Clarkson destroys the Caddy SRX....OMG...
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Clarkson destroys the Caddy SRX....OMG...
April 15, 2007
Cadillac SRX4
Only a woman could drive this
JEREMY CLARKSON
I drove home last night in a new Audi TT Roadster. The sun was setting, the sky was blue, the air was clean, the roads were quiet and the car was an utter delight. It snarled when I wanted it to snarl, it cruised when I wanted it to cruise, it had a lovely steering “feel” and a perfectly judged ride.
As a driver’s car, it was a world apart from its “cabin doors to manual” predecessor.
“I could have one of these,” I thought as I pulled into my yard. But of course I can’t, because I am a man and the Audi TT is so completely girlie that I’m surprised it isn’t supplied with a bra and high heels. It really is Jane Austen with windscreen wipers.
Or is it? If you believe hardline feminists, the sort of people who have Amazonian lady-gardens and wear dungarees made from hemp, then all men are intrinsically rapists and the only reason we don’t actually molest every single girl we see is because we’re all at home beating up our wives. Males, thanks to their physical size and their muscles and their need to spray seed into everyone and everything, are threatening, dangerous and deeply unpleasant.
Really? I only ask because if we look at nature, it’s normally the other way round.
Only recently we were shown pictures in the newspapers of a lioness that had attacked another mother’s cub and then dragged its bloody carcass under a tree and eaten it.
Then you have the praying mantis. As we all know, the female celebrates a successful impregnation by biting the head off its lover.
Other examples include the Mills-McCartney, a curious one-legged animal that infests the male’s nest for a short period of time and then leaves with most of its contents.
And now comes news from the world of science that female chimpanzees in Senegal like nothing better than to rush about in the jungle murdering as many other primates as possible. In fact, to make the murdering easier, they’ve even learnt in recent decades how to make spears from branches.
Researchers are saying this proves that the origins of technology in humans came from the female of the species, and that therefore Isambard Kingdom Brunel must have been a woman.
Maybe so. But for me, what it shows is that in the big wide world of nature it’s the females that are the violent rapists and spouse beaters. And it’s not just praying mantises, chimps and lions either. We see girl power among golden hamsters, hyenas and many types of fish.
Indeed, Mrs Stickleback will **** her mate and then it’s “Wham, bam, thank you man” as she immediately rushes off to find a new sexual partner, leaving the first to look after her eggs. We see the same sort of thing in Newcastle on a Saturday night.
As a result I’m not sure the Audi TT is a girlie car at all. With its nonthreatening curves and its benign, wouldn’t-say-boo-to-a-goose face, it is plainly male.
No, really. A TT wouldn’t kill and eat your children. A TT wouldn’t **** you and then bite your head off afterwards. And nor, with its traction control and its airbags and four-wheel-drive system, would it come round to your house on a lovely afternoon and stick a rudimentary spear in your throat.
I have more evidence. Look at the mallard duck. The female is drab and brown and not at all interested in style or appearance. The male, on the other hand, struts about with a green head and flashes of blue on its wings.
As a result of this pioneering work, which I’ve researched tirelessly for several minutes on the internet, I’ve decided that actually it is possible for an alpha male to buy an Audi TT. It suits our inbuilt need for style and our completely unthreatening and rather lovely personalities. And it corners well, too.
So what about the violent, ugly, murdering bastardhood that is womankind? What sort of car should it have?
Well, as we know, human females like to drive massive four-wheel-drive cars; it suits their need to kill as many other road users as possible, damage other people’s property, and if you believe David Cameron in his fair-trade trainers, destroy the whole world as well.
And all of that brings me to the newest 4x4 to hit the marketplace, the Cadillac SRX4.
This is a very ugly car. So ugly in fact that you’ll want to get inside it and shut the door as quickly as possible. But sadly when you are inside it’s even worse.
Cadillac has gone for a half-timbered look with bits of wood nailed to every flat surface, and some that aren’t flat at all — the steering wheel, for instance. Now this kind of thing worked in Elizabethan times. Team it with some wattle, some daub and a hint of thatch and all is well. But polish your wood until it gleams and then team it with plastic and I’m afraid the end result will be, and is, absolutely revolting.
Still, it could be worse, and it is, when you fire up the big 4.6 litre engine and go for a drive. Because immediately you run out of petrol.
