I spied an interesting hashtag on Twitter recently – #10yearsago, which threw up some interesting tweets. 

This got me thinking: what was I doing 10 years ago? Something very significant, that’s what.

I joined Motoring Research, as Staff Writer.

This was back in April 2001, after freelancing for a few months on the launch of the MSN Cars account.

It certainly doesn’t feel like a decade (a decade!) ago. I can still remember my nervous first day, the first cup of Nescafe Alta Rica (favoured choice in the office) I drank, my first iBook computer which remains safely stored in my desk to this day.

The first press car I drove on my first day is also stored in the memory bank: an Audi A4 1.8T. In blue. Driven after a call to the Audi press office, and a much-appreciated OK on the insurance check.

Good job: my first press launch was also an Audi event – the C5 A6 facelift. Flying from the Stansted Harrods business terminal to Germany, to drive a left-hand drive car for the first time, abroad for the first time, on my own.

It was all a bit fraught, as was heading down to the press conference, then dinner, then the shock of the post-dinner trek to the bar: I only had €20 and this was an expensive-looking hotel. Ah, how naive…

An hour later, I was playing darts with James May and Richard Hammond, both in pre-TopGear days, being described as the new chap and slowly becoming less awkwardly starstruck.

The thrill remains to this day, though. For people like me, this is unquestionably the best job in the world.

10 years ago, then, my professional motoring journalism career began. That’s not a bad call for  #10yearsago tweet, is it?

So, does anyone else have any motoring journalism memories from 10 years ago?

First press car drive

Audi A4 1.8T

First computer

iBook

First project

MSN Cars – vehicle information pages (model history)

First launch

Audi A6 facelift

God is in the details and creating those details keeps thousands in the automotive industry gamefully occupied across the globe. 

Spending time with a car reveals more and more of them. Running a long-term test car gives you the best opportunity of all to spot and savour them.

My current long-termer is an Audi A6 Avant. Here, thus, is a running photolog of these details.

Up close and personal with an Audi A6 Avant? You’ve got it…

Aircraft-style centre console lighting at night, complete with red downlighters.

Remember the crescent-shaped auxiliary dials on the Porsche 996 and 997? Here they are, in digitised form.

The feature-packed climate control display up front is, as an option, replicated in simplified form in the rear too.

My latest long-termer is an Audi A6 Avant, conveniently timed to coincide with my newfound fatherhood. 

I’m running this for MSN Cars, which means monthly reports, ongoing blogs and lots of images.

I take many more images besides, though: oft shared with a Tweet here and there.

I also plug these into flickr, whose sharing facilities are absolute. Link all these together and what do you have? Why, only a rolling library of Audi A6 in action. Wowzers.

Fancy seeing the latest from life on the road in a long-term Audi A6 Avant? I can’t promise it won’t often be mundane, but still, as if by magic…

SEAT is a misunderstood brand.

The Spanish arm of VW Group, it is best known for its Cupra and FR models, while the whispers of auto emocion at the end of TV ads mean it is at least in the public’s psyche.

But over and above that? It’s a struggle. Which is why SEAT is redefining what it stands for, to start earning the brand currency its VW Group siblings carry.

VW, after all, is a gold standard, and Audi is absolutely a rival to BMW and Mercedes (something it wasn’t 15 years ago). Even Skoda has unique brand appeal, with the sales to show its success.

To SEAT, then. It wants to be known as a kind of dynamic, edgy but great-value Spanish firm. Easier said than done, particularly when the messages from HQ have been, to now, ill defined. Hence the new branding exercise, which aims to finally define what SEAT actually is.

Don’t worry. It’s dubbed enjoyneering, but despite the borderline-cringeworthy tag, there’s substance here. SEAT has narrowed it all down to three brand values and, for the purposes of underlining the new brand definition, three more substance values – the latter won’t necessarily be quoted all the time, but they’re there in the background if anyone asks. And so, to explain…

SEAT Brand Values

• Design Driven

As you’d expect, with an ex-Lamborghini designer styling your cars, design is vital. But the resultant technology is purpose-driven: no fluffy nonsense here, but cool stuff that works.

• Young Spirited

SEAT carries one of the youngest ownership profiles of any European car maker. Young-spirited extends this into artsy-sounding ideals of urban, cosmopolitan, curious and passionate.

Interestingly, SEAT wants to mimic the spirit of Barcelona itself, which again sounds suspiciously marketingy but makes perfect sense. Barcelona IS cool, but quirky and approachable with it. SEAT would do well to infuse its cars with some of what makes the city where they’re built so great.

• Dynamic

Goes without saying. All those Cupras have given it a sporty image that it would be mad to lose. Encouragingly though, SEAT says it’s not just about thrills but satisfying even the smallest details, ‘to fine-tune everything’. Sounds very Audi, this: that’s a good thing.

