Family takes driver’s seat

Published on 27 February, 2022

Overview

It has been a very mixed couple of weeks with family issues to the fore; some good, others sad. On the plus side, one of the pleasures of this column is, every so often, being able to show off the latest motoring technology to my family.

Obviously, over the last two years the opportunities for this have been more limited. However, all that changed the other weekend when my Manchester-based grandchildren and daughter arrived for a visit to Dublin from the UK for the first time since late 2019 when we had gone to Center Parcs in Longford.

Coincidentally it was at the same time my son and his partner were coming back from London for a trip. So it was two very happy trips to Dublin Airport Arrivals in a couple of days. Such joy.

Luckily that week the test car was the Premium Plus version of the fully electric Hyundai Ioniq 5 with the long range 72.6kWh battery.

Like its cousin, the Kia EV6 is a very cool looking car with lots of safety equipment on board. In Hyundai’s case this is even with the lower specification. But the test car, at nearly €16,000 more than the entry level €37,995 58Kw battery Executive model, was quite something else.

If the grandkids took for granted the airiness of the cabin and the space across the back seats, the door handles that popped out when we approached and the two 12.3” screens across the fascia then they would be blown away by the fact that you could park the car standing away from it by using two buttons on the remote.

Ash (14) and Ben (12) very quickly got to grips with the fully-electric concept and corrected me when I talked about the car having an engine. Five-year-old Thomas had question after question about the batteries;where they were, what happened to them when they were used up and what was on the screens?

The car felt very quiet after I dropped them off to the airport at the end of a long weekend. The two dogs just keep their thoughts to themselves and concentrate on the ball-throwing or dinner to come.

Nowadays I rarely get to test the full family car abilities of a vehicle, so it was good to do it with the Ioniq 5 and find it was so user friendly, powerful and safe while having such a stand-out design that it turns heads wherever it is.

However, postman Jason didn’t like the rather spectacular alloys. They were a bit brash for his taste. It is no surprise that the Ioniq 5 was the best selling electric car last month and that the PremiumPlus spec with the bigger battery is the one people are going for.

The €53,495 price after grants and VRT relief isn’t cheap but as last week’s cartell/CarsIreland survey reported the average value of a new car is now €35,199, up from €33,278 a year ago and nearly €11,000 more in 10 years. There is an awful lot of future packed into the Ioniq 5 which justifies the price.

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It is a back to the future moment with news that the Volkswagen ID Buzz vehicle will have its world premiere on Wednesday week. It is a fully electric vehicle, available for both passengers and cargo, which takes its styling cues from the famous T1 ‘Bulli’ of the 1950s, which developed into the camper van of the hippy movement.

Like the original Bulli, the ID Buzz will have rear-wheel drive. Initially a five-seater passenger vehicle or three-seater cargo van are on offer when it arrives here in the autumn with a price tag of around €50,000 for the commercial version and €60,000 for the passenger which has 1,121 litres of luggage space, even with all seats occupied.

Longer wheelbase vehicles with a broader range of possibilities are following. Time to get out that kaftan, those beads and put some flowers in your hair.

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I was asked recently by a relative of a friend to recommend some cars around €18,000; new and second hand. While counselling that this wasn’t a good time to buy, one of the suggestions was the Suzuki Swift range and pointed her towards the dealer in Terenure, south Dublin.

No sooner had I written this than the latest Which? Car Guide came in the post. It has Suzuki at the very top in its reliability ratings for the last 10 years and is only topped by Lexus when 10- to 15-year-old cars are taken into account. I will return to the guide over the next couple of weeks but it is worth noting that the overall most reliable car is the Honda Jazz (2020). The magazine declares it the “king of kings...not just the most reliable car in its class, but the most reliable car for 2022”.

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Last weekend I should have attended the European launch of the new Opel Astra in Portugal. I hear good reports of it, especially as Opel has taken some strong design influences from its partnership with Peugeot in the Stellantis stable. It seems to be a good German/French blend. It’s a very important car for Opel, especially in the UK where the Astra is marketed as a Vauxhall and is one of the country’s top sellers.

I had to pull out of the trip as while I was writing last week’s column we heard that my mother-in-law had died after suffering from Alzheimer’s for many years.

Before the awful disease ravaged her, Georgina Usher was a vivacious woman who tried to live life to the full. She loved visiting us and delighted in being taken out in some of the plusher test cars. And Georgina was a real lady, in all meanings of the word.

She was the widow of Sir William John Tevenar Usher, the 7th baronet, of the famous Scottish brewing, whisky and philanthropy family whose wealth had been decimated by massive death duties and bad investments.

Georgina was devastated when John died suddenly in South Africa in 1998 after just six years of marriage following a long and tempestuous love affair. It broke her heart and no doubt contributed to her death at a far too young 74.

Before she left for South Africa in the early 1980s, Georgina lived in the Scottish town on Burntisland where she was parade queen in the late Sixties. I rather like the fact that her dress tries to match the red Triumph Herald soft top.

Rest in peace in the great convertible in the sky.