Sniff Petrol

A single sliver of sunshine spears like a shaft through the gloaming cloud shroud that envelops and embraces the brooding flatlands of Eastern England. All at once this crystalline crack of light seems to speak of new hope and a new season that will send the lingering white wall that has blighted Britain for many a week back whence it came. Yes, the snow has gone. Yet ironically, whilst the conditions may no longer produce a perfect paradigm of abysmal, the four square shape that sits upon the once-white blacktop could truly be said to be abominable. Yet this is no solitary striding snowman boldly braving the bitter wind that still caresses the neck of the heartless landscape just outside Wisbech. This is something better yet. This is a better Yeti.

Yes, my steed to celebrate the first stirrings of the soon-coming Spring is nothing less than Skoda’s spirited attempt to bite off a meaty chunk of the soft-roader party. And immediately, this square cut high rider comes over all Jon Culshaw. Yes, this baby’s got first impressions nailed. And nailed hard. But is there a tasty filling behind that pretty pie crust? Time to find out.

Engine catches softly with a stern urgency that flirtily fails to mask a teasing under note, like a mid-flight giggle from an air hostess. First gear slots as a smooth as Roger Moore’s snooker table, clutch bites like an Alsatian on amphetamines and we are rolling. Straight away, you can feel that this baby wants to play, and the game is called ‘progress’. That motor under the prow may pack just 1.2 neat little litres but such is its eagerness to please that you might wrongly guess it runs on pure prostitutes.

The Yeti is really on the rampage now, motor spinning like Alistair Campbell, ably rowed along by a gearchange that’s keen as Roy’s mustard. But how does the sturdy Skoda cope when the going gets twisty? The answer comes in one simple word – simply brilliant. Steering reacts like a crack fuelled cat, pouring the Yeti into each corner with poised precision. Blindfold the driver and they might easily assume they were pedalling a perfectly polished German car. But this is Czech, mate.

At nine-tenths the Yeti is as frisky as Seabiscuit and just as rewarding. But the really good news is that when you poke this snow monster with the sharp stick of helmsmanship it comes back smiling. Mid-bend I lifted off, felt the tail go light, simply caught it with a dab of oppo and I was away.

The Skoda Yeti S 1.2 TSI is a bitch. And I spanked it.

Troy Queef is Executive Associate Editor-At-Large for DAB OF OPPO magazine

Crisp crystalline snow swaddles the somnambulant scene like a talcum powder duvet, smothering and smoothing all detail into one icy entropy. All is calm, all is white, yet amidst this monochrome magnificence two yellow pools make their presence felt, like flickering floods of mid-air dog piss. But these are not the ammonium outpourings of an electric spaniel; these are piercing puddles of light, emanating for the four square stare of quad headlamps.

The beast to which they are attached squats motionless aside the road, its straight six shooter a-rumble with palpable potency as its fluids eventually achieve the warm embrace of their optimum operating temperatures. Let’s do this thing.

Slot shifter through the knuckly nub of the gate into first, let the clutch begin its connecting clasp. All at once I plant the power pedal and feel the swirling surge of whiteout wheelspin. The back steps out and straight away I catch it with a dab of oppo.

Then it swings the other way and we slide into a ditch. Shit.

My sister’s old BMW 325i E30 Touring was a bitch. And I crashed it. Sorry Claire.

The weather being what it is you’re probably thinking about buying a T-shirt about as much as you’re planning to run outside in your pants and swan dive into a massive pile of choc-ices. If, however, you do fancy adding another item to your impeccably tasteful collection of Ts you could do a lot worse than one of the Troy Queef immortalising DAB OF OPPO shirts, made by the splendid people at Slick Attire.

There are now three colours to choose from, and all for the bargain price of just £16.

Get your T-shirt today. You could always do what all da kool kidz iz doin and wear it under some sort of shirt or jacket until the weather warms up a bit. See, Sniff Petrol isn’t just about lame car gags. We do fashion advice now too.

Searing lumps of lazy light pierce the moist melancholy of an angsty Autumn as all at once the sonamulent sun deigns to radiate beyond the clumps of cloud that hang like pregnant party balloons forming an almost seamless ceiling across the badlands of the East Midlands. Yet the celestial fireball is not alone in attempting to illuminate this landscape for at mere mortal level are two fast moving orbs of Halogen, lightly searing this grey and grizzled Tuesday afternoon.

Headlamps on in the daytime? Yes. For that simple stalk twist action has a meaning far more symbolic than simply to spark into action the glimmering glower on the front of this machine. It says ‘I am on a mission’. I am kissing apexes, hugging kerbs, touching the limit. If I was any more intimate with this bold and brazen blacktop pretty soon one of us would be pregnant.

And my steed for this no-holds-barred brawl with the finest playground the Kettering area has to offer? The road gets more than it deserves for I am pedalling nothing less than the brand new Suzuki SX4 saloon. And yes, you read that right. The ‘saloon’ suffix is no tedious typo. The Big S really has given its sensational SX4 soft roader a right good booting. As soon as I saw the details of this beauty I could feel that it packed more promises than a shopping centre Santa. That longer rear overhang and firmly stamped slab of metal aft of the back wheels smelt strongly of enhanced balance. And now, as I spear across the scenery, I will discover if that initial suspicion can slap me with fact.

