Spawn of the Devil - The G Wiz

Cars, I have long since believed, are like pets. They provide us with so much joy, they can give us a very bad headache when something goes wrong with them, and, when something does go wrong, they both leave inconspicuous little puddles of goodness-knows-what in the middle of the road. The car then is for me not so much a mode of transport, but rather a necessity of life. Without my car, I am nothing, without me, my car; well, it’s still a car, but it won’t be going anywhere fast. My point here is that we go through most of our lives with our four-wheeled friends, and we share the good times, and the bad. Now by far the best pet to have is one that doesn’t need much maintenance, and one that is also comparably cheap. So ladies and gentlemen, tonight I present you with what must be the cheapest and lowest maintenance car in the world. A big round of applause then, for the G-Wiz.

This is not so much a car as an armchair you can drive. It is manufactured by the well known and well respected boffins at the Reva Electric Car Company. And the thing I find most astonishing about this car is that you don’t actually get an engine, as such. What you actually get, is a small hamster called Gerald; and if Gerald runs around his little wheel very fast, he’ll get you from 0-40mph in about 4 weeks. If you haven’t guessed yet I really don’t like this, well, you can’t really call it a car can you? Because that would just be insulting to the people who have genitalia and spend their time working on an industry that is actually worthwhile. Yes, I understand that the Wiz might be really very useful in London; I understand that it develops zero carbon emissions. But answer me this, if you were driving in London, in a G Wiz, would you really feel good?

The point I am making here is a simple one. The reason I drive a little too fast and I spend a little too much on my car is to feel like a proper man, you know, one of those big men you see on the telly, playing rugby or football and doing manly things. But to me, a student journalist living off less than your average checkout-assistant, that is an impossible dream. And so at the weekends, along with many others, I can be found driving at 80 along the motorways, just to feel a little bit alive. In the Wiz this simply wouldn’t happen. Outwardly, when you tell people about your new 200 Amp per hour green-mobile, they will tell you that you are “doing your bit!” for the earth, ad that as a result of your purchase, the Hungarian lesser-spotted Panda will live a little bit longer. But inside, where it matters, they will be laughing at you, because you will have just made a stupendously daft decision. The G Wiz is ugly, unreliable, slow, doesn’t work, has crap styling, has tyres that are way too thin, and, as Top Gear has already proven, is no use as a remote controlled car.

Now I’m going to be bold here and make a statement. And I know supporters of the Mini Clubman will thank me for this one. You are no longer bottom of the ladder, there is something worse than you, and G, I bet you can’t guess what it is. Now fans of the Wiz will proclaim that the slightly odd styling and the less than cost is a small price to pay for healing the world. But hold on, Top Gear has been to the North Pole, and as they proved, Global Warming is nothing but an April fool’s joke concocted by Al Gore and his slack-jawed brethren.

This car is awful, and there is simple no other word for it. But by all means, if you are a committed eco-mentalist with an IQ of 4 and the physical attributes of a bag of cement then please, go ahead, buy one. It just means more supercars for the rest of us really...