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Pride and Prejudice: 20.09.05
Close up with the Smart-loving lions
Close up with the Smart-loving lions
“Two young ladies, reasonably quiet day, back end
of 2004. Smart arrives, and the lions thought: that’s
funny little car, deserves a closer look. So they
trotted over.”
David Ross, park manager at Knowlsey Safari Park
on Merseyside, is gleefully telling the story of the
day his lions added the tiny two-seater to the list of
cars that rouses them from their usual slumber.
“The ladies… well, what would you do in a car like
that? They floored it. Nothing dramatic happened,
but it gradually built up speed and they made for
the gates. But the faster they went, the faster the
lions went until the whole pride was giving chase
with our Land Rover frantically trying to keep up.
The girls made it through gates, but outside they
were pretty shaken up.” Turns out Knowsley’s eight
lions are picky about their cars. They’ll pay not a jot
of attention to the vast majority of motors that cruise
around the half-mile loop in their wooded
compound, not even when flash after flash lights up
their favoured sleeping place. But along comes a
Smart or a Mini, or anything out of the ordinary and
these carnivorous petrolheads perk up. “Any car with
special peculiarities, like the Smart, or sports cars
with wings or spoilers, can cause an attraction,” says
Ross.
Seeing as the lion’s daily routine doesn’t normally
take them past a newsagent, we thought we’d
introduce the pride to a couple more cars of
potential interest. They’d get a chance to assess the
latest Smart rivals, and we’d add something the
usual road tests miss. Does the smell of human fear
seep through the Peugeot 1007’s sliding doors? Is
the Fiat Panda 4x4 good enough off-road to offer an
alternative escape route? And can a short-range
staring match with a 250kg lion replace the Smart
drivers’ number one fear of lorry turbulence on the
motorway?
As our convoy threaded its way through Knowlsey’s
550-acre park to the lions’ den, I tried to focus on
Ross’s pep talk. As befits a man who sounds like he’s
just stepped out of colonial Kenya, this wasn’t
reassuring. For example, he tells me, we might be
here on a ‘starve day’, where the lions’ daily 5kg of
meat is withheld to replicate savannah conditions. I’
m also perturbed to learn, as the Smart Brabus
buzzes its way pass the white rhinos, that a herd of
these three-ton beasts is called a “crash” and that
they can amble at 32mph.
Then we’re at the lions’ compound. Already a park
ranger has radioed ahead, alerting the lion keepers
that at Smart is on the way and needs close
attention. Will he have to add Panda 4x4s and
Peugeot 1007s in the future? With the ranger’s Land
Rover Defender close by, we’re allowed to park
insolently close to where the lions are trying to get
some kip. I know what I’m like when a thoughtlessly
driven car wakes me up, and I’ve long since
suppressed my primal urge to kill.
And they’re awake. The breathy rasp of the Smart’s
three-cylinder engine brings one, two, three heads
up, and pretty soon the eyes of the pride are focused
on us. Only the sole male ignores us (perhaps he
heard the Smart was Gay Car of the Year 2004).
Then three of the females walk towards our trio,
followed by a deceptively casual appraisal of each.
One pads round the back of the 1007, another
brushes the front wing of the Panda. But the third
has locked me into eye contact. Under that
menacing, hooded gaze – the one replicated by
headlight designers the world over – she seems to
be sizing up the Smart’s ability to entertain her, just
like when cats contemplate the dangly toy you’re
swinging in front of them. Unlike with a domestic
cat, I’m sizing her canines, the club-like paws and
the knot of muscles around her shoulders. Glad I’m
not in the convertible. Then she goes to the front
and the Smart rocks as she butts the offside wheel.
But the ranger revs his Defender and she backs off. If
that clattery diesel warning hadn’t been given, she’d
have shut her opened jaws around the bumper and
tyre.
Behind me the initial interest has subsided. In
contrast to the lion rampant on the Peugeot badge,
these lions are very much couchant. “Lions are
pretty lazy beasts,” drawls Ross.” Sex and sleep and
more sex and a bit of feeding at the end of the day,
that’s about it.” Kenya the male finally lifts his huge
shaggy head and staggers upright, but the lionesses
can rest easy – he just wants to check out the Smart
his harem had been sniffing around. He ambles to
the front, stands stock still as if to front it down, then
drifts off to lie down again. “Girl’s car,” seems to be
his verdict.
As we drive off, a couple of females give chase and
it’s frightening how quickly they shrug off their torpor.
