Gordon's Got a Gong

Gordon Murray that is.  I did a piece on him back in April 2016.  Not that the BBC seem to want to recognise one of our great British engineers.  (Although born in South Africa, his parentage was Scottish and his nationality is British)

He designed the McLaren F1 and five F1 Championship winning cars including Ayrton Senna's 1988-Winning McLaren.  He's been involved in many innovative projects since.  Fortunately, at least Autocar have the story.

 

The gong he's been given in the New Years Honours List is the CBE (Commander of the British Empire)

 

I think great engineers should be given a Knighthood, but apparently they go to particularly odious Tory MPs called John who threaten to vote against Teresa May's Brexit deal: 

When is a Turbo not a Turbo?

When it's an after-shave?

Mmm, nice.

 

But not what I'm thinking about.  How about when it is a fish?

Amusing but no.

 

Actually, it is when we are talking about the Porsche Taycan:

Porsche's upcoming electric car will come in three flavours, Taycan, Taycan 4S and Taycan Turbo.

 

Except purely electric cars don't have turbos.  Autoguide have the full story here.  I guess "Turbo" just means "top of the range" in Porsche-speak.

 

It's  just a name.

 

Nothing to get wound up about.

Merry Crashmas

Two BBC News stories on consecutive days about cars ending up in interesting positions.

Looks like this one today was probably drink-driving:

Never seen a tree at Christmas decorated with a Peugeot 207 before.

 

Meanwhile, over in Cambridgeshire, this Peugeot 207 looks bad too:

It looks even worse from inside the car: 

This was from yesterday.

Looks like this one was caused by an inexperienced driver experiencing icy conditions.

Amazingly, nobody was hurt in either crash.

'Tis the season to be lucky.

Fit To Drive?

This eight-year-old boy is a little hero.

His name is Ben Hedger .

 

His mother had a seizure while travelling at 60mph.  She blacked out.

 

When he realised that something was amiss, he put on the hazard lights and steered the car to the hard-shoulder where it stalled.

 

"He said he just did what he had to do otherwise we would have died."

 

He's probably right - he probably had no choice.

 

But he did do it and that makes him a hero.

 

The car was a Ford Ka, it will have been damaged bouncing along the central reservation but she won't be behind the wheel for a good while now - if ever.  But she is alive. And so is Ben.  And so is everyone else who was on the A120 near Colchester at the time.

 

So a good news story on the run-up to Christmas while The World is being crap.

I Don't Watch "I'm A Celebrity"

Well, I did briefly when Johnny Rotten was in there.

But that's just the sort of anarchic rebel I am.

 

Anyway, this year they've got Harry Redknapp, the scary woman from The Chase and Noel Edmonds.

 

Or, as I prefer to call him, former Top Gear presenter Noel Edmonds.

 

Unusually, the BBC are covering an IACGMOOH story today.  Here it is.

 

It is how Noel may have got himself in trouble with Bristol City Council for a second time for driving in their bus lanes.

 

Here is an actual Bristol Bus Lane sign:

It's on Highwood Road in Patchway, quite close to the Coniston Road junction.  It was a Sunday.

 

Now that sign clearly has a picture of what is allowed to be in that lane - a bike, a bus and the word "taxi" because whoever designs these signs couldn't differentiate between a taxi and an ordinary car so gave up.  It's one of those things like motorway matrix signs not being able to animate fog so they just have the word "Fog"

But I digress.  Back to Noel.

 

In order to speed up his journeys around Bristol, Noel bought a taxi, a proper black cab, and used the bus lanes.  The council decided that because he wasn't a licensed taxi, he should be fined so they sent him a ticket.

 

Noel said, "Fair enough", paid the fine and bought a bus.

 

But Bristol Council has now said their bus lanes are only for licensed buses - which is the argument they used for the taxi and I don't think is very fair - the word "licensed" does not appear anywhere on the sign.

 

To get around it, though, all Noel needs to do is find an old licensed bus maybe from another part of the country, and lease it for his personal use.

