blizzard of options. Citroën will encourage you to click on its bespoke “DS configurator” and give vent to your creative urges. There are 38 body and roof colour combinations to choose from – the wing mirrors, wheel caps, dashboard, gearstick, upholstery and even carpets can all be specified. And, the icing on the cake, you can even have your key fob matched to the colour of your car.

Given all the efforts to create an effervescent and strikingly different personality for this car, it will break the hearts of Citroën’s designers to hear that in the week I test-drove the DS3, three separate people asked me how I liked the “new Mini”. In a way they weren’t too far off the mark, as the vehicles do share the same engine – a super-responsive 156bhp 1.6-litre turbocharged power plant, which makes both cars great fun to drive.

Prices start at £10,875 and rise to £15,030 – but crucially Citroën says that all its models will be cheaper than the equivalent Mini. And they’ve chucked in the sharks for free…

Blankets on the ground: the best picnic spots

Your back is sticky, your legs have cramp and if you have to listen to one more radio adbreak you will SCREAM! Time to pull over and eat that delicious picnic you carefully threw together from what was left in the pre-holiday fridge (beetroot and Nutella sandwich, anyone?)

But where to stop? The usual sites are all litter-strewn nightmares. Thankfully, the RAC has launched picnicwithrac.co.uk – a site for sites, compiled by 4,000 of its members. And the best in the country is at the Ladybower Reservoir (above), off the A57. Just don’t forget the bottle opener…

Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/martinlove for all his reviews in one place

Technology: Wheels | guardian.co.uk

Peugeot’s 3008 is a 2×4 that likes to look, think and behave like a 4×4

PEUGEOT 3008
£17,495
MILES PER GALLON: 55.4
CO₂ PER KM: 137 GRAMS
GOOD FOR: HIGH FLYERS
BAD FOR: GROUND CREWS

Here’s something you may not know you needed: a car which can launch a glider. At long last, I hear you sigh. Having indulged in a bit of blue-sky thinking (literally), Peugeot’s press office hatched the demonstration in order to graphically show that their “Softy Walter” two-wheel drive 3008 could achieve the same levels of grip and traction on a slippery surface as a brutish “Dennis the Menace” four-wheel drive off-roader. The last time a PR department attempted a plane-pulling stunt was a couple of years ago, when VW used its massive V10 Touareg to tow a jumbo. So – pulling a glider? They’re only made of spit and sticky paper, aren’t they?

However, a little ignorance goes a long way. Normally a 500kg glider is catapulted into the air with the help of a machine called a Sky Launch – a huge, superfast winch powered by a 7.2-litre 360bhp engine. Peugeot’s 3008 is powered by a 1.6-litre 150bhp engine.

The Peugeot backed up towards the glider and a line was attached to the rear hook – a hook which would normally be used for towing caravans and small trailers. The experienced pilot climbed into the aircraft while Kevin, from the press office, donned his Top Gun sunglasses and climbed into the car. He gunned the engine, turned the grip control system to the “off-road” setting – ideal for mud and wet grass – hit the gas and blasted off across a bumpy field dragging the glider behind him. At about 50mph the glider inched off the ground before quickly soaring into the sky, while Kevin slammed on the brakes to stop him hurtling into the hedge. Ta-dah!

The 3008′s grip control has five settings: standard, snow, off-road, sand and ESP off. Clearly few will be launching gliders, but it does prove that whether it’s mud, snow or sand you are dealing with, the 3008 is master of its environment. But the real advantage of a two-wheel drive car comes when you see your fuel bill at the end of the month.

The 3008 is Peugeot’s contribution to what’s called the “crossover” market. It’s a car that aims to be all things to all drivers – part hatchback, part SUV and part MPV. If you were feeling unkind you’d say it was a Jack of all trades, master of none, but spending a week with the 3008 persuaded me that it is in fact a bit of an all-rounder. A Freddie Flintoff in the making. It has the road manners and usability of a hatchback, the modularity and load-carrying ability of an MPV, and it can put any SUV through its paces.

