How a pointless drive in my neighbour's Volkswagen Golf Mk7 made me a better driver
Taking a neighbour’s car for a spin has given Richard Porter a new perspective on driving
Neighbours, as the syrupy theme to the TV show of the same name would have it, everybody needs good neighbours. Fortunately, we do. So when the lovely lady next door was confined to weeks of house rest after an operation, we wanted to help in whatever way we could. My wife started by taking round some cake. Shortly after which my role in this became clear. Our neighbour was worried about her car, my wife said. Specifically, that as she would be unable to drive for a while, it would fester on the driveway and in this colder weather the battery would go flat.
I hate the casual nuisance of a flat battery, so this seemed like an opportunity to be useful. Don’t worry about a thing, I said to our neighbour, just give me the key and while you’re laid up I’ll take out your car. If you’re expecting a big reveal here along the lines of, ‘Dear reader, that car was a 1987 Porsche 911 Turbo SE,’ I’m afraid that’s not where this is going. Our lovely neighbour has a Mk7 Volkswagen Golf TDI with a DSG ’box. And good to my word, one Wednesday afternoon I took it for a trot around.
This turned out to be a surprisingly enlightening experience, starting with the Golf itself. Everyone talks about ‘peak’ stuff but really the seventh-generation Golf is about as good and as Golf-y as things get in the medium-sized hatchback world. If aliens ever come from another galaxy and ask to be shown what the fuss is about with these ‘car’ things, this is exactly the sort of thing we should show them. Assuming they can speak English and are built to the same scale as us so they can appreciate the spaciousness and comfort of a last-gen Golf. Which, now I think on it, is unlikely. Still, for all those things we like about Golfs, even unsporty ones, the Mk7 is about as good as it gets.
The other interesting thing about driving someone’s car to keep it healthy is that it brings a different perspective. Every time there’s a bit of bad weather those groups quaintly described as ‘motoring organisations’ put out urgent statements reminding people to make only ‘necessary journeys’ and I always think, who’s out there making unnecessary journeys? Ah dammit, it’s going to be really windy tomorrow; that’s totally scuppered my plans to drive 500 miles to Aberdeen for no reason whatsoever. When you find yourself driving just to keep a car in a state of readiness, however, could you call that necessary?
I think you could, but it’s also a journey without a destination. Am I going to be late? Is the traffic going to be clear? Don’t know, don’t care. None of it matters. It’s like being cut free from the things that might normally bother you while in the car. What’s my destination? Well, ultimately, it’s back where I started, but with a few miles in between to get the engine nicely warmed up. So your A-to-A journey can be via B, or C, or Z. Doesn’t really matter. Which is strangely liberating.
There’s something else I found interesting about this run around the local area, and it’s the experience of using someone else’s treasured car. Obviously, I did not want to find myself knocking on my neighbour’s door, my bloodied head giving an early warning as to what I was about to say, which would contain words like ‘T-boned’ and ‘ditch’. So I found myself driving with extra care and scrupulous awareness of what everyone else on the road was doing, the way bikers do as a matter of course. Inattentive people nosing out of junctions; those drivers whose car body language makes it clear they don’t know how roundabouts work; anyone in a Corsa. I had my beady eyes on all of them.
As part of this general care and attention there was the way I was driving the car itself. Gentle inputs, forward planning. I like to think I’ve got mechanical sympathy, but this was the extra version reserved for someone else’s car. Easy on the throttle because it’s not my engine. Soft on the brakes because they’re not my pads. And once you start driving like this, you become very aware in the best possible way of everything you’re doing.
Soft hands on the wheel, your feet suddenly delicate like little deer hooves on the pedals. I don’t know if Alain Prost ever has cause to take out a neighbour’s car while they’re recovering from surgery but this, I like to think, is how he’d conduct things. I imagine he’s quite a good neighbour generally. He doesn’t seem like the type to let his hedges get overgrown or start blasting Music For The Jilted Generation at 11.35pm.
It’s a long time since I’ve driven as self-consciously or as carefully, precisely and thoughtfully as I did in that Golf, and it’s given me food for thought. You can do all sorts of driving courses and track sessions to hone your skills as a driver, but if you really want to think about what you do in a car, try taking your neighbour’s Golf for a run.