 

And in case Bristol City Council say it has to be a Bristol bus, he should make sure it is one of these: 

It was built by The Bristol Bus Company.

Easy Come, Easy Go.

An unnamed German 18-Year old passed his driving test.

Yippee!

Then, less than an hour later he passed one of these:

at 60mph in a 30mph zone.

He has been formally banned for four weeks, but police said he would only get his licence back after "expensive retraining".  He is also facing a €200 fine, two points on his licence once it is restored, and his probationary period as a new driver has been lengthened from two years to four.  The BBC story I nicked this paragraph from is here.

I bet his four mates in the car with him were impressed.

Dummkopf.

Train Wreck

No, I'm not talking about The Government's handling of Brexit - I'm talking about an "Only in Norfolk" story.

Only in Norfolk could you be involved in a road-traffic accident with this:

It's a 1912 Y14 steam locomotive.  Quite impressive.

 

And while the locomotive was far from wrecked, there will be some serious buffing out of the Mercedes A-Class that it was in collision with:

Nobody was injured.  The BBC News story is here.

 

The train was travelling at 8mph at the time, we don't know the speed of the car but its driver was heading to the golf club and seems to have missed the fact that the level crossing lights and sirens were active at the time.

 

His insurance claim is going to make interesting reading and his insurance company will presumably have to cover any damage to the loco - good job it wasn't a new one.

My Wife Doesn't Like Jeremy Vine

He irritates her on his Radio 2 show.  I am indifferent towards him.

We both like his brother though.

But I am going off Jeremy myself now.

 

Because of this article.  He says that the Drivetime show (as discussed by me last month) shouldn't be called "The Drivetime Show" because it celebrates "a form of transport that kills 1700 people a year."

 

Vine said "the show needed a new name for post-car Britain".  But there are still plenty of cars about when I'm driving home.

 

He added that "our addiction to the motor vehicle has made our cities traffic sewers; made us asthmatic, fat and angry; and made our planet suffer".  Speak for yourself mate - I'm not a fat asthmatic.

 

This means that he has slipped right down the rankings in my list of favourite Jeremys.  Obviously Clarkson and Corbyn are at the top closely followed by Hardy but Vine has now gone from mid-table (Paxman, Irons etc.) right down to Hunt, Kyle territory.

 

I wonder what he thinks of hybrid cars - I suspect that he will be very unimpressed by this BBC story.

 

The gist is that lots of fleet buyers bought hybrid cars for the subsidies and tax breaks offered by the Government and many are never charged up so just end up as fuel inefficient petrol cars. "Many drivers may never have unwrapped their charging cables" it says - I'm not sure how they can know that but I suppose it is quite possible.

 

Basically, the Ministry of Transport have not thought this through properly.

 

I think that the Transport Minister should resign.

 

Oh. He has.

Lucozade Aids Recovery

But does it aid recovery vehicles?

One might be needed since I suspect it doesn't aid the clear signalling of a Heavy Goods Vehicle. 

The BBC story is here.

 

The lorry in question was also over the permitted weight limit.

 

Probably too many sugary drinks.

Faraday has no Future

Not for the foreseeable anyway.

I've covered Faraday Future twice before.

In 2015 and again in 2017.

Caradvice.com.au have the latest Faraday Future story here.  The directors are resigning and the funding is being refused which will probably mean no FF91:

Shame.

 

But I have learned a new F Word.

 

furlough - noun. a set period of time during which an employee does not report for work and does not earn a wage. The employee retains their job during the salary furlough, however, which means that the employee retains benefits.

 

I'm sure that lots of other F Words are being used too though.

If it Ain't Broke - DON'T FIX IT!

Up until recently, Simon Mayo presented the Radio 2 Drivetime slot entertaining commuters on their way home from work each evening.

Meanwhile, Jo Whiley had a slot later in the evening - a more musically focussed show.

Two very talented broadcasters with two very enjoyable shows in my opinion.

And in the opinion of lots of other Radio 2 listeners. 

Then some bright-spark at the BBC, decided to combine their two shows - extend the Drivetime show by one hour and have the two of them as co-presenters.