The cabin is light and airy. The makers have aimed for a cockpit feel. The centre console is high and the driver sits facing a bank of toggle switches which all add to that aircraft aesthetic – there is even a head-up information screen that rises out of the dashboard like the target ring on a fighter jet. The 3008 is jammed with cubbies and storage bins, and the boot has a useful split-tailgate that makes loading easy – and made quite a good rainy-day picnic table, too. The car also comes with a panoramic roof, at a reasonable £350 extra, which creates a vast glass ceiling. Ideal for keeping an eye on that glider.?

martin.love@observer.co.uk

Technology: Wheels | guardian.co.uk

It’s a Renault Clio, but not as you know it. Martin Love straps himself into an old-style hot hatch

RENAULTSPORT 200 CUP CLIO
£15,750
TOP SPEED: 141MPH
MILES PER GALLON: 34.4
GOOD FOR: SPEED FREAKS
BAD FOR: SPEED BUMPS
Mud snorkelling, naked cycling, speed eating… I’m happy to take my sporting pleasures where I find them, but I didn’t imagine I’d ever find myself ringside for a spot of “precision parking”. Yes, parking can yield hilarious results. Watching my neighbour snag his bumper on a full wheelie bin and empty its contents across the road was an event I wouldn’t have wanted to miss. But this is extreme parking. These are drivers who spin their cars through 360 degrees before popping them into spaces which make Posh Spice look wide. The world record is held by Terry Grant, who reverse-swerved his Renault into a slot only 32cm longer than the overall length of his car. Impressive stuff and it made me wonder what he could have pulled off with the Renaultsport 200 Cup – which, in case you hadn’t spotted, is actually a Clio – with too few X chromosomes.

It’s exactly 20 years since the first Clio was produced – taking over the mantle of the much-loved Renault 5. Since then it has consistently been one of Renault’s top-selling models. It’s been the European Car of the Year twice, and its famous ad campaign starring Thierry Henry (this is pre “Hand of Henry” days) cemented the car’s place in our psyche. The ad’s tagline, “va-va-voom”, is now even listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. However, fans of fluffy romance and sentimentality are in for a wake-up call with this Clio. The Renaultsport 200 Cup is a full-on street fighter – fast, furious and quite the most uncomfortable car you’ll ever travel in. But then this is a car that isn’t built for comfort; it’s all about performance. Other than the figure-hugging Recaro bucket seats, Renault hasn’t wasted a penny on soft furnishings for its small, snappy beastie. The interior finish is plasticky and unforgiving. There isn’t even a clip to hold the tool kit in place – just a cable tie, which is quite something considering the car costs 15 grand.

So what do you get for your money? You get a phenomenal 1,998cc, 200hp four-cylinder petrol engine which offers the highest power-to-weight ratio in its class. You get a top speed of 141mph and a 0-62mph time of 6.9 seconds. You get a super stiff, lowered chassis. You get a longer and wider wheelbase which, along with the double-axis strut front suspension, means you get a car that sticks to the road like nylon sheets stick to your shoulders on a fetid night. You get performance, speed and grip by the bucketload and if you are fluent in the thrills of tight turns and electric straights, then the 200 Cup speaks your language.

“Great. That’s the motor for me,” I hear you say. “In Alien Green, with chrome exhausts and a yellow F1-inspired dashboard.” And maybe it is. But after a week of having my brain shaken over speed bumps, of manically careering away from traffic lights, of straddling the uncomfortable seats, I was happy to give it back. Maybe that says more about me, but I was more than relieved to park it at the end of the week, carefully, and with plenty of space at both ends.?

martin.love@observer.co.uk

Technology: Wheels | guardian.co.uk

Lexus’s luxurious new four-seat convertible should be a no brainer. But Martin Love finds himself in two minds

LEXUS 250 ISC
£34,550
MILES PER GALLON: 31
CO₂ PER KM: 214 GRAMS
GOOD FOR: MAY
BAD FOR: DECEMBER
It is an irony of modern life that the more choice we are offered, the less we seem able to make a decision. We can choose where to shop, where to send our kids to school and in which hospital we’d like to have our hernia repaired (“A clinic with a view of the river and a doctor who smells of apricots”). But the reality is we shop at the nearest supermarket, the children go to their local school and the hospital is the one with a cancellation “in 12 days, thank you very much”. Choice is just an illusion, an extra layer of perceived value, created by marketeers. And nowhere is this better demonstrated than the world of folding hard-top sports cars.