The Brand Values are the core, and will make people want SEAT in the first place: the Substance Values come next, and are what will make people want to own another SEAT. One is allure, the other is housekeeping. To substance, then…

SEAT Substance Values

• Reliable

Bringing all that VW Group engineering to the fore: canny.

• Efficient

Not just Ecomotive stuff, but also to design for functionality and what people actually want.

• Accessible

SEAT has traditionally been an affordable brand. This will continue – but accessibility here also means, interestingly, transparency. There is no smoke and nonsense with SEAT: it understands its customers and supports them, without getting all arrogant and remote.

This is one for the dealers, more than anything: make people feel part of the SEAT family rather than treating them badly or, worse, ignoring them. It actually sounds all a bit HTC: it could be argued SEAT is an ideal car brand to mimic the successful ‘from-nowhere to must-have smartphone’ story.

SEAT is in an enviable position. As all those customers are so young, the potential to remain within the brand is huge – if they like and value it enough to do so, and if they’re treated right.

Finally, SEAT is starting to realise both the potential it has, and how best to harness it. The first step is to both define what it stands for, and focus on things that will keep the customers for their next car and the one after that. That’s what it’s started to here. And, from thus, onwards.

Will it work? The next few months will be telling. Time for SEAT to step it up and tell us what it’s about and what it wants to be.

+ Naked man shock in SEAT human carwash

+ Clues in the news: Audi and SEAT

+ SEAT applies the sun green

Motoring journalists often put two and two together and make a marvelous headline.

Muse can come from myriad sources which, over time and when pieced together, result in (ahem) the most glaringly obvious and natural-fit new product or model development.

In an occasional series, I’ll bring you some of the news clues I come up with: step-by-step progressions to an end point that’s, well, surely a dead-cert?

The first one concerns Audi and SEAT. Here’s a progression of developments between the two sporting VW Group brands.

1: In 2008, Audi ships over the old Audi A4 production line, complete, in a convoy of trucks from Ingolstadt, Germany to Martorell, Spain. SEAT installs it over the space of a few weeks, and starts building the SEAT Exeo.

2: SEAT shows new IBx at Geneva Motor Show 2011. Lovely, we all thought – a SEAT crossover. As VW Group partner Skoda has had some success with the Skoda Yeti, and VW Group is so good at platform sharing, surely productionising the IBx wouldn’t be that tricky?

“No production plans are in place,” said a spokesman. “And if it is made, it’s not decided which platform it will use, if any: it could be VW Tiguan, it could be Audi Q5, it could be Skoda Yeti.” Hmm, mused I. Hmm.

3: SEAT announces it is going to build the new Audi Q3 at Martorell. A VW Tiguan-derived Audi crossover SUV, that will go on sale later this year. Pretty well advanced it is, then: and they’re only announcing where it’s to be made now? Looks like that fast-production-line-install trait of Martorell’s kicking into action once again.

Which naturally leads to:

4: SEAT announces its own version of the Audi Q3 and VW Tiguan, with the IBx boasting said underpinnings and going into production from 2013 – thus further bolstering Martorell towards its 500k-per-year capacity.

What do you reckon? Have the Audi Q3 and SEAT IBx provided dual previews to the new SEAT Ford Kuga/Vertrek-beater?

With the additional recent news that SEAT’s entering China next year, and given the potential sales of a sharp new go-all-road crossover in China, I’d say it stands a chance… would you?

+ Naked man in SEAT Human Carwash

+ China – event by event: the establishment

+ SEAT applies the sun green

China has two types of vehicle maker – homegrown brands and importers.

‘Importer’ here means non-Chinese brands, ones we’re all familiar with. They’re not strictly importers, mind – Chinese law and economies of scale all means they actually build over there, too (by forming a joint venture with a home maker).

So, what were they doing at the Shanghai Auto Show this year? Providing us with a means of gauging just what the Chinese market is all about, mainly.

This is familiarity with a twist specifically for China. The differences provide a clear indicator as to what the Chinese market demands. So, to what was new at Shanghai Auto Show 2011…

Peugeot

Peugeot is planning 1 new model a year for China in the next few years. This year’s car is the 508, developed from scratch with China in mind. It joins the 207, 207 CC 308 CC, 308 SW, 408, 3008 and (soon) the RCZ in a surprisingly Euro-familiar line-up. A popular one, too: this year, Peugeot will sell 200k cars in China.

Peugeot also showed the SxC, fully designed in its China Tech Centre and displaying what China wants from a car. Hence, it’s a tall crossover, with a petrol version of the Hybrid4 drivetrain. With a 1.6 THP turbo, the four-wheel drive setup pumps out 313hp. Why no HDi engine? Because China’s predominately a petrol-driven market.