First impressions are strong like cheese. Engine feels as willing as a Japanese lap dancer, running to the redline like it’s sprinting from a storm. But the only storm here is grunt, and plenty of it, punting the Super-zuki along at will. The gearchange goes glove-in-fist with these four pots of power, slick as an oil salesman, smooth as a single malt sucked through a sax.

But in this class act, it’s the chassis that really brings the apple for teacher. Turn in is crisper than the Egyptian cotton sheets I slid from this morning, steering gives chat that would make one J. Ross sound Cistercian, and there’s BBC humbling levels of balance. Piling in hot to a particularly damp switchback I lifted off smartly, felt the back end go light, enjoyed the fertile budding of a full on slide. I simply gave it a dab of oppo and I was away.

The Suzuki SX4 1.6 SLX saloon is a bitch. And I spanked it.

Troy Queef is Executive Associate Editor-At-Large for DAB OF OPPO magazine

If you like Troy Queef but wish you had something appropriate to wear whilst reading his terrible reviews, worry no more because thanks to our friends at Slick Attire the official Troy Queef Dab Of Oppo T-shirts are here, and now available in three colour options.

And if you’ve already got a Troy T and wish you had something else to read whilst wearing it, why not clickerage on the following words to buy the brand new Big Book of Top Gear 2010 which was written by Sniff Petrol and contains gags of a lameness that readers of this website may find annoyingly familiar.

Silent shafts of spearing sunshine shoot shimmering stains of summer across this somnambulant scene in front of me. It’s 33 miles to Corby, I’ve got a full tank of petrol, half a pack of Extra Strong Mints, it’s light and I’m wearing Serengeti Firenze driving glasses with polarizing lenses and satin gunmetal frames. Let’s hit it.

But before Dunlop gets cosy with blacktop, just one question sticks in the mind like a quizzical arrow. Will I actually need that full tank of juice? This is not the corpulent conundrum it might as first seem for today I am helming a Honda hydra, a beast not with two heads but with two engines, one that sups from the lead-less cup we all know whilst an electric motor sits bang next to it, snuggled up tight like an incestuous sister. As I prepare to get pedalling on some of the Peterborough area’s finest twisties I will be doing so asking if, motive power-wise, two is better than one. So let’s Tango.

First impressions are of a firm push in the back that would make an osteopath envious. Within mere seconds you know that this baby loves to torque, but can she dance? The first set of apexes will soon set it some questions it needs to answer. And there is no phone a friend. Turn in, the steering as searing as stepping on a Lego brick, feel the tyres tread shuffling their way into the attack position as the Gs reach a mighty crescendo of literal lateral gravity, their rubber souls clinging on for dear life as the sweet suspension commands them to do its benign bidding. All inputs and outputs are telegraphed in crisp digital real time. This is Chassis 3G, a broadband link to the road and all its secrets.

What insight have I got into the Insight? A game of two halves, and they both love to play hard. It’s only right and proper that I up the ante, piling in harder, coming on stronger, revelling in the heat that beats from its hybrid heart. As the road snakes onwards I press on like a panty liner, stringing the sinews together in sweet succession. At one moment I lifted off mid-bend and felt the cheeky tail shuffle sideways. I just caught it with a dab of oppo and I was away.

The Honda Insight 1.3 SE is a bitch. And I spanked it.

Troy Queef is Executive Associate Editor-At-Large for DAB OF OPPO magazine

Don’t you just hate it when you’re a fan of a ludicrous fictional car journalist from a silly and often late website and there’s simply no way of demonstrating your appreciation for this character via the medium of high quality cotton clothing? Well that’s not a problem you’ll find with Sniff Petrol’s Troy Queef because, thanks to the nice people at Slick Attire, you can proudly display your Queefian allegiance on a lovely T-shirt providing the perfect upper body cover for those balmy summer evenings that the weather people are once again telling us are about to go away for ever.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the Dab Of Oppo shirt is now available in a choice of three colours. Why not buy all three?*

To get your Troy T-shirt simply make with the clickiness upon these words. Yes.

* Apart from the fact that you could end up wearing them one after the other and thereby look a little bit deranged. Might be best to come up with some sort of rota system that involves your other clothes, just to be on the safe side.

This is it. This is The Road. This is seven miles of soaring, serpentine sensuousness that will scorch me from my slumber, censure my senses and shakedown my steed with a smooth and semi-sexual series of esses. It will also take me to Kettering. This will be distilled driving pleasure boiled down to its basics as if it were the key Tarmac ingredient in Heston Blumenthal’s kitchen. Let’s do this thing.

To give this delicious ribbon of main course its just desserts I’m here in a small but perfectly formed piece of weaponry. As it tears a tiny hole in the bumptious belly of the East Midlands’ afternoon there are no stray pixels on this picture. Only a Pixo. That’s right; I’m pedalling the Pixo, Nissan’s newly minted baby that’s got its laser sights trained on the Aygo and is about to give it a bloody nose.