The myth: a high performance, four-seat coupe that turns into a roomy cabriolet at the flick of the button. The reality: a wildly over-engineered two seater with space in the back for a pair of size-00 models that turns into an awkward-looking cabriolet with a small boot at the flick of a button.

If you want a proper sports car/family car/convertible car/sensible car/luxury car… buy one. All-in-one varieties are almost always a compromise. Surely it’s better to excel in one field than muddle through in several.

This week I’ve been driving Lexus’s 250 ISC – the convertible variant of the sublimely sensible and wonderfully driveable IS range. Unfortunately, the seven days I spent behind the wheel coincided with one of the wettest weeks we’ve had since we went camping this summer in Devon, so I barely managed to open the roof. But that doesn’t matter, because the joy of this type of car is that it shines come rain or… well, shine. It’s a family car for sunny escapes and rainy returns. So we headed out to the countryside for a relaxed family lunch. Within 30 minutes the teens in the back were complaining of claustrophobia, nausea and boredom (no change there, then).

Up front, I pulled my seat forward to create a wafer-thin-mint’s worth of extra legroom for their Uggs in the back. But the moaning continued. We tried to hypnotise them by playing loud music, but the stereo developed a nervous tic and kept jumping to Classic FM, which drove them mad. In an attempt to keep the peace, my wife took the wheel and I swapped into the back. I could see what the teens meant – about the space at least. The music sounded wonderful.

Later, I went for a drive on my own. There was more space, I moved the seat back so my head was no longer rubbing on the roof. The car’s handling and performance, clearly aimed at Corniche-style cruising, came into its own. It felt refined, mature, even stately. But also a little sluggish. Everything is so damped and weighted and luxurious you feel like you’re driving through a Mogadon haze. Finally, the rain stopped and a full moon broke from behind the clouds. I whipped open the roof – a mere 21 seconds thanks to the car’s 15 different roof motors and 37 individual sensors. If the coupe-for-four was a disappointment, the cabriolet-for-one was a relief. And maybe that’s the real choice to make here. A family car to enjoy in the company of yourself.?

martin.love@observer.co.uk

Technology: Wheels | guardian.co.uk

Peugeot celebrates an impressive milestone with the launch of its RCZ – just don’t say it looks like an Audi

Price £19,593
MPG 40.9
0-60mph 8.3 seconds

Remember the last time you bought a car? The poring over comparison websites, the cold anguish of price, the heady realisation that you were at last dumping the old biscuit tin for something with a radio that actually worked. You weighed up economy, comfort, safety, and all the indicators pointed to a super-reliable three-year-old Toyota Auris. If only your heart would boot your head into touch and let you buy something like this: a hedonistic coupé with stunted back seats and a sale tag twice what you’d allocated…

There’s much to admire about the RCZ (and no it’s not “Arsey Zed”), but it has one particular feature which is a game changer. Stand behind the car, let your eyes trail over its muscular rear and up towards the low-slung roof and they’ll come to rest on the cute coupé’s deliciously voluptuous back window – two perfect curves of glass merging seemlessly with the twin humps of the roof. This is the “double bubble”, the RCZ’s “wow” feature, and for the wavering purchaser it’s a deal-sealer.

It was originally called the 308 RCZ as so much of the car is based on the 308, Peugeot’s bestselling family hatchback. But the makers quickly realised the RCZ was the pretty butterfly that has hatched from the workmanlike pupa of the 308 and it was deemed best not to remind go-faster punters of the car’s sedentary roots.