Subaru

Subaru chose China to reveal its compact crossover XV, again showing what’s important to Chinese buyers. The 2012 Impreza saloon and wagon? That was reserved for New York…

SEAT

SEAT is not yet in China: Shanghai 2011 was its debut. It plans to go on sale there next year, with exports of the Leon and Ibiza from the massive Martorell plant. This will give SEAT much-needed extra volume as it carries on justifying itself to VW Group paymasters.

It’s actually a good fit, though, said SEAT MD James Muir. China likes cars with young, sporty, design-led attributes, conveniently displayed in all SEATs. The market also likes distinctive European cars, with lots of performance and good dynamics. Hence, the late-minute China debut, using show stand real estate from brand partners Audi and VW.

Bentley

China was Bentley’s 3^rd largest market in 2012. In Q1 2011, it had already jumped up to second place, with 302 cars sold chalking up a 64% increase. That’s why Bentley’s expanding the dealer count by a third, and that’s also why it’s making a special Flying Spur China edition: China is the single largest market for Flying Spur.

The Mulsanne is also now going to China. Astonishingly, Bentley plans to ship 300 over there this year, ‘each one of them different’. These are rapidly becoming very big sales of cars that command very big price tags. Making Bentley another brand VW Group needs worry about no longer?

Audi

ANOTHER A3 concept saloon – yet another category Audi’s inventing (or, rather, reinventing)? It’s a petrol-electric hybrid, called e-tron, which can do 34 miles under electric power only, before the 211hp 1.4 TSI takes over. Behind the rear seats, there are 12Kwh of lithium ion batteries, but this doesn’t affect interior space: Audi’s given it the longest wheelbase in the compact sector, for bags of rear passenger knee room.

China, of course, likes saloons. Thus, a prediction: the Chinese market is going to lead to more ‘world’ compact saloons such as this. Making that VW Derby prescient?

Volvo

Massive 5 metre long Volvo Concept Universe previews the replacement for the S80. But, because it’s massive, it’s also THE perfect car for China, even though Volvo says its plan is to make world cars. It’s in China first to gauge what ‘the most demanding Chinese customers think’: an illustration of the market’s importance is that Europe and the US will have to wait. Volvo will show it in these markets. But only once China’s seen all it wants…

Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce is another posh Brit brand going great guns in China. That’s why it’s showing the Ghost Extended Wheelbase there for the first time – even though it don’t be ready for series production until 2012. It’s the first Rolls-Royce ever to be revealed in China, ‘underlining the strategic significance of the market and the Asia-Pacific region’. 170mm in the wheelbase means a doubling of rear knee room: just what well-heeled Chinese buyers are after.

That’s not all. There is a bespoke China Edition Phantom, with a red interior, twin gold coach lines, gold-plated Spirit of Ecstasy and stainless steel pinstripes. In a nutshell, revealing what Chinese buyers like in a car. There are more models from the Centenary Collection (marking 100 years of the Spirit of Ecstasy) too – China is the biggest market for these specials.

Oh, China is also the biggest market for bespoke Phantoms, too. To help buyers choose, Rolls-Royce is expanding from 8 to 11 dealers, which will be the highest number in a single market, and second only to the US. Power to you, Goodwood.

Land Rover

Land Rover sales rose 59% in China last year – it’s the firm’s fastest-growing single market. Thus, the appearance of the uber-expensive Range Rover Autobiography Edition. China loves this edition, which sees each single model crafted  to the customer’s specification. 50 have already been sold in the US. How many in China? 150…

Kia

Further proof the compact saloon is back comes from Kia. The K2 is a stretched, widened Kia Rio platform build especially for China. Is Audi’s trend already being followed?

Audi has shown the perils of great-on-paper ideas that go wrong in a marketing stunt that by rights should have you squirming.

As the news report explains, the idea was to demonstrate the skateboard-like maneuverability of the A1, by (ahem) driving it up a half-pipe. Lordy: alarm bells should rightly have rung.

Instead, they were silent, and it was approved. This wasn’t just some guerilla marketing idea, either, because the huge ‘half-pipe’ that was built can’t have come cheap.

Ding: the images show the inevitable. Question I had was, how did nobody not spot it? Could an engineer, if they’d been asked, told them in Lord’s name not to? I thus asked my pal Damian Harty, of Prodrive fame.

His passionate response suggests that, indeed, engineers should have been contacted. Even if not before, just by looking at the forces at work in the first images should’ve warned them off. Cars are not designed to do that!

Here’s where it gets interesting. Damian pointed me to US firm McHenry Software, and a software model they designed in the 1970s. This was cutting edge stuff, and still idolised by car dynamics engineers as a mighty achievement.

Below, there’s a jump to a video. It’s amazing, when you consider this wasn’t trial and error, but all mathematically modeled on computers with, I guess, valves the size of trees.

