Getting Down With The South Side Posse

Autoguide call this video...

..."The worst car dealership ad you've ever seen"

Bit harsh.

The story is here.  I think it is great fun and derserves more Youtube hits.

Note that this video has the sobriquet "CLEAN VERSION".  That will be because there is a naughty word bleeped out.

At the bottom of that Autoguide Mitsubishi story is a link to another Autoguide Mitsubishi story that includes a video that contains a lot of swearing.

But when you watch it, you may just understand why.

A Nissan that Resonates

And I'm not talking about the exhaust of a GT-R.

I'm not normally into brown cars but this looks quite good.

These pictures are a peek ahead from Autoguide at a Nissan Concept car for the Geneva motor Show which starts next month.

It does seem to be sticking to Nissan's current philosophy of producing a range of 4x4s or things that look like they ought to be 4x4s.

 

Autoguide reckon this will become the new Murano.

 

It's quirky enough.

 

I liked the look of the old Murano but saw very few on the roads. 

Hopefully, the exterior of the concept will be carried over to the production model.

 

Apparently, Murano is a bit of Venice.  I suppose it is as good a name as any.

 

And better than "Nissan Resonance" which is the name of the concept...

 

...and that explains my post title.

Thank you.

That Sinking Feeling

This bad weather and flooding that is affecting the UK at the moment is causing another problem too.

 

Sinkholes.

 

And they seem to be attacking cars.

 

The first one, reported by the BBC, hit Buckinghamshire at the start of the month.

 

It swallowed a VW Lupo.

Next, also reported bt the BBC, our motorway network was attacked.  The M2 to be precise, although it was the Central Reservation that opened up so no cars got taken. 

Today, however, The Guardian reports a very audacious car-swallowing act over in Kentucky, USA.

 

A total of eight Corvettes spanning 45 years went down a hole in the National Corvette Museum: 

I like the way the reader's comments in the Guardian article diverge onto discussing building foundations.  If it had been a Telegraph or Mail article, there would be heated arguments going on about American Cars or how local councils don't do enough to help flood victims.

 

I also like the comment added by reader Zoomer who, responding to the fact that a Corvette Museum exists in the first place, says, "It used to be profitable but they're in a hole now."

 

Maybe we need to get the Top Gear team on the case.

 

Everyone laughed at them in the last series when they invented the Hovervan to cope with floods in the West Country and now we have floods in the West Country.

 

Now we need cars that will hover or maybe be completely enveloped in airbags as soon they find themselves suddenly dropping.

 

Jeremy?

You Can't Expect Your Maid to Use Public Transport

Reading The National (everyone's favourite United Arab Emirates Website) this weeks shows us that Dubai has a bit of a problem in that their traffic has become less of this...

 ...and more of this...

Hence this story from Saturday where a municipal chief is proposing that only people at a certain salary level and above will be allowed to own cars.

 

Everyone else has to use public transport.

 

I bet he wouldn't use public transport.

 

Admittedly, this is only one proposal - but it is the one that has caught the most attention.

 

He does also say that parking, petrol and other such costs should alos go up.  I tend to agree with this but mostly because I am jealous of them paying about a meagre 30p for a litre of fuel.

 

He also wants to promote greener methods of getting about promising to put more investment in trams and posh buses - slightly surprising from an oil-rich nation.

 

He may want a word with Maj Gen Mohammed Saif Al Zafeen, director of the Dubai Police Traffic Department and head of the council though.  In this story from yesterday.  The modern Major General is proposing more drivers - 17 year-old ones.

 

But presumably only ones with well-paid jobs.


Tripping

Three linked stories from America.

Although the first one is really from South Wales.

But it is reported by Fox News.  It is about a guy called Gary Egan who has to commute 187.5 miles each way every day between Porthcawl and Watford.  He uses a Renault Clio Diesel which Fox describe (quite accurately) as a "subcompact car" - don't know what they'd call a Twingo though.

Fox suspect this commute would be a World Record if such a category existed.

Which it doesn't.

A category has been invented though for the second story - also from Fox News.

The category is “the least non-driving time to cross the United States in an electric vehicle.”

Tesla are going to drive two Model S's from L.A. to New York to try to take this record and since this is a new category, if they get there they will take the record.  Speed records of this nature are not allowed, presumably for safety reasons, so this will be measuring the least time stood still - ie recharging.

The third story also involves a Model S going on a road-trip - up against a Model T - a Ford Model T from a hundred years ago.  It's basically a race from Detroit to New York and it is a brilliant article from Car & Driver.

Now I've always found C&D to be quite anti-electric cars so I did read it with some trepidation expecting the Model T to win (which it didn't) and C&D to be quite scathing (which they weren't despite the closeness of the result) - but, in the end it was just a very, very interesting piece.

Many of the readers' comments praised the article and several likened it to something Top Gear would do.

I concur.

And I really liked this picture: