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Clarkson's cabin fever
Small wonder so many of them choose to vomit when in the back of a car. There's nothing else to do. We remove their ability to play with the electric window switches with an override button in the front, and if we fit a DVD player, we're told we're spoiling them and that they'll grow up to be drug addicts.
Right, well, how's this for an idea. Turn the back of the car into a ball pit. Not only will this keep them amused for hours, but also, in a crash they will be completely safe, cushioned from the impact by a sea of brightly coloured plastic.
And then there are the doors and the back of the front seats. Does all this have to be lined with leather or could it be finished in blackboard material? Or whiteboard? Or whatever you're supposed to call it these days?
That way, they could run amok writing slogans about one another, and drawing penises, and you won't care, because it'll all rub off.
At the other end of the scale of human evolution, we have old people. If you regularly transport your mother, or perhaps run elderly people to and from a whist drive, why not have super-absorbent seats, and drainage channels, which dispose of their effluent through the floor of the car? Team this with some flock wallpaper and they'd be very happy.
'Small wonder so many of them choose to vomit when in the back of a car. There's nothing else to do'
There is no reason why you, as the customer, should not be able to choose precisely what sort of interior you want when buying the car. Children-friendly, Anne Hathaway, or wipe down. Or you could have something tasteful and cottagey in the front and whizzy and kid-like in the back.
Maybe this is difficult to engineer on a production line, but there is no reason why some of the nation's hard-pressed interior designers should not set themselves up in business offering an aftermarket service.
It must be wearisome doing houses and office blocks all day, choosing stones and fountains and talking endless crap to IT consultants about feng shui. So break out the ideas for a ball pit and I'll have our Volvo XC90 round at your place in a flash.
Either that or maybe we could encourage car firms to employ at least one person in their interior design departments who has a little bit of taste, and a little bit of heterosexuality.
Other Jeremy Clarkson Articles
Jeremy Clarkson Home Page
Jeremy Clarkson - Perfection
Jeremy Clarkson - Chariots of Dire
Jeremy Clarkson - Rides the Waves
Other Car Reviews
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