Officially the SRX can achieve 16mpg, but unofficially, on the school run say, you’d struggle to get more than 12. Couple that with the Ł36,895 asking price, and the likelihood of piano-falling-from-a-tower-block depreciation, and this car could well turn out to be more expensive to run than the Iraq war.
It gets worse, too, because it’s marketed as a seven-seater, but it isn’t really. To fit into the rear seats you’d have to be so badly deformed that you’d need all manner of specialist equipment to keep you alive. An iron lung, for instance, and that isn’t going to fit.
What’s more, you can only get into these seats from the driver’s side, and only then if you have no legs, no arms, no head and a torso that can be twisted like Plasticine. Best to push the little button that electrically folds these seats away and pretend they don’t exist.
That way you end up with an expensive-to-buy, expensive-to-run, expensive-to-fuel, half-timbered and very ugly five-seater that is longer and therefore harder to park than the seven-seater Volvo XC90.
It’s not going well for the Cadillac, so I suppose at this point I should mention its good points.
Er . . . I suppose the V8 Northstar is pretty potent when you bury your foot in the nylon, and I’ll admit that for an off-roader the ride is pretty smooth as well. So smooth in fact that it made all three of my children feel sick.
I also liked the enormous sunroof. But I can’t say the same for the driving position. The steering wheel is too far away and will only adjust for height, not reach. Yes, you can move the pedals up and down, but if I’m to be honest this only turns the situation from bad to worse.
So if you want an unnecessarily big antisocial 4x4 — ie, you are a female — you can do better than this. The Volvo XC90 remains my favourite. I like its sensible layout, its reasonable price tag and its nonthreatening exterior. You, as a girl, may prefer the similarly practical but much more militarily butch Land Rover Discovery.
The Cadillac? It has no discernible sex. But then it has no discernible purpose. If it were a creature, it wouldn’t be a lion or a praying mantis or even a chimp.
No, I think it would be a wasp — useless and hateful in equal measure.
Vital statistics
Model Cadillac SRX4
Engine 4565cc, eight cylinders
Power 325bhp @ 6500rpm
Torque 315 lb ft @ 4400rpm
Transmission Six-speed auto
Fuel 16.9mpg (combined) /396g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 7.4sec
Top speed 40mph
Price Ł36,895
Rating 1/5
Verdict One star for the sunroof, none for anything else
Cadillac SRX4
Only a woman could drive this
JEREMY CLARKSON
I drove home last night in a new Audi TT Roadster. The sun was setting, the sky was blue, the air was clean, the roads were quiet and the car was an utter delight. It snarled when I wanted it to snarl, it cruised when I wanted it to cruise, it had a lovely steering “feel” and a perfectly judged ride.
As a driver’s car, it was a world apart from its “cabin doors to manual” predecessor.
“I could have one of these,” I thought as I pulled into my yard. But of course I can’t, because I am a man and the Audi TT is so completely girlie that I’m surprised it isn’t supplied with a bra and high heels. It really is Jane Austen with windscreen wipers.
Or is it? If you believe hardline feminists, the sort of people who have Amazonian lady-gardens and wear dungarees made from hemp, then all men are intrinsically rapists and the only reason we don’t actually molest every single girl we see is because we’re all at home beating up our wives. Males, thanks to their physical size and their muscles and their need to spray seed into everyone and everything, are threatening, dangerous and deeply unpleasant.
Really? I only ask because if we look at nature, it’s normally the other way round.
Only recently we were shown pictures in the newspapers of a lioness that had attacked another mother’s cub and then dragged its bloody carcass under a tree and eaten it.
Then you have the praying mantis. As we all know, the female celebrates a successful impregnation by biting the head off its lover.
Other examples include the Mills-McCartney, a curious one-legged animal that infests the male’s nest for a short period of time and then leaves with most of its contents.
And now comes news from the world of science that female chimpanzees in Senegal like nothing better than to rush about in the jungle murdering as many other primates as possible. In fact, to make the murdering easier, they’ve even learnt in recent decades how to make spears from branches.
Researchers are saying this proves that the origins of technology in humans came from the female of the species, and that therefore Isambard Kingdom Brunel must have been a woman.
Maybe so. But for me, what it shows is that in the big wide world of nature it’s the females that are the violent rapists and spouse beaters. And it’s not just praying mantises, chimps and lions either. We see girl power among golden hamsters, hyenas and many types of fish.
