The first thing I noticed as I walked up to the car was the triangular exhausts, and the wrap-around light-bar.  These are quite striking and invite further interest.  It interesting around the side as well, with door handles that have been taken off a fridge from the 50s.  The look at the back continues as the front with another wrap-around light-bar and triangular fog lights.  The only thing that lets the look down is that where the badge sits on the front looks like it was made from cheap plastic rather than the glazed appearance you get at the back.  Overall though, it looks good and it is going to cast a fantastic silhouette as the sun goes down.

The view from the driver’s seat is almost perfect.  The controls are arranged symmetrically around the console and the displays are awash with electronic bling.  All the controls are comfortably accessible except a couple of buttons hidden behind the steering wheel.  The only problem from here is with the view out of the rear; there isn’t one because someone put a spoiler there.  From a style perspective it looks great, but in this case function should override form.

There isn’t a lot of room in the back of this car, but that’s not a significant issue since I won’t be travelling there.  What is worse though, is the door.  While climbing out of the car I caused myself a great deal of pain as my back scraped along the top of the opening.  The shape of the car is pleasing, but the way it tails off in a coupé style narrows the opening.  Don’t get in the back unless you’re shorter that 5’6”.  So far though, the seats have all been quite firm and reasonably comfortable.

Where it all goes wrong is the drive.  I’m wondering if it actually had suspension fitted at all- the ride is so firm that the road markings on roundabouts feel like dropped curbs, but you won’t see them because the A-pillars are in the way.  But this doesn’t translate in to improved handling.  It doesn’t feel like it’s sure of what’s going on and does not inspire confidence to really put it in to the corners (not that you can easily with a salesman sat next to you).  Even so, only at moderate speeds it starts to understeer and the traction control cuts in, reduces the power and stabs at the brakes.  This engine is supposed to have 140 horsepower- but I can’t find it.  There is plenty of bottom end torque but this is just gone when the engine starts to rev.  With a 6-speed box the ratios should be close enough to harness the relatively narrow peak power available from a diesel, but unfortunately the engine just makes a lot of noise and doesn’t go in the way that it should.  The feeling is that the power starts to develop around 2000 revs but just doesn’t mature before you hit the red line.  It also will not “settle” in any particular gear for gentle driving.  At this point, those firm seats are starting to feel like they’re made of concrete.

Long and short of it is, this is a good looking car that has been sat on top of something that feels like it has come from 50s, just like the door handles, and the electronic bling is there to try to cover this up.  From such a good start, this is a very disappointing ending.  Project now is to compare it against the Focus, Astra and Golf; echoing the comment that I’m a saloon fan, I want to be sure that I’ve not let this bias influence the opinion.

Bizarrely, I found myself pondering that I might not be the most stylish person and that I might look at doing something about it.  Being a computer person sort of bloke, I utilised all the power of the electronics at my command and enlisted the help of expensive and complex searching algorithms- many thanks go to google.com.

This led to about three hours of misery.  As I browsed through the various pages that were brought up, I couldn’t find anyone that looked (or more accurately, was built) even remotely like me.  Feeling a little self conscious at this point, I couldn’t leave it and dug further and the problem only got worse.  On all of these pages, there was not a double-chin, a podge, no slightly round faces, no man-boobs or sagging kneecaps anywhere.  In fact, all the chins were so chisel sharp they could have been cast and machined less than an hour before I actually looked!

I can understand now why so many feel ashamed of what they look like.  I never thought I’d say it, since I’m a huge proponent of the natural look; it just didn’t apply to me “in that way” before.  What I have therefore decided to do is quite simple and quite brilliant: I’m going to carry on the way I have been, with the slightly dodgy shoes arrangement, mismatching socks and questionable taste in t-shirts; in the process saving money and meaning that I no longer need to browse through images of unnatural fashion-icons.  Problem solved?  Possibly.

All in all, this has brought on a bit of a worry for me: Why, have I of all people, suddenly become concerned about my fashion sense???

Answers on a postcard please!  The winner receives absolutely nothing.

Recently, I have become aware that soon I will no longer be able to have “a 20 something guy” in the blog title as my 30th birthday is approaching me faster than I can get me away from it.