We didn't think that would work.

It didn't.

From the start it was obvious that the chemistry between them, no matter how hard they tried to make it work, just wasn't there.

Listeners were upset - there were many letters of protest in The Radio Times and directly to the BBC. So much so, that Radio 2 had to offer an official response to complaints.

They stubbornly claimed that: "Every new show needs time to settle down and so we hope listeners will continue to listen and give it a chance."

Anyway, today the end of the show was announced.  Jo is moving to a new slot from 7-9 which is good news but Simon is leaving Radio 2 all together.  Sad face.

So what has this got to do with cars (apart from the tenuous link to driving home)?

Nothing - except that today the BBC also announced a new line up for Top Gear.  They are demoting Rory Reid and bringing in Freddie Flintoff & Paddy McGuinness.

Now I like Freddie Flintoff and Paddy McGuinness - but they are not motoring show presenters.

It was also very brave in an un-politically-correct way of the BBC to demote the only black presenter of Top Gear - I'm sure someone will get a telling-off for that one.

I know they had to find a replacement for Matt Leblanc - but there are plenty of motoring journalists and racing drivers out there rather than opting for celebrity "petrol-heads" - this line up just looks two-thirds wrong:

Now I don't mind having a celebrity petrol-head in there from time to time - Ronnie O'Sullivan seems OK helping out in the Team Tests in the latest series of Fifth Gear. (I'm quite enjoying the latest series - even if I can never remember which channel they are on - I wish they'd go back to Channel 5 and stay there)

 

But I suppose the BBC know what they are doing.

 

After all, they've never made a similar mistake before have they?

Motorway Madness

I saw a story on the BBC News Website this lunchtime concerning a car and caravan being driven the wrong way down a motorway.  There was  a still from some Dashcam footage showing a van avoiding them.

The story said that there had been a collision and an air ambulance had been called but there was no news of injuries.

I thought it might make a good story to do an item on.  Especially since I got a Dashcam for my birthday a few weeks ago.  And also because the BBC had this story at the weekend about Norfolk and Suffolk Police releasing Dashcam footage of bad driving.  Including one example I wrote about last month.

Then, unfortunately, tragically in fact, news emerged that three people had been killed including the elderly couple in the Subaru Forrester that was towing the caravan.

Motorways are supposedly the safest type of road to drive on.

But you still get bad driving.

Like this divvy blonde woman in an A-Class.

It doesn't look that bad on the video but I was travelling at 80mph with NOTHING behind me when she noticed Junction 4 was coming up:

Now, the Norfolk and Suffolk Police have been inviting people to send in Dashcam footage so I wonder if Merseyside Police do?

 

Well, returning to the BBC, we find this story from July.

 

It's about a Website which allows visitors to upload videos before sending footage to the right police force.

 

It's here and was set up by Nextbase - the Dashcam manufacturer.

 

I won't be using it for that footage though.

 

But I thought about it for this two junctions later:

Although I've not got a clear view of his number plate.

 

He was very fortunate that the rest of us had our wits about us and that there wasn't a car coming along the outside lane.

 

I'm assuming it was a "he"

 

And he probably thinks that he is a very good driver when in reality, it is the other motorists who are preventing his accidents.

 

And he has been very lucky.  So far.

The End of the World as we Know It?

No it isn't.

It's just Justin Rowlatt being mischievous.

He's written quite a piece for the BBC News site today about how cars will be done and dusted within a decade.

He tells us that the economics and planet-friendliness of electric cars will kill off the combustion engine.

And that driverless cars will make it unsafe for humans to drive cars amongst them.  So that will stop.

And that car ownership will cease due to readily available shared transit modules.

And we can expect this within ten years - about the same time it took for horses to become obsolete in New York City.

However, I don't think he is serious.

Nor do I think he wants this.

His last two sentences are:

"But seriously, I've deliberately put these arguments forcefully to prompt debate and we want to hear what you think.

You can comment below, or tweet me @BBCJustinR."

