07 Aug 06
With the temperature in my office currently hovering around Gas Mark 7, cooling off has been much on the mind of late.
Lacking an agreeable swimming pool, or even so much as a lukewarm paddling pool, I've taken to spending every available minute in the climate-controlled Rav4, purely in order to stop my brain from melting slowly out of my ears.
Air-conditioning is now so ubiquitous within all but the bargain basement offering of most manufacturers that I imagine many of you have been doing the same of late, finding any excuse to drive in order to get out of this infernal heat.
However, having driven a veritable raft of machinery of late, what has truly surprised me is the variability of the climate control systems on offer. Alfa Romeo launched their handsome new Spider in Sicily. Which was a mistake. Because, even set on, er, 'Lo' and despite the relatively small dimensions of the cabin, the air-conditioning simply couldn't keep up with the furnace blazing apparently only a couple of hundred feet overhead.
Nor did the Bentley Flying Spur make much more decent a fist of things en route to the sweltering plains of the Fairford Air Tattoo. Not only was the Audi-sourced system desperately counter intuitive to use -jumping back to 22 degrees every time I pressed to 'Auto' button, no matter how much I insisted on the 17 degrees I actually wanted- but also coming complete with a broken, stubbornly shut 'howitzer' fascia vent - one of the few genuine Bentley parts remaining.
A pair of VWs proved far better: the Polo GTi gave no cause for complaint and even the diminutive Fox - though I have no idea where the poor thing fits in their model line-up - provided admirable gouts of life in the freezer on demand.