The RCZ has been greeted on the streets and in showrooms with barely concealed astonishment that Peugeot could make such a gem of a car. A Peugeot? What? But that is a disservice to the great French marque. It’s true that the model line-up has been peppered with some forgettable cars in the past, but Peugeot has a long and glorious heritage. The ingenious folding metal roof, for instance, sported by all of today’s coupé cabriolets, first appeared as long ago as the 1930s on the sublimely elegant Peugeot 401 Eclipse.

Stand back from the RCZ and Audi’s iconic TT immediately springs to mind. The silhouette is so similar to the German wundercar that patent layers must have been rubbing their hands with glee. But there is one crucial difference: the Peugeot is £8,000 cheaper – low enough to woo buyers away from their Audi default setting. Despite the paysan price, this French car has set its sights on the bourgeoisie. It’s solid, well-built and luxuriously appointed. It also has a (probably pointless) self-raising rear spoiler which lifts your spirits every time it rises out of the bodywork.

On the downside, the RCZ is blessed with two vestigial back seats which have as much in common with actual seats as your coccyx does with a usable tail. They seem partially developed, as if the designers have asked themselves what they can put in this space between the (already roomy) boot and the (very comfortable) front seats. A pet cage? A gaming console? Two shrunken chairs for size-00 models?

It is now 200 years since the Peugeot brothers, Jean-Pierre and Jean-Frédéric, established a company in their father’s corn mill selling saws and tools, steel crinoline stays, salt and pepper mills and coffee grinders. Bicycles, motorcycles and cars soon followed and the firm has sold more than 55m vehicles worldwide. To celebrate its bicentennial, the manufacturer has unveiled a new slogan (“Motion & Emotion”) and a refreshed two-tone Lion emblem. The Lion was originally adopted to illustrate the strength of the teeth of the brothers’ handsaws. With the RCZ, it looks like Peugeot may once again have found its bite…

Testing times: a century of L plates

Mirror, signal, manoeuvre… This year BSM (bsm.co.uk) celebrates its 100th birthday, and much has changed on our roads since Stanley Roberts offered the country’s first driving lesson in a Spyker which he kept at his mother’s garage in Peckham Rye, south London. It was another 24 years before the first compulsory driving test was introduced, in 1934, and within a year deaths on the road had fallen by nearly 1,000 to 7,343. Since then road deaths have been cut by two-thirds despite the fact that the number of cars on our roads has risen 1,400% from 2.4m to 34m. Cars today are clearly safer and easier to drive – and tests harder to pass.

Foreign road, familiar car

As the schools wind up and many of us escape the vagaries of the British weather for the guaranteed sunshine of Spain, Portugal and southern France, the old problem of which holiday car to rent raises its head. For years, I’ve opted for the default setting of the cheapest, most economical vehicle possible. But after driving almost 1,000km in a Fiat Panda last year, I’ve decided to treat myself to something more rewarding. Glancing at the comprehensive fleet list of Sixt (sixt.co.uk) I begin to dream: maybe I should try something new, like the electric Citroen C1 evie, or maybe I should make the most of the open roads with an open top VW Eos or a top of the range Mercedes-Benz SLK? I see hardscarves, white-rimmed sunglasses, the clink of cocktail glasses… Then, after a few idle moments of fantasy on the Sixt website, I do what everyone else does – go for the Golf!

Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/martinlove for all his reviews in one place

Technology: Wheels | guardian.co.uk

Compact, tough, aggressive… The new Polo would make a great rugby player

VW POLO
FROM £9,435
MILES PER GALLON: 51.4
CO₂ PER KM: 128 GRAMS
GOOD FOR: RUCKS & MAULS
BAD FOR: SHOPPING MALLS

The charismatic coach of my young son’s rugby team – a front-row veteran of many campaigns and a fearsome master of the dark arts of scrummaging – is a great believer in the inspirational sporting slogan. He bellows these from the touchline, and loves to print them up on the team’s kit. We’ve had “Pain is just weakness leaving the body”; “Pain is temporary, trophies last forever” and “Mini rugby: half the size, twice as mean”. And “Small but tough!” – the advertising tag line for the latest Polo, VW’s most feisty and endlessly durable veteran – could easily be one of his.

