Just make sure you’re at the Beckford Arms by 9am, said Saunders, our organiser, not sounding excessively Christmassy. Truth be told, 9am did seem a touch early for something billed as a convivial pub lunch where a group of road-testing mates would embrace the Christmas spirit, especially as said Georgian public house is a good two hours from the office in wildest Wiltshire.
Of course, we knew the real reason for the early start. The one thing about gatherings of drivers and cars – from which words and photographs will be extracted – is that they begin in an early, time-eating frenzy of car arranging and cleaning, followed by an extended bout of camera action and then some more arranging and shooting after that, just to be sure.
Then will come action shots, during which (especially at this time of the year) the cars get covered with road gunge in their first 100 yards, so you’ll have to clean them again. Sure, there will be a nice lunch in the middle of it all, but the surrounding activities will ensure the day doesn’t end until daylight runs out around 4.30pm – and I’ve seen many a photographer (to a person, they’re obsessives) extend winter shoots by illuminating one car with the headlights of another.
Not that I want to sound less than profoundly enthusiastic about our Christmas junket: this was, after all, a gathering of the finest road-testing talent this side of the equator; a team of enthusiasts driving and gassing as usual about their favourite cars and little else. For a whole day.
Besides road test editor Matt Saunders, who chose to appear in a vast red and black Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, there was Matt Prior in a svelte 600bhp Polestar 1 plug-in hybrid coupé, Andrew Frankel in a magisterial Porsche 911 and James Disdale in a BMW 320d Touring, his version of 2019’s perfect family car. Simon Davis’s choice was a Toyota Supra, almost scary in its extreme yellowness, and Ricky Lane’s McLaren 600LT was the major eye-grabber of the group despite a calm grey-green paint job. Finally, there was me in a white Tesla Model 3 Long Range, a car that has profoundly surprised and impressed me during the year. I looked forward to justifying my choice to the blokes.
Join the debate
Add your comment
Inclusivity and relevance
Seeing all the Autocar road testers together it strikes me how white, middle aged and male the team is; there is expertise in this set up absolutely, but are there not other voices we want to hear? Where are the women testers? Does the readership, assuming they are not the same demographic, not want to see more representation ?
The choice of cars too, (Tesla excluded), makes me question the relevance to todays requirements; the whole article and set up feels like an indulgence, and while dream cars are technically incredible, where are the affordable choices here?
Im a little disappointed to say the least
incl&rel
My thanks to keeforelli for writing my comment for me.
keeforelli wrote:
I am NOT disapointed. As someone who is middle aged, many of the Autocar team are quite a bit younger than me. Their choices are not affordable, because they are free to choose what ever they want. If they had all turned up in city cars it would be a rather poor read.
I enjoy Autocar, but frequently dont agree with what they write. What a dull world it would be if we did all agree. If you dont like it, either put up with it, or go read What car?
keeforelli wrote:
Have to disagree, the Tesla you excluded should also be joined by the jeep and the 3 series tourer as non indulgence purchases, yes they're all beyond my means but they aren't over indulgences, neither I would say is the supra or 911 really, the McLaren is but it's his choice of best car of the year. As for the road test team, there appears, to me anyway, to be a reasonable age span between them and I am sure there are more writers on Autocar staff than just this group as you see more names added to reviews of cars in the magazine. This seems an unnecessary criticism of a fun article.
si73 wrote:
i see what you're saying, it is a fun article, i read it, and understood the point of it, however in these times of representation what a great opportunity it would have been to give some of the less senior staff a chance to share their favourite cars, and maybe have added in some affordable heroes =)
Agreed, great article, but
This is all very subjective stuff but on another day, another group of testers would pick a completely different set of cars - all chosen by a different selection of whims. Much the same thing happens with regular road tests, where editorial pressures encourage the selection of "winners" and "loosers", irrespective of the fact that most cars within a given category are pretty much all the same. (They have to be since all manufacturers benchmark each others products to ensure that when a car is launched it at least matches the competition).
No matter, it's always fun to disscuss the relative percieved merits of each model...
Fun read but...
Richard Lane's dismissal of the 7 series is somewhat bizarre! He says it's very capable car in pretty much all respects, but then includes it as one of the most disappointing cars only because of its grille, which let's be honest is a fairly minor subjective thing. More to the point, 7's new grille is no bigger than the grilles on its S-Class, A8, XJS, Lexus rivals.
Please remember, the moaning
Please remember, the moaning point provided by BMW in the form of the 7 series' grille probably payed around 70 car journalist's salaries. So it was worth it in the end.