Autocar - First for car news and reviews

First of all I would like to thank all of you for posting your super clever suggestions for getting my backside into an interesting seven-seater.

Grateful as I am for the input – I must confess to having completely ignored it. Which is why I’m now the proud owner of a 112,000 mile Volvo V70, 2000 on the “W” and powered by the 2.4-litre petrol engine.

It does fulfil the basic criteria of seating seven, although with two of those rear-facing pop-up seats in the boot.

Every so often in this job, we get lucky enough to live out deepest-rooted dreams, and so it was for me in Italy last week.

I was there to do a story about the Bertone BAT11 concept that you can read about in next week’s mag, a handsome recreation of one of the company’s 1950s one-offs. The venue for the story was Stile Bertone, the company’s design centre, housed in a wonderful architect-designed building which features a wing full of Bertone’s most famous car designs.

The classic collection reads like a world’s best list - Alfa Giulietta and Montreal, Lamborghini Miura and Countach, Lancia Stratos, Iso Rivolta  — and all kept in running order.

After an hour or so chatting, Bertone’s Scottish-born design director David Wilkie made the offer of a life-time: “We could get a couple of cars out of the collection for you to drive if you’d like...”

I’ve been thinking some more about my idea to ‘lay down’ a car and preserve it as a factory-fresh example so I can enjoy it in as-new condition a decade down the line. 

Of course, simply not using a car is one of the worst things you can do to it. Leaving it in a garage is terrible for the mechanical components over time. Brake and clutch hydraulics will stick and seize, electrical items will fail, windows stick in their runners and – if left for long enough – the fuel will turn gloopy and gum up the fuel lines and injection systems.

Preserving the car requires a careful regime of care and attention. It needs to be used regularly, sparingly and correctly – and stored in a ‘Carcoon’ to prevent moisture build-up.

When the pictures of the new Ferrari California landed in my inbox this morning I breathed a sigh of relief. 

You see we’ve been tracking this car for so long and published so many stories and spy shots that I’m glad it’s finally out in the open and no longer subject to speculation and rumour.

That said, I’m proud to say that Autocar broke the story of the new GT in a world exclusive over three years ago. In fact I’ve just dragged out the issue (12^th April 2005).

I can remember it particularly well as I wrote the coverlines: “New Dino” it screamed (OK allow me some artistic license) and our sources at the time reckoned it would arrive in 2007 (so five months out).

On a recent trip to Saab’s Trollhatten hometown, I drove the hour or so north from Gothenburg airport in a 9-5.

I figured it could be last chance I’d get to sample one of the oldest cars on sale. The all-new 9-5 arrives early next year replacing the current model, which was launched in 1997. Indeed, only the Ford Ka, Land Rover Defender and Volkswagen Sharan spare the big Saab’s blushes as the oldest car still in production.

Yet despite its pension book, I’ve always had a soft spot for this big machine, being a particular fan of the interior, seats, turbocharged four-cylinder engines and the crash protection.

If you’re calling about the car, it’s already gone. Selling my 2001 Seat Toledo TDI has delivered a fascinating insight into the dynamics of the modern car market. Main dealers might be filled with tumbleweed and racks of yellowing brochures, but demand for sub-£3000 diesels invokes an analogy concerning hot cakes.

Indeed, despite 93,000 miles and a reasonable crop of stone chips, my Toledo sold to the first punter to come and see it – for just £150 less than the keen price I was asking for it. I’m not surprised: soaring fuel prices mean that a realistic 48mpg is hugely compelling at the bottom end of the market.