Is it any wonder Britain is falling out of love with the car?

THE doctor's been in and given his diagnosis. Britain is Castrol R deficient. As a nation, we are falling out of love with the car.

That's the finding of a new report, which concludes that we - and particularly my own group of petrolheads, the male twentysomethings - are driving in fewer numbers over smaller distances. Perhaps these days we can't be bothered getting in the car and driving to a mate's place, because it's easier to Facebook them instead.

I'd agree with the numbers - since the days when the Spice Girls were still topping the charts and the most sophisticated bit of handheld tech most kids had was a dead Tamagotchi, the number of young blokes in the North West with a driving licence has dropped by 18% - but not the logic. It's not that we don't still love our cars. We just can't afford them any more.

Motoring as a movement, no puns intended, is still being passed down to the next generation, if the number of lads younger than I am at classic car shows is anything to go by. Gigs like the Footman James show at the NEC, these days at least, are just as likely to draw fans of the original Fiesta XR2 as they are the Morris Minor or the Hillman Imp. I still shuddered when I saw an entire stand dedicated to the Vauxhall Nova!

Nope, the problem is the numbers; upwards of £1.30 a litre for petrol, anything in the region of £1,500 for insurance and the sort of obsession with miles per gallon which would have made a Rover Vitesse owner wince. Not that these aren't things we all have to deal with - remember, these days we're all in this together - and they're costs which most car nuts will still put up with, especially if they're clever and buy a pre ‘73 car with no road tax and classic car insurance. But I can see why most of my mates, even the ones vaguely interested in cars, give the idea an apathetic shrug before whipping out their iPhone.

I like the idea of motoring being a scene, a culture that gets passed down from my dad's generation to mine, which is why I love getting in these beautifully crafted machines, meeting up with likeminded folk and going on a drive to enjoy them. I just worry that in thirty years' time, the generation that follows me won't be able to afford it.

So the car, at least as an entity in modern day Britain, is a bit sick. Then again, I'd still take a Vauxhall Nova over public transport.

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A motoring idea you'll warm to in this winter weather

HERE'S an idea you'll warm to. Why don't we fit cars with proper boilers and thermostats?

T'was a cold and frosty morning when the thought struck me. Faced with needing to take a car rather than the bus into work, I unlocked the garage and started up a stone cold Mazda MX-5 which immediately fogged up the moment I dared to exhale breath while sat inside. I was one of the lucky ones; elsewhere, the good people of Southport were scraping the ice of their windscreens.

Here's the rub. Almost every car I've driven on a cold morning, even shiny brand new ones, still require the efforts of some cheap de-icer before you can set off, and then a good few minutes before the icy chill of winter leaves the interior. Nor can you do the old trick of warming the car up while you sit indoors with a cuppa - not only is it illegal, but you might as well stick a sign on your pride ‘n' joy with “STEAL ME” writ large all over it.

With the exception of a wonderful January weekend in Wales, when I donned gloves and a woolly hat so I could enjoy the crisp mountain air in the MX-5 with the roof down, driving first thing in the morning at this time of year is no fun. Unless of course, you run a recently-made Range Rover. A car which comes with a little gas heater and a time-adjustable thermostat, just like your house does.

In the same way I've always wondered why houses aren't fitted with electric windows, it perplexes me why proper thermostats which you can preset to come on when you want - which have been around for ages - don't come as standard on more cars. If you know you're going to setting off at eight every morning, wouldn't it be great to preset a proper heating system to come on fifteen minutes earlier, so your pride and joy is all toasty once you step inside and the engine isn't having to cough into life at minus four?

Don't get me wrong - there's all sorts of aftermarket preheating systems you can fit to your motor - but I'm just amazed the car industry at large didn't cotton onto the whole winter-is-cold thing years ago.

It's one motoring gadget you wouldn't give a frosty reception.

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Protecting youngsters is just the start for Ford's MyKey system

A SAFETY feature fitted to Fords in the States will be arriving from across the Atlantic next month in a bid to prevent younger drivers being involved in accidents.

The MyKey system, which will be fitted as standard on most models in the Fiesta range from next month, allows parents to alter the car's settings to make it safer when their children borrow it, and includes the option to restrict the top speed, to limit how loud the stereo system is, or to disable the audio altogether if seatbelts aren't being used.

I reckon, however, that MyKey could be used for all sorts of things beyond merely protecting youngsters from themselves. Here’s some of my own suggestions for extending the system:

Parent Mode: As per the normal MyKey system, but with an additional, disabled set of pedals in the passenger footwell for those moments when you never know whether your loved one is going to brake or not.

Audi Mode: Uses a form of radar-guided cruise control to automatically reduce all motorway following gaps to three feet. Minimum speed set to 90mph.