And this is the same Justin Rowlatt who was co-presenter of the ...On Four Wheels series that I happened to enjoy (and comment on) a while back.  I think he did too.

Anyway, as I type, he's achieved 2306 comments albeit mostly from the Gammons who usually comment on the BBC News Website.  Apparently, they don't like being called "Gammons" - they don't mind calling us "Libtards" and "Remoaners" but now we've got a good insult for them they get all precious.

A few good points are made - there is quite a theme about how it could work in cities but most of us don't live in cities.  Quite true - it may be OK for New York - but not New Brighton.

Also, all this electricity has to come from somewhere.  The amount needed will mean it's neither clean nor cheap.

Can you imagine the rest of the World buying in to this?  Even if you've got friends in high places (like Justin seems to have)

...I don't see China having a network of electric boxes moving people around that huge country in 2018.

 

But whatever happens, there will always be plenty of car people who wouldn't let this nightmare scenario occur.

 

Like me and Jeremy Clarkson.

Itchycoo Car Park

Want to see an ant in a car?

or maybe two?

Unfortunately, this story relates to a whole colony of ants.

 

Also, unfortunately, I have to link to Fox News.  The story does appear to be true though despite this.

 

The infestation happened at Charlotte Douglas International Airport after the car had been left in the parking lot there for three days.

 

Meanwhile, another bug has also been making news on the Fox site.

 

This one's allegedly up for $1 Million:

Now I wouldn't mind having a colony of those to sell.

My verdict on the big story of the day.

Well I've studied this very carefully - I watched it at least twice...


And...

It is definitely a 2018 Jaguar XJ.

Heartwarming or Heartbreaking?

This 1993 Ford Mustang has been sold twice...

…to pay for cancer treatments.

Rupert Murdoch's Fox News see it as a heart-warming story of how Wesley Ryan's children bought back the much-loved car that he was forced to sell to finance his wife's cancer treatment.

Fox News, the pro-Trump, anti-Obamacare propaganda outlet - I can't call them a News Network because that would imply serious journalism.

The story originally came from mySA, a San Antonio based news site.

And it is a nice story.

Apart from the cancer.

And the being forced to sell off expensive items when faced with cancer.

And the fact that they have bought the car off someone where "the seller was letting it go because her own mother had contracted ovarian cancer and they needed the money for treatment."

Thank God for the NHS.

Delivered by Air

There's an air carrier called Norfolk Air:

There's another called Airtransit: 

Meanwhile, in Norfolk, a Transit got airborne.

The dashcam footage shows it was driven by an idiot.  It's very good:

136

That's 2x68 because I have now seen 2 68 Reg cars.

After a prolonged period of seeing none.

I saw the first one on Sunday and I was composing a post in my head walking home from the shops this evening about how I had seen "a 68 Reg":

...when I spotted another one.

 

Incidentally, A68 REG is a valid number (it would have been issued in 1983 or 1984) - it just doesn't belong to anybody.

 

Not even somebody called Reg.

 

The two 68 cars I did spot were both Renault SUV thingies. Nothing exciting.

 

They were different colours so it wasn't the same car twice.

 

Maybe it means that Renault are the best company for sorting out their emissions levels.

 

After all, it was never going to be Volkswagen.

No 68 Reg

Today is the 5th of September 2018.

On the 1st, the new 68 registration plates came out.

I've not seen any yet.  Although it took me until the 3rd to notice that I hadn't noticed any.

I've been actively looking since then.

I've seen lots of 18s but no 68s.

So I was surprised to see this Autocar article claiming that "New-car registrations surge in August to highest in years."  Then I read it properly with my brain in gear and everything makes sense.

Of course, it said August - not September.  August being the last month of the 18 plates.

For those non-British people and those British people with lives, this tries to explain the current system of number plate registrations.

According to the Autocar article, "New WLTP (World harmonised Light vehicles Test Procedure) regulations, which determine that all cars manufactured after 1 September this year must have been put under a stricter emissions testing regime"

so... "car makers have been registering cars in bulk before the new rules coming into place. This stock can still be sold on forecourts for another year."

