Moroccan drive of new Spider reminds why we love cars
When, exactly, did the car become a problem? It has always had its issues, granted, but I seem to spend more of my time thinking, talking and writing about the oil crisis, road charging and the financial plight of the carmakers than about the good stuff that makes us want so many cars in the first place. The balance has shifted; we’re now so car-dependent that our terror of its use being restricted is killing our enjoyment of it.
I’ve just had two days of mental recalibration on this point. I was driving the new Alfa Spider in rural Morocco. In the UK, once the initial novelty has worn off, the Spider will be just another customer for all the cameras, lost in a sea of me-too posh cars. We have one car for every three people. But in Morocco, it’s one to 33 and most of them are knackered Peugeots. To the eight year-old Moroccan goat-herds who leapt up and down and waved as we passed, a red Alfa Spider is the most desirable, exciting object they may see all year, bursting with the promise of speed and adventure and sex, if they knew what the latter meant.
They’re right, and we’re wrong. We had a sensational drive in the Spider; flat-out over empty, cliff-top switchbacks to a deserted Atlantic beach. It was everything we used to like about cars, and driving. The problem – and the biggest single issue facing the global car industry – is that Moroccan goat-herds, Chinese factory workers and Indian call-centre staff by the billion are all excited by cars in the way we used to be, and increasingly can afford them. Can we deny them? No. But can we sustain all these extra cars? No way. I’ve been reminded why I like the car, but I’m going to be writing plenty more about its problems.