Tiff Mode: Switches all traction control systems off.

Gangster Lean Mode: Automatically maximises driver’s seat recline and darkens the windows. Maximum speed reduced to 8mph. Stereo preset to loudest volume.

Alfa Mode: Redirects all electronics so as to be operable by the passenger window switch alone.

Hire Car Mode: Doubles maximum speed, rev limit and optimum cornering speed. Only available on fleet cars sold to Avis, Hertz, etc.

Bond Mode: Activates the machine guns and nail dispensers

Roger Moore Mode: As per the Bond Mode, but with added eyebrows.

IKEA mode: Quadruples boot space.

TVR Mode: Automatically blanks off every interior button and reorganises them in an order completely incomprehensible to all human beings. Except, perhaps, TVR owners.

Feel free to add your own suggestions…

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Rover to the rescue in the Lake District

THE glamorous motoring missions don't usually get thrown the Rover's way.

While the MX-5 gets tasked with tackling the tricky mountain roads and the MG gets to strut its stuff at shows, my 1995 214SEi is usually doing the dowdier jobs, trundling to the shops and taking bits of unwanted furniture to the tip.

Yet on a weekend away in the wilds of Cumbria, it's more than proved its worth.

Having decided to spend a night away with a few friends in a camping pod near Ullswater (well worth a try, by the way) I pointed the Rover's square-rigged nose north up the M6 for the dash up to Cumbria. When I tried exactly the same journey in the MGB earlier this year it was genuinely hard work - not only was it slurping a gallon of premium unleaded every 25 miles, but it was noisy, heavy and, thanks to a firing problem, not all that fast either. The MX-5's motorway manners are far better but its tiny boot meant it was a no-no for the camping trip, and, still haunted my memories of a hairy moment with it on the wet Cumbrian roads this time last year, I decided its tail-happy sense of fun and country lanes covered in mud and wet leaves made no good mix.

Not that taking the £300 Rover was a bad bet, because what it lacked in excitement it made up for in comfort, its parsimonious take on drinking petrol and its sheer determination to plod on, no matter what I threw at it. I threw it at mountain roads. I forced it up steep hills. I caked it in mud. I loaded it up with clothes, clobber and camping gear. Not once did it complain.

I knew it wouldn't - this being the same Rover that refused to be beaten by snow in Grasmere, the Evo Triangle in North Wales or the enduring feat of getting to Norfolk in back in baking sunshine - but by far its finest hour was last night, when a mate's much newer, much heavier Mondeo Estate got stuck in the mud on a boggy campsite. Even though there was a Land Rover Defender parked nearby, nobody was around to drive it, so it was down to an ancient, front-drive Rover to tow the stricken Mondeo out.

Even though the Rover's clutch gave off a distinctly evil smell and the tow rope eventually snapped under the strain, the £300 hatch eventually managed to free an estate car weighing nearly twice as much and save the day. We toasted our success of a few pints of the local brew in the campsite pub later that night, but we couldn't have done it without the plucky little Rover which refuses to give up.

Great car.

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Calling all Scottish petrolheads

NOT SO long ago I got my first invite to a fully-fledged car launch. Champion commitments meant I couldn’t have taken two days, but it was a tempting offer – flights, accommodation, grub and the chance to drive a new car.

Most tantalisingly of all, it would have offered me the chance to put a car through its paces in a place I’ve always wanted to drive. The Highlands of Scotland.

Having lived just over the border in Carlisle for three years, I’ve ventured into Scotland on a string of occasions, most notably in 2007 when I used the Caledonian Sleeper as part of a feature to travel the length of Britain using public transport alone. I’ve also sampled some of Scotland from behind the wheel, but thrashing a Renault 5 to Dumfries and back is only scratching the surface.

Anyone who read my piece on Skyfall will already know the remoter bits of Scotland are a wonderfully scenic place to take a car, but with places like Glencoe and Aviemore being a long, long way from the Champion’s circulation area and petrol currently at a crippling 138.9p a litre you can understand why I’m a little reluctant to follow in Bond’s footsteps and take my own Sixties GT car on the same journey.

That’s why I’d like to go all Guardian on you and crowdsource a solution; what is the best, and most affordable, way to get your motoring kicks in the Highlands?

Taking your own car is the easiest and most convenient way to do it, obviously, but aside from the wear ‘n’ tear there’s the hours on the motorway and the petrol involved. As much as I’d love to see the shot of my MGB GT overlooking a misty loch, it’d take eleven hours and £150’s worth of premium unleaded just to get there and back.

