People could be forgiven for assuming that the life of a motoring scribe is all champagne, caviar and jollies around the globe.
Well, let me tell you what utter hell it can be. Especially if you’re confronted by a media release that has so little in common with the vehicle you have just stepped out of that you wonder if they haven’t perhaps given you the wrong one.
It confuses you and after a while you begin to doubt your own sanity and judgment. Therefore I won’t judge too harshly those colleagues of mine who have, through the years, succumbed to alcohol abuse.
I mean, can you honestly blame them?
And the worst of it all is that the poor fellows who designed and developed the vehicle wouldn’t recognise their own creation either.

Consider this: somewhere, deep underground in a bombproof, sterile concrete bunker, an assortment of heavies are seated around a huge table, their faces reflecting the eerie glow of the neon lighting above them.
One by one a hopeful guy from product planning nervously addresses the group and presents a new idea. And every time the idea gets the thumbs down, he is immediately transferred to an assembly line in Uzbekistan where, for the rest of his natural life, he will inflate the tyres of new vehicles. With a bicycle pump.

But now and then one succeeds to convince the heavies in marketing, product development, engineering and finance that their idea is the Next Big Thing.
The Big Guy’s nods of approval sets in motion a flurry of activities. The engineers get cracking.
The bean counters draw up a budget.
The marketing guys start rubbing their hands. And so on.
Until one fine day, a couple of years later, when the product is ready and the media relation departments have to come up with media releases.
And in the process they bugger everything up. 
   
IN MY CAREER AS MOTORING journalist I have crossed paths with the most abominable clichés, euphemisms and PR-gobbledygook imaginable. And it bears more than just a passing resemblance to the property pages in you local newspaper.     
Just like a house on the market, the photo of a car is always taken from the most flattering angle imaginable. Oh, how they must agonise about this some times – especially if it hails from the East! 
You never see the cheap finishes or the rear passenger legroom that is so small a sewer rat won’t be able to hide there.
And just like houses are described as “interesting” (multiple haphazard additions), “perfect for restoration” (a dump), having a “nice view” (why don’t they say anything about the house itself?) or being an “entertainer’s delight” (because with all the noisy neighbours it’s a case of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’), certain phrases and descriptions are often used to make a vehicle sound more desirable than it could ever be.
But it’s all smoke and mirrors, so be warned.

Right, so the first thing you have to know is that a vehicle doesn’t just “look” like something – it has “an appearance”.
In the case of a certain #$% sports utility vehicle that looks like the creative brainchild of a group of Ritalin dependant five-year-olds, the media release referred to its “muscular appearance”.
Oh I see, it is not ugly, clumsy or incoherent. It’s just “muscular”.

But it got better: “With its impressive driving position, stability and pulling power, the XYZ is ready for action!” Well, if truth be told, the only thing that was impressive was its instability – as I duly wrote after driving the thing.
Then the media release really got going and called in the heavy artillery with claims like “styleful”, “radical”, “life instantly becomes more exciting”, “impressive”, “amazing”, and, last but not least, “stunning”.
Yes, the styling was, typically #$%, indeed “radical” and “amazing”.
At some point I was really amazed.
But not in a positive way.
The piéce de resistance was the incredibly ironic line: “If you don’t want to be noticed, then the XYZ is not for you.”
With which I absolutely agreed. We have not heard from this manufacturer again. Coincidence, or not?
Then there was the small Japanese shopping centre 4x4 with its 1.5-litre petrol engine. The media release spared no effort to remind you of the so-called “power bulge” on the bonnet.
What “power”? I mean, my liquidiser can pull a heavier trailer than this vehicle. 
And then there was the reference to the “masculine air dam” in the front spoiler. Chuck Norris is masculine.
So is the Camel man.
And John Wayne too.
Even the new James Bond.
But an air intake in a small, cute SUV without low-range gears?!

I started suspecting the writer of the offending media release of secretly taking anabolic steroids between writing sessions when I noticed his reference to the “powerful” centre console on the instrument panel. Well hey, at least then there was something powerful about this vehicle after all. Because its engine won’t be able to fight it’s way out of a wet paper bag.

Then there’s the butt-ugly, huge SUV, courtesy of a German manufacturer that otherwise makes very cerebral vehicles. The media release had to refer to the “framed grille that gives it a distinctively aggressive overtaking presence”.
Well, if you’re a raving psychopath then I guess that is the kind of thing you probably aspire to. Because who else (apart from ministerial convoys, obviously) will honestly want “a presence” when overtaking others?
An Australian-built, imported SUV that comes close to the same transgression has a release that mentions “the dynamic exterior design guidelines” that “gives it an authoritative and purposeful stance on the road”. Well, good on yer. 

The driver’s seat was described as “authoritative”.
Great. Does your wife backchat?
Are your kids disobedient?
Well, your problems are over!
The XYZ’s seat gives you instant authority.
Get in behind the wheel and they toe the line. As easy as that.
Then there was the following bit: “Market research inputs were incorporated into the overall design of the vehicle [which] overwhelmingly, customers declared they wanted …” Now this is all fine and well, but has anyone ever knocked on your door and asked you about the design of a future model? Or have you ever heard of this happening to anyone?
Trust me, there’s a bigger chance of you being whisked away by aliens for experiments than for you to be asked how a car should look.

THE SINGLE EXPRESSION that is probably used most – the bread and butter of media releases, in other words – is “impressive”. If I got 1c for every time I read a media release with this word in, I would have been able to buy a mansion, giant yacht, two aeroplanes, a private island and a hairdo like Donald Trump.
Everything is bloody “impressive”, from fuel consumption, safety and comfort, to engine performance. And to keep things interesting, it is alternated with “outstanding” and “phenomenal”. Just in case you were wandering how impressive this baby really is.

As hard as it is to believe, manufacturers can sometimes surpass the folly of their claims on paper with that uttered in person.
Earlier this year a Japanese manufacturer unveiled the “totally new” generation of one of its very well-known SUVs.
But there was one problem: it was just a cosmetic update, since financial difficulties prevented them from developing a really new vehicle.
So there we were, sitting in a media conference, when one of the marketing guys let rip: “Our designers,” he enthusiastically declared, “first came up with a totally different design. But then the owners said that it doesn’t look like the XYZ anymore.”
Well, I’ll be damned.
Since when do they show future designs to owners?
“So they went back to the drawing board and came up with this – a design that looks very similar to its predecessor.”
He’s obviously practising for a distinguished parliamentary career, if this complete nonsense is anything to go by.
Regarding its capabilities the PR people wasted no time and described it as “designed to tackle both heavy-duty, rough and smooth roads, to climb, tow and navigate sand, rock, water, mud, highways and even the high street, the rugged yet refined new XYZ is powerful, responsive and utterly exhilarating …”
And not just “exhilarating”, but “utterly exhilarating”.
Just like its predecessor, hey.
I don’t know if the person who wrote this release got carried away, or was on very strong mind-altering substances when he/she came up with: “Harsh off-road conditions mean angles so extreme you think no vehicle can cope, but the XYZ is adept at handling such surroundings. Not merely extreme angles from front to rear but also from side to side … one thing’s for certain – your nerve will run out long before the XYZ says enough!”
Okay, I give up. I think my nerve has just run out.