What it proves, though, is that car behaviour in these circumstances is predictable. If the right person had’ve been asked, they could have saved the negative column inches, and asked for but a Cadbury’s Twirl by way of gratitude.

Top tip: embrace the engineers. They’ll always tell you. Direct? Arrow-eye-knockout-straight…

James Bond stunt

EV 101: Electric car basics

Ford flawless factsheet: PR finery

MINI not so mini? Blame the photographer!

AUDI is celebrating 30 years of the Quattro with an Easter Egg for journos.

Tucked deep in the press material all about Quattro is this car show gem – the Ur Quattro on display at the 1980 Geneva Motor Show.

Yes, it’s so Ashes To Ashes, it’s untrue! Thought the Beeb were over-egging the strip lights and brown? This proves they most certainly were not.

Had I been born 30 years earlier, it could have been me wondering why someone had left a load of flowers on the stand next to the car. Before oogling, then softly padding away on the plush carpet tiles (fire risk? Even I remember the famed Geneva Motor Show fog of cigarette smoke…).

Contrast this to a shot taken of the 2010 Audi Geneva Motor Show stand.

Much more like it? Indeed… but, hang on. Isn’t that 2010 Audi range-topping R8, err, brown? And isn’t the 1980 Audi range-topping Ur Quattro a peachy, modern shade of white? Ah, yes: the more things change…

What WOULD be great is to get some more retro shots of Geneva up on here. Anyone out there (nudge-hint, Guild pals and PR chums…) have any?

My hit car colour of 2010

Citroen DS3 Racing past

Is the Giulietta an Alfa Romeo Rover 75?

Brown – I predict it’s going to make a comeback in 2010. Seriously!

Well, not brown. Anything but brown, in fact: instead, think Rich Chocolate, Frothy Latte, Cappuccino, or anything else that’s fancy, tasty and, err, brown in colour.

Two things make me predict this: the first was the stunning Porsche 911 Turbo I drove late last year. Resplendent in metallic, ahem, brown, it looked delicious.

Second? Audi showed the R8 Spider in metallic, cough, brown – and, as Audi has kinda led the trend for car-colour-hit-setting over the past few years, it’s surely thus only a matter of months before we get a Frappuccino Fizz Ford Fiesta.

I could be wrong. But, you must admit, the R8 Spider above does look pretty good, no..?

What’s your car colour hit prediction for 2010?

Why Japanese cars are square

The most amazing save of 2009

Another most amazing save of 2009

VOLKSWAGEN is finally pensioning off its long-serving 1.9-litre TDI diesel.

The car that really gave the modern diesel credibility has had a good innings, but it’s now being put out to pasture, after driving (almost) billions of VW Group cars off the production lines.

It’s been around in the Golf since 1994, after production was slowly ramped up in the Audi 80. Coming to the Golf was big-time for this then-startling new powerplant; because, unlike its rivals, Volkswagen had mated 1896ccs of blown four-pot to direct injection.

Controversial, this was, at the time. Direct injection is noisier and rattlier than indirect, you see; every single driver who’s experienced the 1.9-litre’s characteristic rattle ever since will attest to that.

The benefits, foresaw canny old Volkswagen, come in more compact combustion chambers. These lose less heat to the surrounding coolant – which, VW reckoned at the time, equals a 15 percent efficiency saving.

It was punchy. 90hp at 4000rpm was superb for 1994 – particularly in the 1145kg Golf (yes! I had to double-check: 1145kg, for the ‘heavy, safe and solid’ MkIII Golf? Now, a Clio weighs more…). This saw it to 60mph in 11.5secs; fast enough to have Autocar & Motor asking when the GTi-bodykit version would arrive. (Seems they were ahead of their time, too).

But just as impressive was the 149lb/ft torque output, particularly as it came in at just 1900rpm. This, remember, was before the days of PD pump-jet injection; the 1.9-litre TDI’s trademark low-rev surge is an inherent trait, it seems. It’s a damn strong engine from the innards out.

OK, said Autocar & Motor, the tickover is ‘boisterous’, which may put some off. Back in those diesel-pensive days, it more than likely did. A £2k price premium over oil-burning French rivals didn’t help its cause, either. But, such it always is for VW.

This couldn’t dim the significance of a fine engine, though. Even its first mainstream installation saw it mark itself out as special. Evolution through the years, particularly in the MkIV Golf, underlined its place in history.

Will its replacement, the 1.6-litre TDI, be as venerable? Time will tell. For now, though, here’s a cup of oil to a diesel that I’ve seen, through car magazines, develop, delight and dominate. Classic Diesel, here’s your first-issue feature car…

Volkswagen Golf looks to history for GTD inspiration

Volkswagen Golf GTD photostream on Flickr

Audi lit the way in ’88