Living The Spy Life: Driving Like The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

What would a good Cold War spy thriller be without a peppering of car chases?

Cars were crucial members of the cast for Guy Ritchie’s latest feat of cinematography. F1 racers, Trabants, Wartburgs and a Ferrari 250 GTO - this film had it all.

[Image: A Ferrari 250 GTO (which we weren’t allowed to drive) / REX]

Keen to get a flavour for the sort of adrenaline rides that are in the film, we headed down to Goodwood - home of the famous Festival of Speed - to check out some of their premium metal and to take a turn behind the wheel.

Goodwood has seen an exorbitant number of fancy things on four wheels pass through the estate’s gates. Priceless racer the Stirling Moss/Denis Jenkinson Mercedes-Benz 300SLR, for example or, if you’re into your supercars, the Koenigsegg Agera One:1, at one time the fastest road car out there.

Obviously we weren’t going to be allowed to get behind the wheel of something of that calibre, but we did hop into a Beamer X5 40d to get a feel for off-road driving through the Goodwood woods.

The X5 isn’t strictly an off-roader, but X-drive plus a couple of nifty features - like Hill Descent Control and Auto Hill Hold - make it fit for our purpose. Namely, learning how to handle a car in the event of a sudden chase through difficult terrain.

The key to driving like a spy:

- Only go as fast as you need to - Speed might seem like a priority in a car chase, but depending on the conditions, too much acceleration could be your undoing. On a wet dirt track, weaving between trees, reducing your speed is key to control. Let the enemy speed up….right into a tree. Job done.

- Pick your gear early - Just you try using the clutch effectively while bouncing around on an uneven downhill slope. Nope, not going to happen. Instead, pick a low gear, depending on the gradient of the slope and then concentrate on controlling your steering to keep your wheels in the direction you intend to travel. Trust us, this is more difficult than it sounds.

- Your failed climb procedure might save you - Revving like a moron to try and get out of a failed hill climb will get you absolutely nowhere. Hit the brake, set it in reverse, let it roll back (possibly a great time to rear end your pursuer in the process) and then take the hill again, this time with more speed.

- Your ABS can only do so much - If you fail to break with enough anticipation of a sharp turn or slope, your ABS will have to work overtime to try and save you. And in all likeliness, it won’t be able to. BRAKE EARLIER!

- Don’t try a handbrake turn in an X5 - yeah it just won’t work, unfortunately.

And there you have it. You are now a step closer to out-driving your opponents, be that across East Berlin or through the woods somewhere in Sussex.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is out now on Digital HD, Blu-ray and DVD