Jeremy Clarkson - What Could Possibly Go Wrong...

I realize, of course, that in theory a high-speed train linking the north and the south of Britain is a fine idea. But since it needs to cross at least five Tory constituencies, it will never happen. And nobody would be able to afford to go on it, even if it did.

Then we have air travel. In principle this should work quite well, but the concept has unfortunately been hijacked by busybodies who now insist on taking photographs of your gentleman sausage and confiscating your toiletries every time you want to go somewhere. This doesn’t work. And it doubly doesn’t work when planes are now grounded by everything from a bit of weather to a volcanic burp near the Arctic circle.

This leaves us with buses, and oh dear. They really don’t work at all because they are simply too full of diseases and knives. No, really. The next time a bus goes by, have a look inside, and I guarantee that the passenger – there’s never more than one – will not be the sort of person you would allow within 500 feet of your front door.

I accept that in rural areas the elderly and the infirm need to get to the post office, but why send a supertanker round to their village five times a day? Nobody needs to go shopping that often. Why not send a small Transit van round once a week? Or, better still, why not give those who cannot drive an internet and let them do it all online?

So, we’re all agreed that whether you want a pint of milk from the shops or a holiday in the south of France, the car is better, safer, cheaper, faster, more comfortable and less annoying to others. Plus, nobody pats your breasts before you set off and you don’t emerge at the other end of the journey with deep vein thrombosis, diphtheria, a knife in your eye and no luggage.

Of course, there are many annoying things about using the roads. Interfering governments have decided, for instance, that the amount of tax you pay should depend on the composition of the gas coming from your tailpipe. This means that cars will soon have to have two motors. One to move you about and one to assist on hills. Even Ferrari is going down the stupid hybrid road.

Then there are the speed limits. For some reason our government thinks that motorway travel should be undertaken at no more than 70 mph, because that was a safe speed when your dad’s Ford Anglia had drum brakes. I know. Ridiculous. But there we are.

There are countless other problems, too, but despite everything, the car is still good. The car still works. There is still no alternative. It’s just a question of deciding which one to buy. There was a time when Audi made cars only for German cement salesmen, but in recent years it has decided to make a car for absolutely everyone in the world. There’s the Q5, the Q7, the R8, the A1, the A3, the A4, the A5, the A6, the A8 and now the A7.

I’ll let you into a little secret at this point. They are all the same. Oh, they may look a bit different, and some are bigger than others, but in essence they are all made from the same components.

Think of it this way. Cakes, buns, Yorkshire pudding and pancakes all look and taste different but they’re all made from the same thing. That’s how it is with Audis. Flour and eggs mixed up in different ways to create twenty-one different cars.

At first you think Audi may have actually tried something radical with the A7 because it has an all-new platform. But then you learn that this platform will be used in the next A6. It’s the same story with the engines and the four-wheel-drive system and all of the interior fixtures and fittings.

However, the engineers can make a difference by fiddling with the steering and the suspension setup, and I must say that in the A7 they have. This does not feel like an Audi. It feels better. The ride is beautifully judged, the handling is lovely and the steering is spot-on. It’s not a sports cake but it’s not a Yorkshire pudding either. It’s just right, in fact, for the fiftysomething chap who wants a stylish hatchback that doesn’t break his spine every time he goes over a catseye. Although, when I say stylish… it isn’t, really. The back looks as though it’s melted and the front is just sort of Audi-ish. Mind you, it must be said that it does have an enormous boot and loads of room in the nicely trimmed cabin for four. Not five, though. There is no centre rear seatbelt.

Apart from this oversight – which is bound to have been the result of a marketing meeting at which someone stood up und said, ‘Zer is no such sing as ein sporty car mitt five seats’ – the only problem is the positioning of the accelerator pedal. The car may be able to keep going when the weather would rather it didn’t, thanks to four-wheel drive. But if you are wearing the sort of shoes that enabled you to get through the snow to the car in the first place, you will end up pressing the brake pedal every time you want to go faster.

Despite this, and the melted rear, the A7 struck me as a good car. A bit heavy, perhaps, but good nevertheless. Until I checked out the prices. A top model dressed up to the nines will set you back a massive £91,500. The model I drove, a 3-litre turbodiesel with a seven-speed double-clutch gearbox and four-wheel drive, is the best part of £50,000. And I’m sorry, but it simply doesn’t feel worth this much.

Yes, it’s big and striking and practical and – we’re told – extremely safe, but underneath, it’s just eggs and flour. And for £50,000 you could do better. The Mercedes CLS springs to mind. So, too, does the Jaguar XJ.

It’s nice to have the choice, though. Because that’s what you didn’t ever get with the failed experiment that was public transport.

Over the past few years, the sort of people who find recycling exciting have predicted the end of the internal combustion engine and said that 2011 will herald the bright new dawn of silent, zero-emission electric motoring, where no one dies and town centres actually look like the models architects make when applying for planning permission.

There’s no doubt, of course, that many car manufacturers are working hard on hybrids – which are normal, petrol-engine cars that have a second, electric motor to keep the rule makers in Brussels happy. But pure electric cars? I don’t see their Blu-ray/VHS/Sky moment until someone commercializes a hydrogen-based system for recharging the batteries. And that’s not going to happen in 2011. Or 2012. Or any time in the foreseeable future.

What I do see happening in 2011 is car makers peeping from behind the terrifying double-dip curtain of financial uncertainty and presenting us with a flurry of machinery that will keep the disciples of internal combustion as happy as if they’d landed the role of ‘chauffeur’ in a French porn film.

Aston Martin, for instance, will present two new cars this year. One, called the Cygnet, is a 1.3-litre version of the Toyota iQ. Engineered solely to keep the average fuel consumption figures of the Aston range down – and therefore the Euro law makers happy – it will be treated as a joke. The other will not.

It’s the One-77, which is made from carbon fibre, has a hand-built V12 and boasts a top speed of 220mph or more, making it by far the fastest production car Aston has made. The only trouble is that it will cost £1.2m, which is a lot.

Lamborghini is also planning a limited-edition, mega-money car for 2011 and, because it doesn’t have to worry about average fuel consumption figures – Lambo is owned by Volkswagen, which makes the Polo – it will be a replacement for the Murciélago.

That, however, will be overshadowed by the new McLaren. Named MP4-12C – or OCD for short – it will have a twin-turbocharged 3.8-litre V8 that develops 592 horsepower. So, with a price tag of just £168,500 – about half what McLaren charged for its last car and around a fifth of the price of the one before that – it will be less expensive and more powerful than the Ferrari 458. I can’t imagine it will be better but who knows.