The Brabus might be quicker than the rest of the
range, but that semi-auto gearbox is hopeless for fast
getaways – ditto the similar 2-Tronic system we have
in the 1007. Despite the soporific 0-62mph time of
20secs in the Panda 4x4, it’s manual gearbox makes
it easily the escape vehicle of choice.
After the lions the other adrenaline-booster in
Knowsley are the baboons. There’s no danger of
them shortening your life, but there’s no
guaranteeing your car will get away injury-free
either. Choose to enter the compound instead of
viewing it from the “wimp road” – as we did - and
your car comes under sustained attack from primates
with zero automotive sensitivity. They particularly
love wipers. “People try to be clever and work their
wipers and washers, but the baboons get clever” says
Ross. “Once they start doing that, they get their teeth
round the washer nozzle and they pull and extract it,
usually bringing all the plumbing and pipes with it.
They love it.”
The Scouse-born lions face no threat here on
Merseyside, but Smart isn’t so safe, as struggling
parent DaimlerChrysler threatens to render it extinct.
But judging from the reaction of Kenya and his
bitches, the Peugeot 1007 and Panda 4x4 just don’t
have the playful qualities needed to take its place.
The pride has spoken: if you want to be king of the
urban jungle, take the Smart.
BOX
Beastly behaviour
The bond between UK safari animal and the car
Ma Landie
Back in 2001, a young rhino Woburn Safari Park in
Bedfordshire was calling a Land Rover Defender
mum. New to the park, he was scrapping with an
older rhino and the park ranger had to part them
with the Defender. After few more scuffles, the rhino
took to trotting around after the Land Rover,
behaviour the park’s zoological experts could only
think was maternal bonding with the 4x4.
Renault rec
Deep into the foot-and-mouth crisis in 2001 and the
quarantined rhesus monkeys at Longleat Safari in
Wiltshire were getting bored without the usual traffic
to tear apart. The solution? The keepers bought
them a old Renault 21 to play with, only this time
with the doors open. The keepers reported that it was
an instant hit.
Elephant vandal
A family driving through West Midlands Safari Park
in 2003 came under attack from a delinquent
elephant who hurled a rock through the window of
their car using his trunk. There were no serious
injuries. Afterwards, his keeper said he didn’t think he’
d done it on purpose.
of 2004. Smart arrives, and the lions thought: that’s
funny little car, deserves a closer look. So they
trotted over.”
David Ross, park manager at Knowlsey Safari Park
on Merseyside, is gleefully telling the story of the
day his lions added the tiny two-seater to the list of
cars that rouses them from their usual slumber.
“The ladies… well, what would you do in a car like
that? They floored it. Nothing dramatic happened,
but it gradually built up speed and they made for
the gates. But the faster they went, the faster the
lions went until the whole pride was giving chase
with our Land Rover frantically trying to keep up.
The girls made it through gates, but outside they
were pretty shaken up.” Turns out Knowsley’s eight
lions are picky about their cars. They’ll pay not a jot
of attention to the vast majority of motors that cruise
around the half-mile loop in their wooded
compound, not even when flash after flash lights up
their favoured sleeping place. But along comes a
Smart or a Mini, or anything out of the ordinary and
these carnivorous petrolheads perk up. “Any car with
special peculiarities, like the Smart, or sports cars
with wings or spoilers, can cause an attraction,” says
Ross.
Seeing as the lion’s daily routine doesn’t normally
take them past a newsagent, we thought we’d
introduce the pride to a couple more cars of
potential interest. They’d get a chance to assess the
latest Smart rivals, and we’d add something the
usual road tests miss. Does the smell of human fear
seep through the Peugeot 1007’s sliding doors? Is
the Fiat Panda 4x4 good enough off-road to offer an
alternative escape route? And can a short-range
staring match with a 250kg lion replace the Smart
drivers’ number one fear of lorry turbulence on the
motorway?
As our convoy threaded its way through Knowlsey’s
550-acre park to the lions’ den, I tried to focus on
Ross’s pep talk. As befits a man who sounds like he’s
just stepped out of colonial Kenya, this wasn’t
reassuring. For example, he tells me, we might be
here on a ‘starve day’, where the lions’ daily 5kg of
meat is withheld to replicate savannah conditions. I’
m also perturbed to learn, as the Smart Brabus
buzzes its way pass the white rhinos, that a herd of
these three-ton beasts is called a “crash” and that
they can amble at 32mph.
