Although I’m a...

Although I’m a city boy at heart, these days I live out in the sticks. I moved partly because my London garage couldn’t cope with the strain I put on it. Today, I have a stately three-vehicle lock-up to keep my toys in. It houses my recently restored Volvo P1800, Lambretta GP200 and a kit car, which is my new winter project. Sadly, living out in the country does take its toll on my somewhat fragile motors. Farmers are constantly pulling mud out of fields and on to the roads, the miserable summer has dirtied up the lanes and the birds round here are like flying cattle, leaving a mark that only a chisel can remove.

So, I convinced the Brewers we needed a 4x4 to go with our country pile. Now, stepping into this market at the moment is a really risky business, as these supposed giant, gas-guzzling, road-hogging mud-pluggers are the blight of our roads!

Well, so we’re led to believe, at least. Councils, MPs, tree-huggers and the media are constantly banging on about how bad these models are, but nobody seems to be telling the manufacturers. Maybe it’s just a British problem – at last month’s Frankfurt Motor Show, everyone was playing the car-on-stilts game. Ford showed off its new Kuga, VW had the Tiguan and BMW the X6. And now even MINI is planning an SUV!

Some makers who had their fingers burned in their last efforts to go 4x4 are dipping their toes back into the water. Take Vauxhall, for example. It had a disastrous time with the Frontera, but has recently released the Antara – a clone of the Chevrolet Captiva, which in turn is a copy of the Daewoo Windstorm.

Yet despite the glut of competitors on the market, the Luton brand is confident there is sufficient demand for its SUV. So, if this is such a declining sector, why is everyone suddenly so keen to go off-road? Maybe it’s because, like me, 20 per cent of the population live in rural areas. That means there are 12 million people out there who have a real need for big cars with large tyres because rural byways are so badly maintained, mainly due to a lack of Government funding. I know that the lanes on our school run are clogged up with 4x4s. I had a chat with a few parents, and asked them why they felt they had to have an off-roader. They all put it down to road conditions and safety.

So, I’ve taken the plunge and splashed out on a Volkswagen Touareg. I took it for a spin at the weekend, and popped to the garden centre, filled the boot up with stuff and then stopped off for a pub lunch. It was all very pleasant indeed.

But the afternoon was ruined when we pulled into Banbury, a farmers’ market town I hasten to add, and negotiated the tight streets in the centre. A lady in comfy shoes stepped out into the road without looking, and cut across my bow. She didn’t say anything, but simply looked at me with disgust and tutted. Why did she do this? My off-roader is a 3.0-litre diesel, which will do a reasonable 27mpg. It’s not a big, gas-guzzling V8.

I was really affected by her righteous expression that afternoon, and thought that maybe the Touareg was the wrong decision. Should I have bought a Prius instead? I got the answer next morning when my farmer neighbour’s pick-up became stuck in a ditch and I used all the power of my new beast to tug him free. It felt good, as did knowing that I couldn’t have come to his aid in a Prius.

Some makers who had their fingers burned in their last efforts to go 4x4 are dipping their toes back into the water

So, now I’m going to take pride in my big Volkswagen, and will polish it alongside my other toys at the weekends. And I won’t care what anyone else thinks about it...