Car dubbed ‘the most comfortable in the world’ by Jeremy Clarkson can be yours for less than £5,000
A MOTOR that Jeremy Clarkson was surprised to discover a famous rock star owns could be yours for less than £5,000.
The incredibly practical seven-seater that’s rather popular with families was even dubbed “extraordinary” by the usually hard-to-please petrolhead.
The motor in question is the Vauxhall Zafira – which Clarkson once borrowed from U2 singer Bono in a bizarre incident in the south of France.
Jezza reveals that, while taking a trip to a small coastal village, the former Top Gear host asked a guide if he could borrow a car to drive up a very steep hill.
To his amazement, he was invited to Bono‘s house where he was handed the keys to the With or Without You singer’s Zafira – much to Clarkson’s bemusement.
In a feature for The Sunday Times from 2016, he wrote: “There’s no flowery way of putting this so I’ll just come straight out with it; Bono drives a Vauxhall Zafira diesel.
“In my mind he’d have had something fast and expensive but not showy or vulgar.
“A Maserati Quattroporte, or a BMW M6 Gran Coupe perhaps.”
However, the famed motorhead’s mind was quickly changed when he gopt behind the wheel of the simple set of wheels.
He wrote: “As we climbed up the mountain, the Zafira was very roly-poly but I found it surprisingly easy to moderate the pitching by turning the wheel gently and braking as though the pedal were made of an egg.
“Then I noticed how brilliant the engine was.
“It’s an all-aluminium, turbocharged 1.6-litre unit that can apparently do more than 60mph on a cruise and 120mph when you’re in a hurry.
“And then I went over a speed hump and I simply didn’t feel a thing.
“Never in all my years in this business have I encountered any car — including the Rolls-Royce Phantom — that’s quite so good at refusing to transmit road surface irregularities into the cabin.
“Which makes it the most comfortable car — pause — in the world.”
The Zafira, which enjoyed a 20-year run from 1999 until 2019, is a renowned cheap and versatile seven-seat MPV that was compared by Which? as “essentially a stretched version of the Astra hatchback with a more upright body.”
It’s perhaps best known for its incredible interior space and seating that even allows for a pair of seats to fold out of the boot floor.
It was also very reasonable to buy, even when it was new.
Today, a second-hand Zafira Tourer can be bought for as little as £5,000, with a good example from 2016, and diesel – much like the one Clarkson borrowed from Bono – up for sale on Autotrader for just £4,499.
In the summary of his Sunday Times feature, the Grand Tour host summed up the Zafira by simply saying: “The car’s extraordinary.”
Elsewhere, a rare 1990s sports car that Richard Hammond says “is a classic waiting in the wings” can be bought for less than £7,000.
And Wheeler Dealers’ host Mike Brewer has surprised fans by admitting he’s now “quite happy” his beloved classic Ford Fiesta was stolen last year.