Cylinder Blocked

To quote Autoguide, "2018 Toyota Camry Recalled for Unusual Engine Issue."

It doesn't affect us here in the UK, The Camry has gone the same way as the Honda Accord.

The story is here.

Apparently, there are some engines out there, where the (quoting Autoguide again) "engines could have pistons larger in diameter than the original specification."

In other words, they are too fat.

How could an engine even work if the pistons are too fat?

And how could that even happen?

Here's the picture they use from the production line:

No clues there then.

Ring Me Sometime

The F1 Season has started again.

I saw something about practice on the TV schedule today.

I'm waiting for the BTCC to restart.  (April 8th if you're interested)

F1 is definitely losing appeal.  And making the cars uglier isn't going to help.  But they have to do it - if it saves just one life it'll be worth it.

I'm talking about The Halo Device:

Autocar have an article on it here.

 

I suppose when you see it, the word that is supposed to come to mind is "safety".

 

It's probably something to do with how my mind works, but when I see it, the word that comes to mind is "thong".

Bright and Dim

Bright is this advert in the Top Gear Magazine delivered to my house today.

What is bright about it is those headlamps really are lit up.  It uses the same technology you find in greetings cards that make noises when you open them.  I guess that the technology has become economical enough to insert into however many thousands of copies Top Gear Magazine produce in a run.

 

And what better a product than the Nissan Leaf to advertise using this technology?

 

Although I'm sure Elon Musk will be a bit miffed when he finds out.

 

Meanwhile, Dim is Donald Trump.  Here's the story, from CNN, about how he thought that the Japanese dropped bowling balls onto cars to test their safety. 

White House spokeswomble, Sarah Huckerbee Sanders than had to go on record to say he was only joking.

Sorry Sarah, but if you expect anyone of intelligence to believe that, then you re as stupid as The President.

Bowled Over

This lady is leaving BBC Radio 2:

Why is that motoring news?

 

Because she is the lovely Lynn Bowles (or "Elbow" to give her her Jennifer Lopez type name)

 

For many years, she has told me why I'm stuck in a traffic jam on the M53.  I don't think she's ever prevented me from actually getting stuck in said traffic jam on the M53 but that's probably more to do with a combination of the timings within Chris Evans' show and the time I happen to be eating my Special K in a morning.

 

She does the travel news.  And has done for 18 years - without the aid of a helicopter.

 

This article doesn't actually say WHY she is leaving, but it does imply that after 18 years of getting up at silly-o'clock every weekday, she fancies a few lie-ins from now on.

 

Can't say I blame her but I will miss her.  She has a great sense of humour that played very well against Chris Evans and against his predecessor, the late, great Sir Terry Wogan.

 

Plus, she's Welsh.

 

In other Welsh news this week, apparently you can get banned from driving if you crash your Peugeot into somebody's upstairs bathroom:

Women Drivers, Eh?

Here are some:

The one on the left has just been given a new job.  She is going to be a test-driver for the Sauber F1 Team.

 

The one in the middle is rallying legend Michele Mouton.

 

The one on the right has recently criticised the one below.

But then again, I sort of did too - in 2015.  And so has Jensen Button now.

 

The recent criticism is about her ("her" being Carmen Jorda) claiming that a "physical issue" was the barrier preventing women from competing in Formula 1 or Formula 2.  Susie Wolff, the third woman in the top photo responded with a tweet pointing out that motorsport doesn't care about gender.

 

Susie Wolff became the first woman in 22 years to take part in a Formula 1 race weekend in 2014 - and is married to the team boss.

 

I'm not too sure that motorsport doesn't care about gender - especially given by the responses to her tweet and the fact that it has taken until 2018 to sort out the grid-girl situation.

 

However, if you want to see a really tough woman driver, please watch the video in this story. 

Her name is Charmaine Laurie.  I was very impressed when I first saw the footage which was before it had been identified that it was a woman driver.

After I knew it was a woman driver though, I was impressed at exactly the same level.

A Knight Against The Museum

Social media pointed me at a couple of motoring stories this morning.

The first was an Autocar story from earlier in the week about the new Audi A6 "thanks to its complete reinvention inside and out, with a new look, fresh technology and a bolstering of its sporting appeal".

The "new look" was the bit of that phrase that was garnering most comments. Probably because it looks exactly like every other Audi produced this Century:

However, the story that I actually found interesting was from a source new to me - autoclassics.com

They were getting very excited about a proposed massive new motor museum to grace an area in The Cotswolds.

They got so excited about it that you need 15 minutes and a mug of tea to read the whole piece.  I was getting suspicious because it was such a pro article that I thought it was an advertorial.  But, after a bit of digging, including looking at the local press on the subject, I think they are just genuinely very excited at the prospect of American businessman and car collector, Peter Mullin, building something special to be enjoyed by classic car enthusiasts:

The fly in the ointment, is objections to the project from groups concerned that it includes a number of luxury "lodges" where low-cost housing would serve the locals better - plus there is debate as to whether this is building on green-belt or brown-field land.

The housing side of it certainly gets a lot more prominence in the Oxford Mail than in autoclassics.com.

A leading spokesman for these objecting groups is a bit of a car nut himself, Sir Patrick Stewart: 

He has a home in The Cotswolds so maybe he's concerned about traffic - or the view - both concerns are answered to some extent within the article.

You'd think he would be in favour of enterprise.