Red Light District

I believe that when temporary traffic lights at roadworks fail, they are set to default to red rather than green.

It makes sense - it is better for people to get fed up waiting and cautiously proceed rather than to confidently hurtle towards somebody doing the same in the opposite direction.

I must admit, I felt reasonably safe going past this one today: 

It can't be often that you have to chase and catch up with a traffic light.

And it can't be often that Junction 5 of the M53 is a Red Light District.

Getaway Cars

I found an interesting little section on the Hagerty UK site today called "The One That Got Away."

And yesterday, while I was watching "Salvage Hunters Classic Cars", they added the moneyed star of that show, Drew Pritchard:

He must be bloody young in that picture - and check out the hair on the bloke we know as completely bald!

The "The One That Got Away" stories are of the cars that people wished they hadn't got rid of and would quite like to buy back.

Despite the caption they put on that Beach Buggy in the article, it was the badly-painted orange VW Bus that he swapped to get that Beach Buggy that he wants back.

Drew reckons he's owned about 250 cars but has stopped selling the ones he really likes now.  I've owned five cars and I'm pretty sure three of them are in scrapyards.  If you are ever in a scrapyard and spot a vomit yellow Triumph Dolomite NRE 915W, let me know.

So, that's last night's telly covered, tonight it is the return of Bangers and Cash on Yesterday while Fifth Gear Recharged continues on Quest.

Last month, the star of Bangers and Cash and also of my post last Saturday, Sarah Crabtree told Hagerty of her (also orange) Mini:

Not sure when that would have been taken but satellite telly had been invented.  Again it is fun to see her so young.

And back in October, star of Fifth Gear Recharged, Vicki Butler-Henderson told of her not orange BMW M3 CSL.

Tomorrow night, Jason Manford is on Would I Lie To You (cue Boris Johnson joke).  I found this picture of a younger Manford in a car:

and it looks like it is still on the road:

Bangers and Dash

I normally make a point of not clicking on adverts that appear on my Facebook timeline.

Unfortunately, being a gentleman of a certain age, I can't resist Sarah Crabtree.

So I was rather shocked and disappointed to find out that she is now Sales Director for Evoke Classic Cars rather than office general and tat sorter for Mathewson's Car Auctions.

Unless she is doing both jobs.

I guess I'll find out on Thursday when the new series of Bangers and Cash returns to the Yesterday channel.

She appears to drive a brown Morris Ital now:

...a quirky choice - I wonder which employer she sourced it from.

I'm not sure exactly what Evoke do - there is some auctioneering involved in there somewhere.  They are based in Dagenham which is why they refer to Sarah as from "Up Norf" which I guess should be pronounced with a Essex accent rather than a patronising faux-Yorkshire one (that would be "oop North")

They mention that she is off the telly but don't mention Mathewsons or Bangers and Cash anywhere.  And there is a bit of a dig in their website too:

"You can choose a stand-alone commercial auction house run by shareholders that you’ll have a transactional relationship with. Don’t misunderstand us. There is nothing wrong with that. Most of them are good, very good in fact and if you choose the right auction house you will not go wrong.

Or you can choose something different."

Hmmm - OK.  Not sure a business having shareholders would put me off using them.

Meanwhile, I can't find Sarah anywhere on the fancy new Mathewson's website.

And Derek doesn't look too happy - is he the new tat sorter?

A Little Nissan Qashqai

They don't have Nissan Qashqais in America.

Is it because they can't pronounce it?

That can't be it - they manage well enough with their own pronunciations of Jaguar and Hyundai.

Although their version of the Qashqai is a lot easier to pronounce - I give you the Nissan Kicks:

Which looks remarkably like a Qashqai and is about the same size.

WHICH ISN'T SMALL!

It seems to be 85mm shorter than a Qashqai though - which is probably why it has made it in to Autoguide's list of the Smallest Cars on Sale Today 

- in America.

Their smallest car is the Chevrolet Spark.  That used to be on sale here in the UK.  It was bland.

I suppose it is small - albeit not as small as a Fiat 500.

Drive.com.au have a story about one of those that is antibacterial.  It has a UV lamp in the glovebox to zap Covid too.

And a link to U2.

You can only drive it where the streets have no name.

It is part of a partnership between Stellantis and Red.  Red is a company co-founded by Bono which seems to be linked to fighting health emergencies around the World.

Like Covid.

But, if a Fiat 500 is still too big for you, you may be interested in this Swiss, electric, Isetta:

It has two seats.

So it can be driven with or without you.

Three Shades of Grey.

Car+Driver are telling us here of E-Ink.  BMW have announced it at the CES Tech Show in Las Vegas.  It is basically a paint job that you can change its colour.

Colours available are black, white and grey.

"So Constable, we have three witnesses of the robbery, one says the getaway car was white, one says it was black and the other one reckons it was grey"

"Yes Serge, but they all agreed it had HUGE nostrils."