Born To Be Riled

by

Jeremy Clarkson

Reviewed by Eddie Wren

All contents copyright ©, Drive and Stay Alive, Inc., 2003, unless specified otherwise. All rights reserved.

IMPORTANT: click here to read the DISCLAIMER

Love him or hate him -- and unfortunately it seems that quite a lot of British folk do fall into the latter category -- Jeremy Clarkson is a breath of fresh air to the world of automotive writing. He doesn't just call a spade a spade, he'll call it a bloody big, ugly shovel if he's that way inclined.

The foreword to this book, by way of example, starts thus:  "As a motoring journalist, you spend much of your life on exotic car launches, feeding from the bottomless pit of automotive corporate hospitality. And then you come home to tailor a story that perfectly meets the needs of the public relations department that funded it. For sure, you dislike the new 'xyz' but what the hell. Say it's fabulous and you're sure to be invited on the next exotic press launch. And so what if some poor sucker reads what you say and buys this hateful car? You're never going to meet him because by then you'll be on another press launch, in Africa maybe, trying out the 'zxy'...

     "I learned... that the single most important feature of motoring journalism -- or any kind of journalism for that matter -- is speaking your mind. You mustn't become [a ventriloquist's dummy] with a PR man's hand up your bottom..."

One problem for all readers of this book is that effectively none of the 181 articles, drawn from Clarkson's magazine and newspaper columns, give the date they were first published. If you are British or have some other grasp of the relevant time factors, that's not too bad -- irksome, but tolerable -- but if you aren't even from Britain then you might really struggle with the context of many of the pieces. That said, if you like humorous sarcasm of the sharpest order, or bluntness that makes even the innocent reader wince -- let alone the auto executives at whom barbed comments are aimed -- then this book is truly for you, wherever you are from!

Volvo appears early, not only in the book but also in the overall time frame covered by the articles. The event? The transition "from a music hall joke into a serious and credible BMW rival..." (I.E. the arrival and evolution of the 850.) 

     "Then Volvo gave us the T5. And before everyone woke up to the fact that this was a really nice car to drive, and seriously fast, too, Volvo had entered the world's most prestigious racing series for saloon [i.e. sedan] cars. Only they'd entered an estate [station wagon].  [The series is called the British Touring Car Championships.]

     "There was turmoil in the motoring world. 'No,' we said to them politely, 'It's not the British TOWING Car Championships'...

     "Things were by now out of control because to run alongside the T5, Volvo brought out an even meaner T5R...

     "Saab once said you can't put more than 170 bhp through the front wheels. But Volvo has anyway [250 bhp], and they've ended up with a car that you drive like your trousers are on fire...

     "And there you have it: an entire piece about Volvo where the word 'safety' didn't crop up once."

More giggle-till-it-hurts facts about auto writers emerge in a piece called "Secret Crash Testing Revealed":

"When you read a road test report in any newspaper or magazine, you will learn how a car handles at its very limits of adhesion.

     "The reporter will tell you that on a twisting mountain road in the South of France he hurled the new model into a series of fast, sweeping bends, and felt the front tyres fighting for grip under acceleration, and the back swaying this way and that under braking.

     "Amazing. The guy has flown out there, climbed into a car that he's never even seen before, and within hours he's taking it right to the outer reaches of its performance envelope... without crashing.

     "Formula One drivers test their cars week in and week out. They're on first name terms with every nut and bolt. They could drive each corner blindfolded. And yet even the great Michael Schumacher is capable of flying off the track backwards from time to time. So what's going on here?

     "Well a motoring journalist must try to convince his readers that he is, in fact, a great deal more talented than Michael Schumacher and the only reason he isn't out there in an F1 Ferrari is that he's too fat...

     "So if we crash -- and we do, a lot -- then it is important to keep the fact hidden from our readers.

     "Did you, for instance, ever hear about the chap who missed a signpost while driving a £30,000 [US$50,000] Mercedes G Wagen alongside a river in Scotland? I was following him at the time and remember well the moment when it stopped bouncing along the bottom and began to move in a serene and graceful way ... like it was floating. Which it was.

     "It bobbed along for some time while the public relations man hopped about on the bank wondering what on earth to do. Either he could get the ghillie [i.e. a fisheries version of a gamekeeper] to pull it out with his landrover, in which case the pictures would appear in every newspaper the next day. Or he could let it sink so no one would have anything to point their cameras at.

     "He let it sink.

     "Then there was the guy who stuffed a Ford RS200 into one of Scotland's more pointy parts. He claims he went off the road in this £50,000 [US$83,000], mid-engined supercar to spare the life of a £40 sheep which had wandered into his path..."

Out of the 181 articles in this book, I could probably count on the fingers of one hand those that didn't have me in some degree of delight or even muscle-tearing hilarity.

Does the bold Jeremy ever do anything wrong in my estimation? Yes; he's occasionally too dismissive on safety issues which is regrettable, given his level of influence. Will that stop me reading his articles and books?  Not before Hell proverbially freezes over. On those days when somebody (me included) has taken themselves a bit too seriously, there is nothing like a chapter of Clarkson, at bedtime, to get some perspective back into things.

Even after many readings, this is a book that can always generate tears of mirth.

ISBN 0 563 53816 3  (paperback).  Published by BBC Worldwide, Ltd., London.  UK price: £6.99