Wheels-Near-U blog

Our motor critic of the week this week: Chris Chilton – a car enthusiast and ex Mechanic who has worked as a motor journalist for several years. Currently writing for CAR magazine, Chris offer’s a to the point soba view on the cars of today.

Here is some quotes from one of his latest articles where he test drove the Maserati GranTurismo.

“Scything through turns, leather driving gloves rarely shifting from ten-to-two on the Nardi wheel, dispatching lines of asthmatic super minis without car or driver breaking a sweat.” - Maserati GranTurismo in Italy

“it steers accurately, if without being overly talkative, as we start climbing snow-ward and the perforated leather wheel is above as perfect as they come, superbly shaped, not too big or too fat and without a nonsensical flat bottom” - Maserati GranTurismo Steering

“Its like saying the Landrover 110 and and M3 are the same length so they must be similar to drive” -Factory Figures from Maserati

“The GT’s three-card winning hand is the cachet of the Maserati’s name, styling that’s as distinctive as the BMW’s but less derivative than the Jag’s and a package that’s rarer than either can afford“ – Maserati Gran Turismo

Keep up the good work Chris.

This week we revisit Clarkson as our Motor Critic of the week, his witty reviews of cars provide a good proportion of comic critique and unfiltered opinion:

“I rang up Jay Kay, who’s got one, and said, “You know, can we borrow yours?” and he said, “Yeah, if I can borrow your daughter, because it amounts to the same thing.” – Jeremy on Jay Kay’s Ferrari Enzo

“Ferrari is so pleased with it, they’ve named it after the founder of the company. They call it the Enzo. That’d be the same as Lotus calling their next car…”The Colin”. ” – Ferrari Enzo

“It’s supposed to be easier to live with, and easier to drive… so has it worked? – Oh.. Ohh, my God. No… no… no, no, no. No. No. No, it hasn’t. ” – TVR Tuscan 2

“You see, my wife loves this car. She loves the noise and the vibrations and the sense of danger and the way that when you over-rev it, the whole dash lights up like a baboon’s backside. Richard Hammond on the other hand, he pretty much hates it. He says its too difficult and too complicated and that all the stitching in here looks like the kind of stitching you find when someone’s tried to mend their own shoes.” – TVR Tuscan 2

We have constructed a page along side this blog series of all the motoring quotes we collect. This is viewable from the following link – read the best, funniest and most quality motor critics around:

http://www.wheels-near-u.co.uk/motor_critic_of_the_week_quotes

AA Gill (Adrian Anthony Gill) is a well known British critic, whose writing stems far from the British newspaper column. He has written critique on a huge range of things, offering restaurant reviews with harsh clarity. Most recently he was known as the man that Gordon Ramsey threw out (along with Joan Collins) as in a review he called him a wonderful chef, but a “second-rate human being”.

He may at times not be too everyone’s taste, but he says what he thinks, which in the end is the critics job. He has one countless awards including Times Magazine Columnist of the year and Travelex’s Travel writer of the year.

However this week we focus on some quotes from AA Gill’s latest review on the Mini Cooper S, which includes comments about his own experience with his second hand Bentley.

” There’s a boot you could pack the entire cast of The Sopranos in, and under the bonnet there appears to be a medium-sized nuclear reactor.” - Gill on His old Bentley.

” The Mini Cooper S is a tardis car. It pretends to be small and neat and sylphlike, but the driver’s bit inside is huge” – New Mini Cooper S

” Is that a tap or does it turn on the lights?” – Mini Cooper S Controls

“What it’s actually like is a contemporary comprehensive kid compared with a skinny free-milk kid of the Sixties.” – AA Gill compares the new mini with the old.
“ Secondhand Bentleys are so big that they can park in two style zones simultaneously. They’re deeply cool and fundamentally uncool at the same time” – Bentleys

” The Bentley is near-on 30 years old. It was built in Britain by hand. It had three or four owners before me. It’ll probably have five or six more and go on for another 20 years. That’s impeccable recycling.” – AA Gill’s thoughts on how a Bentley is more eco-friendly than a Mini Cooper S.