So omnipresent is VW’s second-bestselling car, that 34 years after it first went on sale, the Polo is now inseparable from its moniker. Mention the word “polo” and there are few among us who still have a mental image of a snaggletoothed hooray in tight white trousers staring down from his horse. Most of us will think of our first car… (Incidentally, after the Golf and the Polo, I’ve always felt the motoring public would welcome a VW Rugby.)

This latest edition of the Polo is the fifth generation to have gone on sale. With each iteration it has become longer, wider, taller – and cleverer. I owned a Mark II Polo back in the early 90s and for me its most pleasing aspect was the fact that it was simple and sturdy… Still, we can’t reverse to those heady low-tech days. Modern cars have to be larger to accommodate all the extra technology and safety features they now come packed with, and possibly also the fact that we are all getting larger, too (though not necessarily cleverer). This “biggest-ever” Polo is actually 7.5% lighter than the outgoing model, which contributes to its higher fuel economy and lower emissions. It is, reassuringly, 20% cleaner than the Mark IV.

The appearance of the car comes from the pen of VW’s head of design, Walter de Silva, so it’s no surprise that it looks like a slightly shrunken version of the Golf. While most things (photos, stews, waistlines) improve as they are reduced, the diminutive Polo now looks a bit overwhelmed by its large lower lip and wide grille. It may share the same “face” as many other cars in the VW line-up, but as we all know the same features can look dramatically different across a family. (The bulbous “Love nose” my brother and I have both inherited doesn’t look half as bad on our father.) The car comes with five engine choices and four trim levels, so there’s something for everyone, from teens to pensioners. And all variants have airbags, ABS and ESP fitted as standard. This year alone, VW expects to sell just under 40,000 of these Polos in the UK – to add to the 1m previously sold in Britain and the 10m-plus worldwide.

Despite the fact that the year has only just begun and the car has just gone on sale, the Polo has already been named Car of the Year 2010 – narrowly pipping Toyota’s brilliant IQ into second, with the new Astra taking bronze.

So, small but tough and now it seems unbeatable, too. If only I could say the same about my son’s rugby team…?

martin.love@observer.co.uk

Technology: Wheels | guardian.co.uk

The Subaru Legacy Tourer is a master of disguise

SUBARU LEGACY TOURER
£23,295
CO₂ PER KM: 148 GRAMS
MILES PER GALLON: 54.4
GOOD FOR: FAST ROADS
BAD FOR: SMALL LOADS

Christian Louboutin gives his stilettos blood-red soles, Paul Smith lines his jackets with candy stripes… and Subaru pierces the bonnets of its cars with exquisite sculpted air-intakes. A promising bulge, filled with potential, that lifts the car from workaday motor to transport of delight. It hints at thrust, power, smoking tyres and, to your inner boy-in-shorts, it shouts “This car goes fast.”

The scoop has featured on many Subarus down the years, most memorably on Colin McRae’s multi-titled Impreza – a beefed-up diamond blue rally monster which had all the swagger needed to carry off such an outlandish body contour. But the Subaru I’ve been driving this past week appears to have all the attitude of a librarian with a taste for early English chamber music. It does have interesting wraparound headlamps and a fairly sporty derrière, but in a car park it wouldn’t stand out. Which makes that telltale scoop all the more intriguing.

The car is a Legacy and it is the first car to be fitted with an oil-burning boxer diesel engine. Car makers love to claim firsts – and more often than not they’re simply old ideas reheated and served up with a large dollop of PR spin – but Subaru’s technological first has created a diesel that behaves like a petrol. For those of you not fine-tuned to the fascinating nuances of these two energy sources, this means that the Legacy is smooth, refined and yet economical – that’s the theory anyway.

The Legacy has just celebrated its 20th anniversary, and this latest model of the Subaru flagship is wider, longer and taller than the one that went before. It looks fresh, clean and neat. And in pearlescent satin white it has a pleasingly uncluttered look. If a car were to look Japanese, this would be it. More than 3.6m Legacys have been sold in the past two decades and this fifth-generation edition will certainly add to that total. It’s an impressive drive – responsive, alert and obedient. The exact opposite, in fact, of my teenage children. There’s also a sense of robustness about the car. I remember seeing a Subaru Forester slither down a muddy bank before falling on to its side. Four passersby pushed it back on to its wheels and the driver, still belted in his seat, waved and drove off as if he’d simply stopped at a red light.