Meanwhile, I'm still looking forward to next year:

Rifle Charge

Here is a representation of a Kalashnikov AK-47:

Here is a representation of a Kalashnikov CV-1:

I like it.

 

I think I like it because it reminds me of a slammed Escort Mk II Estate: 

Although, while looking for a decent picture of a light blue Escort Mk II Estate, I realised that I liked it because it reminded me of a slammed Cortina Mk II Estate: 

However, according to this Autocar story, it is actually designed to look like one of these:

Which, of course, is an Izh 2125 Combi.

 

No?

 

Me neither.

 

Although, if you know your Russian cars, you can see that it, in turn, was based on a Moskvitch.

 

The CV-1 is an electric car that Kalashnikov hope will be a credible Tesla rival.  Can't see it myself but I'd like to see them get some sales in this country where, being a Kalashnikov with that body-shape, I hope they call it a Shooting-Brake.

Viennese Whirl

The Great British Bake Off starts again next week.

I wonder if they'll make any Viennese Whirls?

I like Viennese Whirls.

Talking of Austria and bakers...

 

An unfortunate Austrian baker has been caught speeding 42 times since he started a new job.

 

He was travelling home in the middle of the night and didn't see the signs or the camera (which used infra-red rather than a flash).

 

Various news sources had the story - here is the BBC version.

 

He elected to pay the fines.

 

It raises several questions...

• Do they have infra-red cameras in the UK?
• Do they not have a points-based system in Austria for motoring offences?
• Why such a long gap between first offence and him finding out about it?
• Why would anyone have a 30kph speed limit?
• Is it possible to drive that slowly in the middle of the night?
• Why did he point out that his wife did not blame him for the expense?
• Any other bakers known for speed?

Kerb Your Enthusiasm

I've spelled it the English way because it's an English story.

Some silly woman in Southport is surprised that she isn't allowed to mount the kerb and drive across the pavement.

Or, in American English:

Some dumb broad in a town you've never heard of is surprised that she ain't allowed to mount the curb and droive across the sidewalk.

"droive" was a typo that I decided to leave in because it sounds New Yorkish.

Anyway, here she is:

I nearly have sympathy for her because the kerb is so low that you could drive up it without damaging your suspension.

 

But she will still be damaging the pavement.

 

And she is an Audi driver.

 

The Liverpool Echo story is here but I wouldn't bother clicking on it because the advertising on there makes it just about unreadable.

 

All we are missing in this particular non-story is a picture of the local Conservative Councillor stood there pointing at it.

Race Loser

Although geographically in the South, South Carolina was right in the middle of the US Civil War.  And the start and the end.

So maybe this stupid woman thought she had a 50/50 chance of escaping punishment there for a motoring offence with her tactic when the police officer who stopped her was white.

Her tactic was, with her being "a clean, thoroughbred white girl", to say, "You're a cop; you should know what that means."

 

A clean, thoroughbred white girl!?  The phrase "white trash" came in to my mind.  As well as not stopping at a Stop sign, she was speeding, carrying Marijuana and driving drunk.  The BBC story is here.

 

There is a lot of suspicion State-side at the moment of how the police treat different races - probably heightened by the idiot Trump allowing racists to appear empowered.  So it is a good job that the officer in question was straight.

 

The mug-shot should be a clue.

 

She was booked into the Beaufort County Detention Center and faces driving under the influence, speeding, disregarding a stop sign, simple possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia charges, according to the jail log.

 

Stupid cow.

 

Talking of cows...

 

...and BBC news articles about car crime in southern US States...

Read more here: https://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/crime/article216168760.html#storylink=cpy

 

 

It's An Illness Stopping People Visiting Wales

 

The motorway bridge crossing the River Severn has been shut Westbound all morning.

No not that one.

 

That one is the M4 Crossing, also known as the Second Severn Crossing, also known as The Prince of Wales Bridge.  It seems to have more names than Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.  But, unlike Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the bridge isn't a pathological liar and convicted football hooligan followed by morons.

