Being an internationally renowned motoring journalist, I get sent alot of things, as I’m sure you can imagine. Cars, of course, but also other stuff. Fanmail (sacks of it. They hate me in the post room, but we have a laugh about it).
Also invitations, presents, bribes, propositions, proposals. And now a novel: The Tin Snail, by Cameron McAllister. Why? I can barely read. Oh, I see, it’s about a car, a brave little French car that helped win the war. It’s charming, and based, loosely, on the true story of the Citron 2CV.
There can’t be many cars around now that you could squeeze a novel out of, simply because there aren’t many cars around with either the personalities or the stories behind them. Certainly I don’t think you’d get much literature out of this Audi.
How would it go? Once upon atime there was a compact executive saloon, built by a large team of people working for a German car manufacturer. The Audi A4 2.0 TDI SE (150PS) multitronic doesn’t have a nickname, because it isn’t that kind of car. Nor are the people who drive it the sort of people to give their cars nicknames.
One day, the Audi A4 went to see aworld-famous motoring journalist. He, the WFMJ, not the car (it’s not a car that lends itself to gender either) appreciated that it was a very able car, classy in an understated kind of way, a bit less flashy than its chief rival from another German (Bavarian) car manufacturer.
He found much to commend about the car: the way it drives and handles (though it’s actually not as good to drive as the Bavarian rival), the performance and efficiency of the excellent diesel engine, the comfortable and well-appointed interior. He recognised that for alot of people an Audi A4 would be an achievement, a mark of success, though by no means an ostentatious one. Again, classy, not too flashy.
Yet he found himself unmoved. The car’s sober, conservative design didn’t excite him. It looks like a lot of other cars, he thought to himself. That’s probably why none of the neighbours, who usually show some interest in the cars that turn up in the street, even mentioned it.
To be honest, his own family barely noticed it. “That’s taking understatement abit too far!” he said, out loud this time. “If you’re spending $30,000 on a car, you want someone to notice it or you would if you were a shallower kind of person, concerned by things like status.”
Truth be told, the Audi A4 2.0 TDI SE (150PS) multitronic bored this motoring journalist rigid. Not only was it pretty much personality-free, but it didn’t come with, or lead to, any stories. Which is why this one is rubbish. The end.
