A press delivery driver revealed a cunning car coverup recently, exposing a famous Nissan to be not quite what it seemed.

Remember the pink Nissan Micra C+Cs? A brace of which Nissan ran between 2005-2006, both to turn heads and worry motoring journos who were given one from the press fleet in equal measure? And also, as you’ll see below, famously featured on Top Gear with Richard Hammond wearing a bag on his head?

Well, here’s something. It turns out they weren’t actually pink.

They were blue.

Yes, the pink colouring was a wrap – technology then still in its infancy and thus relatively unknown – and applied to one of the more popular colours available on the Micra C+C, the launch metallic blue seen in the brochures and press launch shots.

Obvious, innit? Not so at the time though, particularly for those serious motoring journalists stuck behind the wheel of one for a week (unless they looked up close, and spotted the bits not covered by the wrap). Their only solace being that it was all in a good cause…

Lot of good work for charidee, mate

Nissan put four pink Micra C+C them on the press fleet between November 2005 and January 2006. For every motoring journo that booked one out and put 250 miles on the clock, Nissan donated £250 to Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

It was £250 for every 250 miles, too. As my weekly commute, back then, was around 1200 miles, Nissan could’ve been very charitable indeed. Alas, I didn’t manage to get one out.

Rich Tuckwell of topgayer.com did, though – and put on an amazing 1400 miles in just there days.

(Incidentally, the Micra C+C was in its (ahem) purple period back then, which meant Nissan had several more besides the pinks ones on the fleet, too. If journos didn’t manage to bag a pink one, then, Nissan also donated £10 to the charity for each normal one booked out.)

How much was raised? A hefty £8000, the total boosted further by some journos rallying friends and family to make additional donations.

The journo campaign tied with a broader Nissan GB campaign. The pink Micra C+Cs toured the UK to launch the Breakthrough ‘TLC’ campaign (Touch, Look, Check). Nissan visited city centres in the cars to hand out promo leaflets, and also held a competition, Text to Win, with the prize being a pink C+C.

All admirable stuff. But what happened to that car now? And, more importantly, is both it and the four press cars still pink? Or, has the secret of the delivery driver spread..?

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Renault Vel Satis guru Oliver Hammond piqued my attention via Twitter a while ago because of his efforts in building up a VelSat community.

His Vel Satis forum site is ever-more popular and it remains a curio I dip into regularly, not least to see what’s up for sale and whether prices have finally dropped down to a level that would warrant an impulse purchase (not yet).

And why my fasciation with the failed French 5 Series rival? Because of a happy week back in 2002, when I took one down to Newquay for a week’s holiday. Quite something for a still-green writer back then, stymied by the 25-and-over insurance rules of many press offices. Renault was one exception. Bingo: the keycard to a Vel Satis 3.0 V6 dCi Initiale was mine for a week.

Memories? Mainly of its might. A big car, is the Vel Satis, accentuated by its outlandish design and super-bold le Quement detailing. Like the MkII Megane, it’s dating now, but there’s still no denying its presence – back then, resplendent in road test dark green, it looked amazing. Every inch the epitome of avant-garde French executive travel.

If anything, it felt even bigger from the inside. The huge seats were mounted very high atop their electric multi-adjust motors, whose variability even extended to a split seatback – the upper half could be raked independently to the lower. On the 300-mile trek to Newquay, this gave me no end of entertainment.

It was a distraction from all the glances I got. Seriously, everyone (so it felt) looked at us. I’d never driven anything that was such a headturner and, even now, few things have roused so much attention on the road. The Vel Satis was amazing, so it seemed: a pink Ferrari would have roused less attention.

Luckily, we were cocooned from it within, savouring the Makintosh-style wood trim and details, decent in-car audio quality and the surge of the big diesel. Something this easy and torquey was still a refreshingly new experience for me back then, and the satisfaction I felt remains clear in my mind. My love of torque may even have been cemented on that trip.

It wasn’t perfect. The ride could be taut, trim could creak in sympathy and lifeless steering certainly didn’t help pilot the big beast round Cornwall’s narrow streets. But I still loved it – still love it. The MSN Cars Renault Vel Satis road test talks about the minutiae, but the general vibe was positive.

Yes, it bombed, but it wasn’t through lack of character which, as a result, certainly infused goodwill amongst a loyal few. Still does, too: so, power to you, Oliver. Give me a shout when a cheap dCi V6 turns up, won’t you..?

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Motoring journalists road-test cars by living with them: doing all the things with them that they’d do with their own cars. 

It’s not as glamorous as blasting round the test track, but it’s the best way of finding out what a car’s actually like in the real world.

The track is great, and reveals useful stuff, but the shchlep to the supermarket reveals more about the car for the people who’ll be buying it.

Enter, then, my flickr set of road test images. Here, I’ll bring insights into what I’m actually doing with the cars I’ve got on test.

It won’t always be interesting. It will often incorporate Asda, or the tip, or a multi-storey car park in Birmingham. But it’s still representative of how I find out what I think about cars.

I’ll update it constantly too: as a guide, the images are arranged in date order, newest first. Lo, it’s the evolution of the test car diary in pictorial form…

Apologies if it gets repetitive at times. That’s another secret of road-testing: get yourself a favourite road, a favourite route, and drive all the cars you have on test across it for back to back comparisons.

You thus may be seeing the car park at the end of my route more than once in a while…

Friday 18 March

15:00 – Delivered: Bentley Continental GT. It’s not a Comic Relief wind-up, either; I really do have a Conti GT for the next 6 days. What to do with it? Why, go to Tesco. Start slowly and all that: it is Friday rush-hour, after all.

See a Flickr Set of my time in the Bentley Continental GT

17:35 – Need a drink. Conti GT is lovely, of course – incredibly lush auto, smooth and woofling power delivery, extremely crisp steering at slow speed, extreme visuals and THE most tactile interior around (it way, WAY outclasses a Porsche or Ferrari here) – but, my: is it stresful to drive when it’s busy! £150k, first time in the car and people both pointing AND looming towards your wide, expensive, brand-new Bentley does not make for a relaxing drive. Squeezing it between the wall on the drive has near finished me off. Relax, for now: many miles will be put in over the weekend.

Saturday 19 March

06:00 – I’ve been staring at it all night through the window. Musings? Classic British style dictates pumped muscularity and Brutish beef rather than Germanic clinicalness or Italian fuss. The Bentley has this in abundance. Ripped? You bet. It’s the Jason Statham of cars.

06:55 – On a promise: girlfriend Tam has said I can show her the full-on 0-60 dash, just the once. ‘K then…

08:40 – Slight issue: current average eco showing 12.9mpg. That’s being steady, too. Yikes.

13:00 – A morning in the Bentley and everyone loves it. Dad likes the W12, the wheels, the 4wd – but, most of all, the double glazing. There was me thinking he’s a tech-head, too.

14:00 – The key is impressing everyone. OK, deep down, it’s a VAG flip – but no Golf key has ever been this weighty, tactile and lush. Everyone’s copping a feel.

17:00 – Trip up the M5, at motorway speeds, 4-up. Economy? 20.0mpg. Better than last night’s 12mpg. Improvement, indeed, of 65%.

17:30 – Drop mother off after a run out, and dad’s there to greet. As a treat, I blast away ‘fruitily’: the exhausts sound delicious to me from inside… will find out what he made of ‘em later.

19:10 – Jumped in to take a picture of the clock, for Twitter pal @renaultvelsatis. The weight of the doors strikes me (they have closure-assist, luckily), as does the length of the opening and the smooth firmness of the leather seats. Above all, though, it’s the smell: perfumed leather gives a drawing room luxo overload. Also, I have my slippers on: means I sink into the deep, deep wool floormats… man, this car is luxury.

Sunday 20 March

08:00 – Palming through town, it’s SUCH an easy, wieldy car to drive. I’m now over the fright of the £150k price tag, and finding it wonderfully fluid and accurate to place. This must be why footballers have ‘em – well, that, and the firm, supportive, high seats (with, yes, massage function). Who needs a physio.

11:25 – Back from a blast with dad. It’s a childish pleasure, making your parents speechless – this time, it’s in a good way, as I deployed all 575hp out of a junction, uphill. It absolutely takes off, like a rocket; you can FEEL the traction, feel the tyres bite, hear not a squeak of squeal. There’s just the slightest delay while the turbos spool, and then you’re away.

11:40 – Realise something else – how joly hard it is to restrain the Conti when you’re pedalling. Low down, it’s torque, that gets you moving – but as the revs rise to 4000rpm-plus, and the speed starts to get silly, there’s the impression of a huge mass that’s got huge momentum, and doesn’t really want to be stemmed at all. Normally, it feels ‘safer’ to slow down. With this, you simply feel more impenetrable, the faster you go. Remarkable.

15:00 – Naim stereo costs £5200: jolly nice it is too, with good clarity and depth. Shame it can’t quite handle the bass of Kraftwerk, though. On Tour de France, the rear trim was vibrating to the bass in a manner not dissimilar to my friend’s old Vauxhall Nova SR.

15:30 – Off to Bentley Bridge, for a shopping trip and a photoshoot. No signs, alas, and shopping isn’t a success, either. I’m also reminded of how big the Bentley is again. On the road, it’s shrunk, as I get used to it… dipping into a busy Sunday afternoon car park immediately alerts me to a turning circle that needs space. Sorry, other drivers, who had to reverse back for me…

20:00 – Fuel economy seems to have settled at 17.5mpg. That’s near bang on the official average of 17.7mpg, and much better than the 12mpg it was showing when I first got it. I work my magic… but do I have the depth of sorcery to get it up to 25mpg?

Monday 21 March

05:00 – Early start and there’s no waking the neighbours with the Bentley: it surely has one of the slickest starter motor whirrs around. No raucous exhaust blast either, a la Ferrari/Audi RS5/etc: a beefy, bassy burble fires through instead. Such a nice car to palm through town at this early hour – stereo off to appreciate the refinement, particularly from road, wind and other traffic noise.

14:00 – Noticed this morning the xenon-bright lighting in the boot. Bit like that in new Ford C-Max, it is vivid-bright and only adds to the decadence of the wool-lined luggage bay. £5200′s worth of Naim sub looks pretty full on, too.

18:20 – ZF auto ‘box is a trinket. Pull-aways are extremely smooth and cushioned, in a kind of ‘crisp-yet-damped’ way: the right side of absorbent without being lax or soggy. Same gies for the gearchanges, which are swift and totally without hesitation.

Tuesday 22 March

05:00 – There is no richer exhaust startup than the Bentley. It’s not harsh or aggressive, simply creamy as hell and impossibly sonorous.

05:20 – Back home and I’m conscious of how vivid the rear horizontal brake bar is. That, and the massive tail lights, means a night-time visual ID you can see from space. It’s also struck me how ‘orange’ the indicators are, especially the front LED winkers. Proper Tango-ey.

13:00 – Save fuel by cycling to lunch. Come back and notice how pronounced the rear bootlid line is – inspired by the sticky-out bit of the new Mulsanne, and much more distinctive than the old Conti GT.

18:00 – Fuel fill for tomorrow. Sticking the nozzle into the horizontal-flat filler is special, retro and different to any other car apart from a 911. Shame there’s such a distressing lack of sync between the rate of litres and rate of pounds. 90-litre fuel tank means… well, you don’t want to know. Amex is only too aware already.

Wednesday 23 March

04:45 – Even earlier doors as it goes back tomorrow – so I’m taking it down to the office for the chaps to have a go. And what better way to do it, than with an impromptu economy run. It’s the only way I’ll be able to ‘see what she’ll really do’ while staying within the realms of the law.

06:55 – 24.3mpg, that’s what she’ll do. DOUBLE what it was doing upon delivery – and that was over a 94-mile average run. Albeit one messing with the trucks at 50mph…

This week’s road test car is one I’ve put a load of miles on – now, check out my Audi A6 3.0T S line photo stream on Flickr.

It’s my way of bringing my driving impressions to you.

So nip on over there and see what you think.

Oh, and feel free to let me know!

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OK, I’ve been ploughing the Autocar library again, seeking out tests from back in the day. 22 January 1997 doesn’t sound *too* far back in the day, even though it is, actually, 12 years ago. Gawd, etc.

Anyway, Autocar Road Test no. 4228 is of the Rover Mini Cooper, by now with airbag, seatbelt pretensioners and side impact bars.

The radiator’s on the side, damping pads are fitted in the roof, there’s an extra exhaust silencer, and the final drive is longer. All helping the 1275cc meet the 74dB noise limit.

Fear not, says Autocar. It’s still a Mini, and thus, unlike any other car on sale. Encouragingly, the 63bhp A-Series is now ‘evergreen’, taking nearly 10secs off the Mayfair’s 0-60mph time. It’s still unrefined, though.

The ride also remains bouncy – ‘burying drivers’ heads in the roof’. The key is finding a smooth corner. There, says Autocar, four-wheel drifts are the norm. Intimate, if crude, feel through the steering helping you achieve ‘perplexingly high speeds’.

Needless to say, the interior is as dated as ever (despite a two-speed fan!). It’s very cramped, doors are tiny, and tall people simply have to bend their knees. Buttons on the dash are unlit (I didn’t realise that) and the boot is highly awkward.

Once again, Autocar’s objective terms write the Mini off as from another era. But, of course, it is! That’s why it’s so great! And thus,  ‘as an object of basic desire, it’s still up there with the best of them.’

Couldn’t have put it better myself…

I have yet to drive a Mini, but am getting more eager by the day. Until I snare one, I’m having to get my fix from virtual sources.

Hence, me turning to Autocar, 23 August, 1989.

Here, the magazine subjected a 998cc Mayfair to the rigors of its full road test, as a celebration of 30 years’ production.

What did Autocar make of it? Well, I took from it the following impressions:

•    Engine
It’s slow. The Mini is substantially slower than the original 1959 test car, says Autocar. Sure, it weighs 10 percent more, but the engine’s also bigger. 0-60mph in 22 seconds sounds slow to me, a top speed of 78mph below my everyday cruising speed.

It’s also, says Autocar, slower in the gears. This is because the gearing has been raised over the original, by 20 percent. At least that means you don’t have to rev it; there’s a ‘cacophony’ near the 5750rpm redline. But, it lugs smoothly through the rev range and, says Autocar, isn’t as unrefined as has been made out. Unlike the gearbox, which whines, is obstructive and agricultural.

•    Driving impressions
Autocar loves how the Mini handled. By modern standards, the turn in is almost too sharp; the communicative steering means you place it inch-perfect every time. It’s also throttle-adjustable.

The ride isn’t as bad as feared. It’s nervous in town, with the short-travel suspension easily caught out. But it’s very stable on motorways, dealing with low-frequency undulations well.

•    Interior
The car is dated from behind the wheel, with switches out of reach. Visibility is fantastic, but the driving position has ‘serious problems’. Space is ‘inadequate’, noise levels high and the seats, while not uncomfortable, are lacking in lumbar and lateral support.

Even Mayfair trim is sparsely equipped. However, it feels sturdy and strong, with the doors shutting cleanly and solidly. The paintwork would be favourable on a car costing twice as much. Alas, minor items are shabbily assembled, and the keys are difficult to put in the locks.

•    Summary

It is slow, unrefined, cramped, and modern superminis are in a different league. Doesn’t matter. It’s still easy to make a case for the Mini, concludes Autocar. It’s great fun to drive, and stands out in a world where cars look ever-more anonymous.

All that criticism’s to be expected. All that we can take. We buy Minis not for rational reasons, but emotional ones. Autocar’s modern-perspective take has only served to reinforce that… now then, does anyone know if F 21 RKV, the reg of the test car, is still out there?