Parking Row

I keep giving Audi free adverts.

Because they are brilliant.

First there was the Spocks one.  But they've taken it off YouTube so to see the vid, you'll have to watch it on someone else's channel.

Then, we recently had the "Are You Being Served?" one.

But now we have the one that they plan to show during the US Presidential debates:

Or, to see it forwards, someone else again has provided this.

It won't be easy to trump that.

Her Name is Rio...

...and she's based on a Triumph Dolomite Sprint.

It's a Panther Rio.  I've never seen one in the flesh before - but it was one of the first cars I saw at The Manchester Classic Car Show.

 

Although I didn't see any actual Dolomites.  There were plenty of other Triumphs there though including TR6s, TR7s, my favourite Stags and even an Acclaim.

There were also plenty of excited dads like me wandering about telling their bored children why various cars were very interesting or had been owned by their ancestors.

As well as a car based on one of my former cars, there was also a green Jag estate a bit like I drive now - only much classier:

Having said that, I did spot this:

Now that may be in much better nick than my own car, and a few years younger, but it would imply that my car is a classic.

It isn't.

I suppose that this Porsche 914 is a classic - but it is clearly the Boxster's grandfather and I dislike it for the same reason that I dislike the Boxster - you can't tell if it's going forwards or backwards.

 There were a few cars I'd never heard of before  - like the Rochdale Olympic:

The Rochdale owners club had two and a half of them on display:

 Then there was this Berkeley:

I had to look them up on Wikipedia.  If what it says is correct, they seemed to have a large model-range considering they only lasted from 1956 to 1960 when they went bankrupt.  This model, which looked a bit lonely and ignored, looks like a Berkeley Foursome - 20 were produced and it had a tiny 492cc engine.

They did have some modern cars too.  It was difficult getting near the Tesla:

It was near the Tesla that I was handed my "goodie bag" which turned out to contain an issue (No 348) of Classic Car Buyer - and nothing else.  I shouldn't complain because it retails for £2.50 and the carrier bag will be worth 10p too.

Not too sure about this Mini Hatchback.

It's very clever and all that but the proportions looked all wrong.

Never mind, this makes everything good again:

Check out more pictures here.

Local Car Reviews for Local People

I stumbled upon a car review show today.

It felt like Top Gear...

...during the 1970s.

It was on local free TV (financially struggling Bay TV in Liverpool - not to be confused with new local free TV channel Bay TV in Swansea) which I thought was a bit endearing imagining a couple of Scousers driving around the locality talking cars.

But as I watched it, I noticed that they weren't actually saying anything bad about the cars - in fact, if they couldn't say good things, they just said neutral things and factual things.  It wasn't as bad as a full-scale infomercial but it was irritating.

It reminded me of the local restaurant reviews in our local free newspaper.  One restaurant was so impressed with their review that they added it to their Website.  But the reviews are a complete waste of time because the paper has obviously been paid for some advertising and the reviewer gets a free meal for two.

So I did a bit of digging on the show - iCarReview - it was lucky that The Apple Corporation didn't copyright that name for their car reviews.

They have a Website which is linked to the Website of Car & Driving who sponsor the show and seem to be some sort of resource for car reviews and footage.  The show is obviously not made in Liverpool and it appears on other local free TV stations like this:

I'd not seen the third presenter there but no matter how the first two aspire to be like Jeremy (but then don't we all?) they seem to come over as a cross between William Woollard and Alan Partridge.

 

Come on Bay TV, if you want a car show, I'll do it - and I promise not to punch the producer.

Antiseptic Cars

That phrase would, to me, imply boring cars.

Put that phrase into Google and it asks you if you meant "antiseptic cats".

Google Images just gives various pictures of antiseptic products - mostly with pictures of the Disney Pixar Cars characters on them.

However, this concept car, which offers "surfaces that hands will touch the most often are made of antiseptic material" looks far from boring:

It's not often that you see a futuristic concept car with Polish number plates.

But then again, this is from a Polish company.

It is an electric car with a range-extender engine.  The Autoguide article that pointed me in the direction of it claims that they intend to actually build it in limited numbers.

Which implies that it doesn't exist as of yet.  They say "A full-size prototype will debut at a major international auto show in the future and the sedan is slated to enter production after 2018."

I hope it does - I do like it, even if it doesn't have a front passenger seat - instead it has a mobile office/spa thing going on:

 

Those antiseptic surfaces look like veneer to me - they'll need antiseptic furniture polish.  If that comes with the car, it'll be Polish polish.