Nor is hiring a car for the long trip up especially appealing either – sure, you’d save big time on fuel and it’d be a much comfier, quieter and less stressful drive, but when you’re presented with somewhere like the A82 as it winds its way towards Fort William you want to be something a little more memorable than a Chevrolet Aveo. A stage as grand as the Highlands ought to be experienced in something a little more agile!

The romantic writer in me loves the idea of boarding the Deerstalker as it screeches into Crewe at midnight, sleeping as it chugs its way through the Scottish countryside, and hiring a car at Fort William, but it’s a lot of money when you risk being lumbered with a diesel Vauxhall Corsa. Another option, until not so long ago, would have been to fly up to Inverness Airport, but the Liverpool flight I used to get back five years ago is long gone and Easyjet have dropped their Manchester flights.

So I’m stumped, haunted by an appealing idea which sounds like great full-throttle fun but which, thanks largely to the price of petrol, I’d struggle to do on a budget. That’s why I’d love to hear from anyone who’s ever ventured up there to find out what’s the best way to experience a stunning stretch of the British Isles.

The Dales, the Lakes, Snowdonia, the windy lanes of Cornwall and the Cat and Fiddle Run – I’ve driven them all and loved every mile. I’d love to add the Highlands to that list.

Life On Cars readers are also reminded that the PetrolheadPub Quiz takes place in Southport on Sunday, November 18. If you’d like to take part, it costs just £2 per person and starts at 7.30pm...

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The sun sets on another summer of motoring fun

COULDN'T resist sharing this shot of the MX-5 bathed in evening sunlight, which I took by the beach at Southport a couple of days ago.

With the nights drawing in, the air getting chillier and the wet British summer set to turn into an even wetter British winter, it's probably one of the last times I'll be able to snap a nice, summer-esque photo of the bargain ragtop. From Sunday onwards, driving around after about five-ish is firmly a night time, lights on affair.

All of which neatly brings me to one charity's calls for us all to stop becoming accident statistics at this time of year.

Road safety charity Brake have said they're keen to help combat the annual trend of road accident numbers rising during the winter months by urging drivers to take extra caution when behind the wheel due to the lack of daylight during evening commuting.

Ellen Booth, the charity's senior campaigns officer, said: “We can all help to reduce terrible and needless road deaths and injuries in winter darkness, and drivers in particular can make big a difference by committing to slow down.

"Slowing down to 20mph in communities gives you time to stop quickly should you need to: particularly vital when visibility is low."

She also urged walkers, cyclists and joggers to help themselves avoid becoming part of the accident statistics, by wearing hi-vis clothing to help make it easier for motorists to see them.

Consider the advice noted. I might just go for one more roof-down blast before the clocks go back...

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Great car, great road: tackling the Buttertubs Pass in a Mazda MX-5

NO WONDER I was a bit knackered. I had, after all, driven nearly 500 miles yesterday in my bid to get to Yorkshire, drive some new cars and then get back again.

But at least 50 of those miles I could have avoided, had I not insisted on going the long way home, and heading north up the A1 in a hunt for the Yorkshire Dales, rather than driving south in a vaguely homeward bound direction. When you're in North Yorkshire and you've got a sports car at your disposal, it'd almost be rude not to take it over what arguably is the most exhilarating stretch of road in this part of Britain.

The Buttertubs Pass.

It's a route I'm more than familiar with - once you're off the A1, you head to the picturesque village of Leyburn, and then dart over the tops of the hills past a tank training ground to Reeth, and then work your way west along the windy little road through the Swaledale valley, until you reach Muker. This is actually quite an enjoyable drive in itself - although at gone 5.30pm yesterday evening driving straight into the autumn sun made it surprisingly hard work - but it's only then you reach the start of the Buttertubs Pass, which takes you back over the hills towards Hawes.

It is an absolutely incredible stretch of road, and while I've enjoyed it before at the wheel of a Renault 5, a Rover 214 and - best of all - someone else's Suzuki Swift Sport, I felt yesterday as though I'd brought a car which was in its element. The MX-5 could have done with a bit more power on some of the steeper bits, but in terms of precise handling, communicative steering and open air thrills the little Mazzer was a joy. Big, big fun.

I came down - in more ways than one - from the thrilling Buttertubs Pass and pointed the Mazda's pop-up headlights towards the very-nearly-as-good Cliff Gate Road, which runs past the Ribblehead Viaduct towards Ingleton. It was getting dark. My hands were numb from the cold, wintry air rushing in from all directions. I was more than seventy miles from home, in a particularly remote bit of the middle of nowhere, and the effects of driving hundreds of miles in a string of different cars was beginning to catch up with me.

Not that I cared much. Piloting a great car over the Buttertubs Pass has got to be one of the best motoring thrills Britain can offer.

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