 

In the background, you can see the bridge with the closure.  That is the M48 Crossing, also known as the original crossing.  Not named after any member of the royal family as far as I am aware.

 

Unprecedented levels of staff sickness meant that they didn't have enough people to collect toll money.  This meant that anyone travelling into Wales had to use the M4 bridge but anyone travelling out of Wales was OK because you only pay the tolls in one direction.

 

Maybe they should have just made it free in both directions for the duration.  But I guess that wouldn't have brought in the revenue that forcing motorists to detour would have done.  Not very environmentally friendly when you consider the wasted miles.

 

The scheduled closure was from 5am until 2pm - it doesn't say how they knew everyone would be well again by 2pm.

 

The BBC version of the story is here.  It is on their Gloucestershire bit not their Welsh bit.  I suppose that is logical as it is the people in Gloucestershire not the people in Wales who will have been inconvenienced.

 

Meanwhile, over on the Wales bit of the BBC News site, they have this story.

 

Wrexham Council are going to have to fork out £7100 to replace parking signs after someone went out with a black marker pen correcting errors in the Welsh translations on them:

Bet they wish they had a bridge they could charge people to cross.

Wet Van Man

After weeks of hot dry weather, it finally broke this week.

I blame myself - I bought two pairs of shorts on Thursday.

Since then - downpours!

Talking of wetness, this YouTube action looks fun.

I'd do it myself.

IF THERE WERE NO PEDESTRIANS AROUND:

But in Canada, where this rear-facing dashcam footage was recorded, there were most definitely pedestrians around.

The BBC have the story here.  The van belongs to facilities management company Black & McDonald - who promptly apologised and sacked the driver.

Good.

One of the services they provide is "Storm Response & Restoration" - but I don't think that is what they meant by it.

Stock Response

My most recent two posts have been about football and about a small hatchback with bits missing.

This one combines the two.

It comes from this BBC story.

 

Some football pitches have running tracks around them.

 

Ballymena United's has a racetrack running around it.

 

And we aren't talking Formula One.

 

Inevitably in Stock car Racing and Banger Racing, cars may just, ever so slightly, COLLIDE!

 

So the odd one is getting shunted on to the pitch - and churning it up.  This isn't damage that can be easily remedied by a bloke wandering on to the pitch with a hoe at half-time.

 

Maybe they should change their name to Ballymena ROVERS.

Driving With Pliers

No, not a Chaka Demus reference.

 

It is actually a reference to this BBC story today.

 

It is about this car, pulled over by Norfolk Police:

You can just about make out that it is a Peugeot 206.

 

I've driven one or two Peugeot 206s.  I don't like them because the pedals are offset.

 

But this one seems to have a few more issues: 

...like a flat tyre.

 

And no door card.

 

Oh yes, and no front bumper or wings. Or steering wheel. Or driver's seat.

 

Instead of the steering wheel, the driver has gone with some Mole Grips (aka Locking Pliers) while seating is provided by an upturned, rather battered, tin bucket.

NFN I guess.

Not Coming Home

It's been about two weeks since my last post.

Partly because there hasn't been much car news.

And partly because I've been engrossed in the Football.

I have dual-nationality - I'm mostly Welsh but when there is a major football tournament going on I tend to be English.

And this major tournament has been better than most from an English perspective.

We did play in Samara last week so it is an excuse to mention the Lada Samara:

But today The BBC gave us a story combining traffic AND The World Cup.

Apparently, according to The RAC, traffic was going to peak between 4pm and 6pm this afternoon/evening due to us England fans commuting home in time for our semi-final against Croatia.

I was one of those commuters and didn't notice any extra traffic on the bit of motorway I was using.

I did notice us lose to Croatia though - this makes me mostly Welsh again.

The English boys have done their country proud though - they are only young and they got a lot further than most would have thought possible which bodes well for future competitions.

Meanwhile, Croatia is the home of Rimac - manufacturer of electric supercars like the Concept One:

Which looks a lot better before an Englishman crashes it: