Vauxhall VX 220 Verti-go
After what can only be described as a motoring journalists frenzy,
this week the silk was drawn back to reveal Vauxhalls VX 220 Verti-go.
No, your eyes are not deceiving you - this baby will quite literally
drive you up the wall. Vauxhall say this is the only way forward
if inner city parking problems are to be conquered.
However, the question is: at £25,000 for the base 220 plus
£32,000 to convert it into a Verti-go would you still want
one? Well for £57 grand you could have a nice Merc or Porsche,
but to me they seem rather grounded. So will it catch on? It should
do, because in one sense it catches on very well - and if it does,
the only way is up.
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Wreckered road test
Before Andy Cunliff, the demonstration driver, took the wheel he explained
that the VX 200 handles exactly as the old 220 did but now as an added
bonus it performs the unthinkable and climbs walls. Under both the
back and front bumper you will find Vauxhalls patented "rightangulator"
which in essence is a conveyerage system which simply pistons a rack
pin up and onto the vertical surface. Voila, you're upright.
Yeh, yeh, yeh, but how does it stick to the walls? Fancy tyres? Yep!
And then some. If you want to convert your existing 220 into a verti-go
then prepare yourself for a whopping bill because each tyre is electronically
linked to a s.m.e.g. system..... Oh no, not another dab, rds, abs
bunch of rubbish to have to remember ! Don't panic, it's a simple,
Silicon Management Elevation Generator. When the rightangulator is
activated s.m.e.g. is released in small amounts (5 millilitres each
tyre) and a rolling bond is established between surface and tyre and
up you go.
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On the road
Andy Cunliff, the demo driver, is a big fat liar. The
car does
not handle just as the regular 220 does
- in fact on the weekend
that I had it on loan, it behaved like a sloth on Nitol. Sluggish would be
an understatement. The weight
of the bigger tyres,
the rightangulator and the smeg tanks,
has
stripped the trademark oomph from the 220.
It didn't have
the strength to pull a nightie off Kylie Minogue, but at climbing
walls it was immense.
Scary - but immense.
I took my son Jerico to his grandmother's on
Saturday (she's
15 up in a high-rise) and with a
rope and sucker pack from the
glove- box we clambered in through her lounge window for
some
tea and buns.
I have to say I love the idea, but come on Vauxhall:
no-one is going to take you seriously if all you can
do is go
up and not get down to some exciting
road play.
Nice try. |
In the cabin
Well, as I hinted earlier, it's a VX220 in name only because
the modifications required to make this car drive vertically
seriously impedes the cabin space. The space inside the VX has
already been described by the motoring press as being as tight
as George Best at 2 in the morning. So what news now ? For a
kick off - the steering wheel is closer (uncomfortably so) than
before due to a rack shift to allow space for the pins of the
rightangulator. The glovebox has been taken up with a rope and
sucker pack, but worst of all the already meagre space behind
the front seats is
completely given over to the smeg tanks which, let me tell you,
don't smell too great when the cabin heats up.
The passenger front seat ample enough but when I
took my wife Valerie for a spin in the early evening of Sunday
there was so little legroom in the footwell that she had to
have her legs up and more or less
spreadeagled on the dash. It was either that or her feet may
have uprooted the smeg pipe running across the floor. Surely
Vauxhall don't consider this an enjoyable ride. Valerie certainly
didn't although, all credit to her, she didn't mind the smell
of the hot smeg as much as I did. |
Overall rating:  Overall
Verdict: Get real Vauxhall |
 TOYOTA
TARDIS
I remember seeing the Toyota Yaris for the first time at the Glasgow
SECC motor exhibition sometime back and recall being very impressed.
The bare faced cheek of it, the size, the space, just blew me away.
What you got was the Verso: overall length 3.6 metres, width 1.69
metres, height 1.6 metres, 5 seats, 390 litres of boot space and -
get this - with the seats folded down a stonking 2160 of load space.
Incredible!
Powered by a 1.3 litre vvt-i engine developing 85bhp I thought the
Yaris could not be bettered. Well it can, but by who ..? Toyota !
Yes, they have achieved the impossible with the new Yaris, named the
Tardis (I know it's not the most original of names from our Teriyaki
eating Nipponese friends from Japan in the far east, but read on..)
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Wreckered road test
If you are my
age you will remember Doctor Who - my favourite being John Pertwee
of Wurzel Gummidge fame (then he died, his brother was in Dad's
Army and is still living and hocking his "lights out"
garbage, round the old folks home circuit). In the cult sci-fi show,
Doctor Who's famous blue police box "the Tardis" was of
course huge inside which completely fascinated me when I was 13.
Now I'm 40 and I'm still fascinated - but now with the Toyota Tardis.
Nothing seems different from the Yaris Verso model apart maybe from
a more confident looking grille, but what you're seeing, believe
me, is not
what you're getting. From the minute you open the drivers door,
you are immediately shocked: there are no less than 6 steps down
to the drivers seat. This, Toyota say, is achieved by a massive
reworking of the floorpan layout, but oddly there seems to be no
more headroom than in the old version. Puzzled? So was I, but enter
the car from the passenger side and behold - no less than 4 steps
leading up to an additional seating area.
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On the road
The Tardis now seats 5 on the lower level and 7
on the upper.
How on earth do they do it? So, I bet you're wondering, how
then if the driver's seat is
down on the lower level, how can
he see to drive? This is the good bit. Toyota have developed
a fibre optic camera that pokes through the grill and sees
the
road before you, then projects it back onto a 9
inch plasma
screen mounted on the dash. Cool.
So, off you go, all 12 of
you with plenty of legroom
and headroom to spare.
With tougher springs upgraded from a loadbear
of 880 lbs
to 2060 lbs there is no feeling of being overweight and the
bigger torque-ier 1.4 diesel
engine makes definite sure that
this little baby
with the big tummy is no slouch either.
Oh and there was to be one more surprise in the cabin..
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In the cabin
I was allowed the take the Tardis for a spin last Friday, when
I and the other wreckered journos usually go for a well earned
sherry. When I invited 10 of the lads and lassies to the Hat
'n' Stick for drinks they laughed and sniggered with various
snide remarks chucked in, "Never in a month of Sundays",
"We won't all get in", "You're a tit" etc.
but I laughed longest as they sat open mouthed while we motored
along.
As we turned into Colindale Road I flicked an eye to my rearview
mirror and noticed an obstruction -the Toyota dealer, to prove
the capaciousness of the car, had placed a Victorian double-gentlemans
wardrobe in the boot space. Just then Marion from the IT room
let out the most unearthly scream ! "Rat! Rat! Rat!",
she yelled and right enough there was a rat running around
the top deck. Mayhem ensued, the door of the
wardrobe swung open and out poured an endless sea of black
rats. Seems that some wise guy at the dealership had stuffed
1500 sewer rats into the wardrobe for a laugh.
I'm tempted to give this car a bad crit because most of us
were badly rat bitten and Marion has not been back to work
since, but I simply can't. Eleven people, a
double wardrobe and 1500 rats is some going by anyones standard.
Full marks Toyota.
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Overall rating: 
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AUDIO RAGE CLAIMS FOURTH VICTIM
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