Tim is a very thorough, balanced journalist and weighs arguments carefully. Once he's made a decision however, he goes to extraordinary lengths to express his opinion and his reviews are often awash with cutting, witty simile.
Tim has a distinct dislike of vehicles that obviously appear to attract certain cliché’s . He is often very critical of the image associated with certain machines and detests political correctness in a car's design, or features that take control away from the driver.
Rather than attacking vehicles that may be bought by Premier League footballers however, it's the drivers that behave badly on our roads every day that he derides. Notably, in 2007 he included a 'public information film' within a BMW car test to encourage Beamer drivers to get 'the hell' out of the outside lane.
At 6 foot tall, he also finds fault with any vehicle that has poor leg, or head room. He is also very critical of vehicles that have what he feels to be an inadequate range of adjustment on seats, or steering column. Tim is not a great fan of what he feels are 'over engineered' cars.
Large, solidly built vehicles with electronics that detract from the driving experience don't impress him overly and he has often compared such vehicles to being stuck on a long journey with boring people such as “a milk bottle top collecting accountant from Skegness”. He is however a major fan of performance vehicles that allow you to switch all the electronics off, such as the Ferrari 430.
One of Tim's biggest professional conflicts was caused by the British car manufacturer Austin Rover. Although he had great admiration for the brand as the last major British owned and built car, he couldn't help feeling that the firm hadn't gone far enough with the quality of its vehicles.
He particularly liked the MG variations of the Birmingham built cars, but added that the firm would have to move heaven and earth to leave behind the the rotten heritage of British Leyland.
He emphasised his point by recounting the childhood memory of smelling the rich fuel from flooded Austin Allegro's as they failed to start in almost every street on his way to school. He went on to point out that by the mid 1980's the car market was swamped with BL cars that were more body filler than metal. He was however incredibly sad to report the marques eventual demise.
He can't stand cars that are boring and bland, posing the question from time to time; “in ten years time, could this be the next Nissan Sunny”?
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