DRIVING TO HIGHLANDS WITHOUT A REAR WINDOW

Bev Lyons

I have driven the future and I’m not looking back, quite literally. 

Let me explain… I drove from Glasgow to the Highlands in the first electric car without a rear window and it was an experience I won’t forget. 

In fact, as I go back to drive my current petrol fuelled vehicle, I can’t help but notice how clunky and heavy it feels compared to the smooth slender handling of The Polestar 4. 

The Polestar 4, an SUV cross, is a Swedish EV whose parents are from the Volvo family which reassured me it is a safe bet of a car, despite the lack of a rear window. 

Volvo was always known for its safety rating, and you can of course still see what is behind you via a screen which replaces the mirror. 

It just means you can’t apply any lippy in it bit apart from that it does the same thing. 

The Polestar 4 is of course what is referred to as a luxury vehicle and with sleek lines and a Scandi style lounge like quality interior it’s easy to see why. It even comes with a responsive light strip along the back and front of the bodywork which would give veteran fans of  Knightrider a run for their money. 

The strip welcomes you as you approach the car and as it reverses from your parking spot it also emits an orchestral hum - vibrationally purring in a very space age fashion as if to energise you for the road ahead. 

I navigated the tight bends of my car parking space with the help from the warning sounds of front, rear and side cameras and took the car wide on corners as advised. 

The Polestar theme is continued inside the car with an onscreen planetary system allowing you to choose whatever ambient lights you’d like to accompany you on your journey.

 It is galactical - and if you like that sky, day or night, a vast panoramic roof allows you to gaze upon it as you relax in your reclining seats, both front and back - a lack of rear windows means more space for those in the back seat and a wide, movable arm rest gives it a relaxing feel. It’s the perfect place to chill as you charge the car for twenty minutes at an EV stop. It’s the first time I’ve driven an EV and it took me a couple of days to get used to the idea that I might have to recharge it from time to time. 

I live in a flat and have no charger. It also took a couple of failed attempts to attach public electrical chargers to the fast charge system - some still don’t work so it can be frustrating as you attempt to load up your card details to get yourself on one of the online systems that will accept payment. Ironically I used a Tesla app in the end as they have a helpful map on their app which alerts you to the nearest EV chargers. 

I found to my pleasure that the car also has this ability through its Google maps feature which also gives it access to lot of extra details. It’s also voice controlled. 

I charged up from an initial 50 per cent to eighty per cent on my journey spending £20 and spent another £20 on the road up, when it reached fifty per cent again,  arriving at my final destination with thirteen percent left. The official range is 367 miles but I found it nearer the 235 mark in the windy, rainy Scottish weather we experienced that day. Heated seats and electric heaters don’t help to conserve the power. 

The only thing I might suggest is that EV charge points should have coffee stops nearby as it’s nice to go for a little stroll while you charge up, unless it’s raining heavily. 

The drive itself is so quiet you need to remind yourself the engine is running, and the power will take you from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds - 3.6 I believe. In rain and in rougher terrain as I reached the windy roads to the Highlands it held the road beautifully, and at speed, and although it’s a longer car, it felt easy to drive. 

It is understated elegance and just feels so good. A two litre engine gave it extra power. 

We drove to the Torridon hotel, at one of the further most points north of Scotland, and the scenery was like a living car advert, with landscapes changing from green to desert like plains overlooked by mountainous regions. 

It was Gods natural racetrack. 

The five star Torridon which is located on one of the clearest locations on Earth even charged our car overnight as we gazed at the stars with help from their resident astronomer Stephen Mackintosh and indulged in a five course tasting menu. 

The Polestar 4 is an exciting car to drive and like its namesake it is pretty magical. It’s something you look forward to, and you really feel that you are embracing the future whilst also giving back in some way to the environment. Eco friendliness is at the heart of the cars messaging -  and with a lesser carbon footprint than most, it’s nice to see a large company taking social responsibilities seriously. 

The Polestar 4 is available starting at £58,000 from Silverburn in Glasgow who also will deliver it your door for a test drive. 

DAVID TENNANT IS A NEPO BABY

GOOD Omens and Rivals star David Tennant has confessed that he is a ‘nepo baby’ after admitting his TV minister dad used his contacts to get him in the door of his first telly job.  

The Scottish born Doctor Who star whose adopted son Ty has also been labelled a Nepo baby on account of his famous family, admitted that the connections his dad Sandy Macdonald had in broadcasting came in handy when he started out his acting career.
David explained on his podcast: “He was a minister in the Church of Scotland…The kind of minister, he was very pastoral and hands-on, and he got sort of stuck into all the community stuff.
Asked if he were a Nepo baby David then said : “Oh, definitely.. Yeah. Because also then, Sandy MacDonald became a bit of a television star in Scottish television. He used to do the Thought for the Day and the Late Night Thought for the Day. Oh, they're amazing. It used to be a thing that was on Scottish television every night after the 10 o'clocknews, I think. A little sort of thought. It was called Late Call. And it would be a little Thought for the Day. There'd be usually a minister. I think, you know, as the years went on, they'd controversially now and again have a rabbi or, you know, someone from another faith. It all got, you know, they got quite daring as the years went on. Yeah.
And he would sit there on a little chair with a little table with a bowl of flowers next to him. And he'd go, ‘good evening’.
And he would do a little five minutes and he wrote it himself. Every day he had to have a thought. And you'd record them, you know, in sort of a morning in Scottish television. And then he had his own religious affairs magazine program as well called That's the Spirit.
David then said his dad sent off his picture to the drama department of Scottish Television.
He added: “Not a mate because he didn't know the drama people at Scottish television, but he knew there was a drama department. I suppose because he had a bit of an in, he knew how to get to it. This is absolutely nepotism. If I'm a nepo baby, this is the moment. Just before I went to drama school, he took a photograph of me in the back garden, and this is where he didn't really understand.
He said, ‘Do some big poses’. I was just in a white t-shirt, I remember, and it was a very sunny day.
I can picture these burned into my retinas. I was doing things like shouting at the sky and kind of doing big poses. Anyway. He found someone at Scottish television to send them to. Not somebody he knew, but he found a desk for them to land on. A man called Haldane Duncan, who was a producer-director. Of course, there's so many elements of luck here, but they landed on his desk as he was looking for a 15-year-old to be in a children's drama called Dramarama, which was a kind of anthology show. Every one of the ITV regional stations made two or three episodes each year, and they all contributed it to this series for children's television.
There was only three channels back then, remember? And he was looking to cast a ghost story that needed three teenagers, and this landed on his desk, and he got me in, and I got a part in a Dramarama.”