As The Road unfolds before me the little Nissan seems to take on a sense of animal urgency, all three cylinders singing the same sweet song, and that song says “You are in control”. Performance is metered out like whiskey at an Irish wedding; smooth but punchy and in intoxicating quantities. And that’s a party the gearchange wants to be at, dancing across the gate like a petrified snake.

But the real happy couple here is the ride & handling. When the twisted Tarmac asks yet more questions of them, the answer is always ‘I do’. Bumps are soaked up by the mechanical thirst pockets atop each wheel whilst grip is so plentiful you could sell the excess to a leech factory. Power in to each corner, trim your tack with the telepathic steering and then let loafer unleash lovely justice upon the throttle and power on to the next date with destiny and an old friend we call Mr Corner.

As car and helmsman forge a deeper bond I delve further into the box of tricks marked ‘dynamic excellence’, lifting off the throttle mid-bend to see what secrets this will reveal. All at once the tail stepped wide, I caught it with a dab of oppo and I was away.

The Nissan Pixo 1.0 Tekna is a bitch. And I spanked it.

Troy Queef is Executive Associate Editor-At-Large for DAB OF OPPO magazine

So last month Sniff Petrol suggested the idea of some Troy Queef T-shirts and the response was, quite frankly, reasonably massive. In fact we had more e-mails about this than almost anything since the whole James Allen campaign. And the good news is, the Troy Ts are here. Many people seemed a little uncomfortable about the idea of having the word ‘bitch’ emblazoned on their chest, presumably in case they were at the British Grand Prix and accidentally found themselves having to make polite conversation with their grandmother or the Archbishop of Canterbury, so that bit has been ditched and the final design is a kind of hybrid of some of the proposals you saw last month. Make with the clicky here to order one from the nice people at Slick Attire. Yes.

The insistent urgency of the alarm shatters my shallow sleep like so many rocks thrown through the window of a fresh morning. Yet in truth my sleep’s fitful unrest has given me precious little perchance to dream. After all, how could I truly take a business class return to the Land of Nod when I knew what was awaiting as soon as the sun made its sneaky creep over the horizon’s lazy threshold. Clothes are thrown on with a careless speed that would make Gok Wan gasp. A breakfast is ingested with a vainglorious velocity that would cause a wolf blush. All functional actions seem to happen at the breathless and breakneck of a Buster Keaton DVD jammed on four times fast forward. At last I leave the house with the urgency of a diarrhea wracked cheetah and there in front of me is the reason for all this early a.m. hurrying and harrying: a perfect shape draped in ravishing red paintwork sits four square on the driveway. Oasis said Dig Out Your Soul. No need for digging Noel, my Soul is right here before me.

That’s right, the sensuous steed that stirred my slumbers is Kia’s new family friendly funkster, a tantalising take on the age old question of how to make a B/C-segment five door sing with a little more zing. The Soul’s style certainly takes that eternal question mark and drop kicks it into a week on Thursday; you won’t mistake this kid karting, dog dropping, teenager toting, bicycle barracking , windsurfer whisking multi-tasking marvel for a feebly fenestrated van. This Kia sits loud and proud, comfortable in its own artfully blocky skin.

The question is, does the Soul stir the soul where it matters, out on the toughest set of twisties the East Midlands can serve up? The answer is an emphatic, let’s find out. With the oils warmed through I set vectors for the heart of the red line and feel the motor spin as smooth as Liberace’s bathrobe. Grab another gear, change as precise as a brain surgeon’s Breitling, already this funk Soul brother is playing wah-wah with my heart. The road starts to buck and weave like a bronco playing basketball and Kia begins to serve up the meat of its Soul food. Each bump is soaked up like an oily Korean sponge as the chassis keys into the road and clings on like a Velcro cat in glue factory. Hard inputs through the transparent and tenacious steering elicit swift and decisive actions that let you know for sure that this Soul train corners like it’s on rails. I am a Soul singer, coming in hot and heavy. All at once I lift off, feel the tail step wide, give it a dab of oppo and I’m away.

The Kia Soul 2 1.6 is a bitch. And I spanked it.

Troy Queef is Executive Associate Editor-At-Large for DAB OF OPPO magazine

So Crazy Dave Coulthard, the preposterously ‘street’ Sniff Petrol character rather than the agreeable F1 driver-turned-pundit, has largely gone away. But the good news is that you can still buy one of the last few Crazy Dave T-shirts, now for the bargain price of just £12.

Never let it be said, however, that Sniff Petrol isn’t one to milk its more popular fictional columnists. That’s why we’re thinking of doing a new line of T-shirts modelled on the ludicrous wheelsmithery stylings of Troy Queef. Our chums at Slick Attire – the clothing artists formerly known as N138 – have already come up with some possible designs which you can see below but before we push the big button marked MAKE T-SHIRTS NOW! we’d like to know if you’d be interested in buying a fine piece of 100% cotton Queefery. If you fancy increasing your visual helmsmanship for about 15 quid then send us an e-mail and if we get enough of a response we’ll have something on sale by the summer. Bitch spankery.