Indeed, Mrs Stickleback will **** her mate and then it’s “Wham, bam, thank you man” as she immediately rushes off to find a new sexual partner, leaving the first to look after her eggs. We see the same sort of thing in Newcastle on a Saturday night.
As a result I’m not sure the Audi TT is a girlie car at all. With its nonthreatening curves and its benign, wouldn’t-say-boo-to-a-goose face, it is plainly male.
No, really. A TT wouldn’t kill and eat your children. A TT wouldn’t **** you and then bite your head off afterwards. And nor, with its traction control and its airbags and four-wheel-drive system, would it come round to your house on a lovely afternoon and stick a rudimentary spear in your throat.
I have more evidence. Look at the mallard duck. The female is drab and brown and not at all interested in style or appearance. The male, on the other hand, struts about with a green head and flashes of blue on its wings.
As a result of this pioneering work, which I’ve researched tirelessly for several minutes on the internet, I’ve decided that actually it is possible for an alpha male to buy an Audi TT. It suits our inbuilt need for style and our completely unthreatening and rather lovely personalities. And it corners well, too.
So what about the violent, ugly, murdering bastardhood that is womankind? What sort of car should it have?
Well, as we know, human females like to drive massive four-wheel-drive cars; it suits their need to kill as many other road users as possible, damage other people’s property, and if you believe David Cameron in his fair-trade trainers, destroy the whole world as well.
And all of that brings me to the newest 4x4 to hit the marketplace, the Cadillac SRX4.
This is a very ugly car. So ugly in fact that you’ll want to get inside it and shut the door as quickly as possible. But sadly when you are inside it’s even worse.
Cadillac has gone for a half-timbered look with bits of wood nailed to every flat surface, and some that aren’t flat at all — the steering wheel, for instance. Now this kind of thing worked in Elizabethan times. Team it with some wattle, some daub and a hint of thatch and all is well. But polish your wood until it gleams and then team it with plastic and I’m afraid the end result will be, and is, absolutely revolting.
Still, it could be worse, and it is, when you fire up the big 4.6 litre engine and go for a drive. Because immediately you run out of petrol.
Officially the SRX can achieve 16mpg, but unofficially, on the school run say, you’d struggle to get more than 12. Couple that with the Ł36,895 asking price, and the likelihood of piano-falling-from-a-tower-block depreciation, and this car could well turn out to be more expensive to run than the Iraq war.
It gets worse, too, because it’s marketed as a seven-seater, but it isn’t really. To fit into the rear seats you’d have to be so badly deformed that you’d need all manner of specialist equipment to keep you alive. An iron lung, for instance, and that isn’t going to fit.
What’s more, you can only get into these seats from the driver’s side, and only then if you have no legs, no arms, no head and a torso that can be twisted like Plasticine. Best to push the little button that electrically folds these seats away and pretend they don’t exist.
That way you end up with an expensive-to-buy, expensive-to-run, expensive-to-fuel, half-timbered and very ugly five-seater that is longer and therefore harder to park than the seven-seater Volvo XC90.
It’s not going well for the Cadillac, so I suppose at this point I should mention its good points.
Er . . . I suppose the V8 Northstar is pretty potent when you bury your foot in the nylon, and I’ll admit that for an off-roader the ride is pretty smooth as well. So smooth in fact that it made all three of my children feel sick.
I also liked the enormous sunroof. But I can’t say the same for the driving position. The steering wheel is too far away and will only adjust for height, not reach. Yes, you can move the pedals up and down, but if I’m to be honest this only turns the situation from bad to worse.
So if you want an unnecessarily big antisocial 4x4 — ie, you are a female — you can do better than this. The Volvo XC90 remains my favourite. I like its sensible layout, its reasonable price tag and its nonthreatening exterior. You, as a girl, may prefer the similarly practical but much more militarily butch Land Rover Discovery.
The Cadillac? It has no discernible sex. But then it has no discernible purpose. If it were a creature, it wouldn’t be a lion or a praying mantis or even a chimp.
No, I think it would be a wasp — useless and hateful in equal measure.
Vital statistics
Model Cadillac SRX4
Engine 4565cc, eight cylinders
Power 325bhp @ 6500rpm
Torque 315 lb ft @ 4400rpm
Transmission Six-speed auto
Fuel 16.9mpg (combined) /396g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 7.4sec
Top speed 40mph
Price Ł36,895
Rating 1/5
Verdict One star for the sunroof, none for anything else
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Oct 24, 2003 06:46 PM