Then we’re at the lions’ compound. Already a park
ranger has radioed ahead, alerting the lion keepers
that at Smart is on the way and needs close
attention. Will he have to add Panda 4x4s and
Peugeot 1007s in the future? With the ranger’s Land
Rover Defender close by, we’re allowed to park
insolently close to where the lions are trying to get
some kip. I know what I’m like when a thoughtlessly
driven car wakes me up, and I’ve long since
suppressed my primal urge to kill.
And they’re awake. The breathy rasp of the Smart’s
three-cylinder engine brings one, two, three heads
up, and pretty soon the eyes of the pride are focused
on us. Only the sole male ignores us (perhaps he
heard the Smart was Gay Car of the Year 2004).
Then three of the females walk towards our trio,
followed by a deceptively casual appraisal of each.
One pads round the back of the 1007, another
brushes the front wing of the Panda. But the third
has locked me into eye contact. Under that
menacing, hooded gaze – the one replicated by
headlight designers the world over – she seems to
be sizing up the Smart’s ability to entertain her, just
like when cats contemplate the dangly toy you’re
swinging in front of them. Unlike with a domestic
cat, I’m sizing her canines, the club-like paws and
the knot of muscles around her shoulders. Glad I’m
not in the convertible. Then she goes to the front
and the Smart rocks as she butts the offside wheel.
But the ranger revs his Defender and she backs off. If
that clattery diesel warning hadn’t been given, she’d
have shut her opened jaws around the bumper and
tyre.
Behind me the initial interest has subsided. In
contrast to the lion rampant on the Peugeot badge,
these lions are very much couchant. “Lions are
pretty lazy beasts,” drawls Ross.” Sex and sleep and
more sex and a bit of feeding at the end of the day,
that’s about it.” Kenya the male finally lifts his huge
shaggy head and staggers upright, but the lionesses
can rest easy – he just wants to check out the Smart
his harem had been sniffing around. He ambles to
the front, stands stock still as if to front it down, then
drifts off to lie down again. “Girl’s car,” seems to be
his verdict.
As we drive off, a couple of females give chase and
it’s frightening how quickly they shrug off their torpor.
The Brabus might be quicker than the rest of the
range, but that semi-auto gearbox is hopeless for fast
getaways – ditto the similar 2-Tronic system we have
in the 1007. Despite the soporific 0-62mph time of
20secs in the Panda 4x4, it’s manual gearbox makes
it easily the escape vehicle of choice.
After the lions the other adrenaline-booster in
Knowsley are the baboons. There’s no danger of
them shortening your life, but there’s no
guaranteeing your car will get away injury-free
either. Choose to enter the compound instead of
viewing it from the “wimp road” – as we did - and
your car comes under sustained attack from primates
with zero automotive sensitivity. They particularly
love wipers. “People try to be clever and work their
wipers and washers, but the baboons get clever” says
Ross. “Once they start doing that, they get their teeth
round the washer nozzle and they pull and extract it,
usually bringing all the plumbing and pipes with it.
They love it.”
The Scouse-born lions face no threat here on
Merseyside, but Smart isn’t so safe, as struggling
parent DaimlerChrysler threatens to render it extinct.
But judging from the reaction of Kenya and his
bitches, the Peugeot 1007 and Panda 4x4 just don’t
have the playful qualities needed to take its place.
The pride has spoken: if you want to be king of the
urban jungle, take the Smart.
BOX
Beastly behaviour
The bond between UK safari animal and the car
Ma Landie
Back in 2001, a young rhino Woburn Safari Park in
Bedfordshire was calling a Land Rover Defender
mum. New to the park, he was scrapping with an
older rhino and the park ranger had to part them
with the Defender. After few more scuffles, the rhino
took to trotting around after the Land Rover,
behaviour the park’s zoological experts could only
think was maternal bonding with the 4x4.
Renault rec
Deep into the foot-and-mouth crisis in 2001 and the
quarantined rhesus monkeys at Longleat Safari in
Wiltshire were getting bored without the usual traffic
to tear apart. The solution? The keepers bought
them a old Renault 21 to play with, only this time
with the doors open. The keepers reported that it was
an instant hit.
Elephant vandal
A family driving through West Midlands Safari Park
in 2003 came under attack from a delinquent
elephant who hurled a rock through the window of
their car using his trunk. There were no serious
injuries. Afterwards, his keeper said he didn’t think he’
d done it on purpose.