Of course you know that the thumpa-thumpa of those Imprezas that cruise around town and city centre one-way systems on this island Britain is artificial. It's all in the exhaust lengths you see. What's important though, what's important is that it is easily discernible.
When that thumpa-thumpa turned into a loud snarl then a popping on the overrun I knew what was being chased. Police sirens flooded the distant night but our man (or woman) in his (or her) Impreza was doing a good job of keeping the fuzz at bay. I could hear him (her) snarl down the Lansdown road, pop and crackle down the gears before screeching around the roundabout at the top of Montpelier.
Of course they'd get him in the end. Once the police became airborne he'd (she'd) be done for. That turbo flat-four would glow so fiercely that any old idiot with heat sensitive goggles would see him. Plod in a whirly-bird would have no trouble at all.
So we live in a world of CCTV and helicopters. So we live in a world of GPS. Putting all of that to one side though, imagining all of these things did not exist, that it was still driver -vs- driver,
What
Would
I
Choose?
something big of course. Something big enough to ram a police spec X-5 or Range Rover. Something fast, something high and 4WD. Something able to cross a field but shoot down a motorway.
I'm gonna rule out the police choice afore mentioned SUV's. The baddies never drive the same vehicle as the goodies. That is not how it is written. Porsche is out. I got drunk the other day and kicked one as hard as I could. No criminal damage. To solid. A case made you might think, but I hate the things. Case closed, I think.
That leaves the BMW X6 M. Almost as offensive as the Porsche, but not quite. The new bimmer has the guts and the glory. Imagine coming across a road block of 330d's and Volvo T-5's. Imagine putting your foot down and listening to the growl of a 547bhp twin turbo V8 marshaling near as damn it 2.4 tons of German battering ram. Imagine the patrol car's engine bay spread over the carriage-way as you roar off into the night. It's everything you need. Everything you need for a bank heist.
The man who lives at the tip of my home road, however, is not a bank robber. He does live in a world of GPS, CCTV and helicopters. He doesn't need a 2.4 ton four seater that does an average of 16 mpg. He simply trundles around in it, kids in the back.
Fool.
Transmission Ends...