Inside, the story is less promising. It’s certainly comfortable and spacious, but it seems to have borrowed its styling from a 1970s stereo system – all blue flashing lights and annoyingly small buttons. In the rarefied atmosphere above 20 grand, nothing short of sumptuousness is acceptable. There are a few gremlins that need to be put out of their misery, too. The only way to open the doors when the engine was running was to turn it off. And the button-operated handbrake was placed above a small access hatch which kept coming off in my hand… More alarmingly, the official consumption figures – and the very raison d’etre of the boxer engine – were way off mark. But for the driver in search of an estate which handles like a car rather than a block of flats, the Legacy is definitely a test drive.?

martin.love@observer.co.uk

Technology: Wheels | guardian.co.uk

It’s one of Vauxhall’s best-ever cars. But will the Astra be GM’s star performer?

VAUXHALL ASTRA
FROM £16,010
MILES PER GALLON: 51.4
CO₂ PER KM: 129 GRAMS
GOOD FOR: OPENING UP
BAD FOR: CLOSING DOWN

They say it’s usually darkest just before dawn. And the past six months have certainly seen Vauxhall and its parent company General Motors face some of their darkest hours. Yet as management has fought to keep its stricken ship afloat, the designers and mechanics have kept their heads down and responded in the only way they could – they’ve built what some critics are hailing as their best car ever. Hyperbole? I don’t think so. This latest generation Astra, the sixth since it first hit our roads, is the real deal. The only question is: is it the 70th-minute impact sub GM needs it to be?

The Astra has a colossal battle on its hands. The hatchback segment of the market is one of the most fiercely contested in the UK, accounting for almost a fifth of all car sales. Worse still, the Astra goes toe-to-toe with two of the best vehicles on the road – Ford’s Focus (the bestselling car in Europe for the past decade) and VW’s Golf (Top Gear magazine recently hailed the GTi as “the most complete motoring package on the planet”). Neither will be in any mood to relinquish their titles. If the Astra were a rugby player it would be time to reach for the fake blood capsules…

Britain has had a long affair with Vauxhall – though it’s mostly been an affair of convenience and economy rather than passion. Vauxhalls are cheap, available and rewarding in a workmanlike way. They are the most-stolen cars on our roads and the most popular in the second-hand market. But hardly your heart’s desire. This new Astra, however, will push all your buttons. For a start it doesn’t really look like an Astra; it looks more like an Alfa Romeo – particularly in lipstick red. It’s sleek, smooth and curvy. The old Astras were all about sharp edges and flat panels. But it is on the inside that Vauxhall has really upped its game, swapping dull dependability for a lacquering of everyday luxury. It’s roomy, comfortable and usable, of course, but there’s a patina of posh about the whole operation. And everything from the “gooseneck” door handles to the embedded uplighters round the gear stick and the glowing tips on instrument needles reveals that Vauxhall has gone the extra mile.

The design team has also thought about the needs of real drivers. Crash dummies don’t worry about where to put their loose change or that tattered road atlas. But the Astra comes with a bucketload of simple, effective storage solutions: a hard-shelled sunglasses case above the door; moulded coin slots and pen holders; a centre console for CD cases; large cup holders that’ll fit a drinks bottle and even an under-seat drawer big enough to hold a spare pair of shoes. It drives well, a new chassis and suspension means it tackles our dreadful roads with all the vigour of Joe Worsley hunting down a wild-eyed fly half, and, among a comprehensive range of engines, a 1.4-litre turbo petrol knocks out more than 50 miles to the gallon.

It’s built in Britain, too, at Ellesmere Port, which first built the Vauxhall Viva in 1963 and can now turn out more than 500 Astras a day. All you need to do is buy one of them – soon.?

martin.love@observer.co.uk

Technology: Wheels | guardian.co.uk