Perhaps now would be a good time to tot up some of the “ponderings and musings” and general  debauchery of my 20s.  But where to begin?

Given that that age was so long ago now, not all memories are lemony-fresh any more so no doubt a lot of waffle is about to spill from my fingers in to the keyboard.

I suppose the most notable place to start is being fired!  I’ve never been fired before or since thankfully and I can deffinitely remember that it was not a pleasent experience.  Actually, that day some little upstart fell off his bicycle and damaged my Seat Toledo.  I was most put out.  I wouldn’t care, but it was the roadside that he hit and was going the wrong way!  But anyway, most of it buffed out and what didn’t was solved with a small mallet and a lump of timber.  Looking back further on 20, I told a training centre what I thought of them which did not go down well at all.  Apart from that, nothing much else happened.

Next year, got my current job!  I think that my record now indicates that I can hold down a job long term so should look good on the old CV.  Learnt very quickly that a lot of server technology was unknown to me and what I didn’t know filled a library.  I think this is when I went from knowing everything to realising that I knew very little about everything.  I decided at then to attend the school of life and hard knocks and just get on with it.  I think I started an Open University course as well during this year but it’s now so long ago that I could just have fuddled it!

I did have some turbulent relation time through this period and also nearly managed to loose my Toledo in a canal.  Thankfully, a few thousand revs, reverse gear, some rope and a mate managed to get me out of that one.  Tough times really.

After this, bought my first house.  What a mind job that was.  It seemed like a good idea at the time and was a fix-up project.  Unfortunately, I bit off way more than I could chew, ended up with a <un-finished>.

Anyway, I supposed this is all my making.  Being recently informed that as a “professional in technology I should be open to and embrace new ideas”.  But still, how much of what has now become an attack can I endure from this damned iPad before I decide self-termination is the way forward instead?  It’s not even an innovation really, just a combination of existing technologies that just might have a place in the market.  I’m sure being shiny and made by Apple it’ll sell by the thousand; one wonders what would have happened if it was re-badged.  Be that as it may, this is just a small rant in the world and I should probably just ignore it, carry on, and leave the iNuts to it.  A final note to finish the rant, iPad does sound like a feminine sanitary product.

More musings later, I have an essay to write.

Tata.

When I received this car, I became seriously ready to give it some real stick with headings such as “limp”, “under-powered”, “lumbering” and “another green effort gone South” coming to mind.  There is one problem though: I can’t.

I have been very pleasantly surprised with the way this car behaves.  Sure, it’s not going to win any drag races, nor is it going to give you any cred at the traffic lights against the chav next door as he pulls away from you with his turbo Vauxhall rust bucket, but then you would not expect a 1.6 diesel to do that anyway.  As a day-to-day car however, it’s very pleasant to deal with.  Being on the same platform as the S40, I expected a similar driving sensation, however it is more nimble and agile, even better than other small cars that I have driven, with the confidence and sure-footedness of its larger brothers.  You can take it in to a corner at a good lick as well, so it’s fun too.

I have been particularly enjoying the R-Design styling cues on the body and seats, especially the steering wheel, which feels chunky, solid and gives you real feeling about what the car is doing even after all the electronic safety gizmos have done their work.  Other style changes that I like are the new larger Volvo badge on the front grille and the wrap-around headlights which give a more sporting appearance from the vehicle.

I must say, I’m not as impressed with the fuel consumption as I would have thought.  So far, I have (only) returned 54.6 MPG, which is a decent figure; however I am regularly able to return similar figures with an S60 D5.  This is most likely down to driving style and the roads that I have so far elected to travel, as such this is likely not a true representation of the figures that it can return.

Cargo capacity is limited and it is likely that you would only be able to store one body in the boot at a push but this is certainly enough for even the larger monthly supermarket shops.  With the rear seats down, capacity is as generous, and with the passenger seat in its folded position, even larger items may also be transported (but the manual does recommend deactivating the passenger airbag first!).

When all is said and done, this is a safe, stylish, likeable car with enough power and storage capacity for the day-to-day trials and tribulations that life throws at you.  I am eager to try the C30 with the larger D5 power plant, as I’m sure that this combination will result in an (economical) monster!