Old Favorits

This year's Festival of the Unexceptional is being held on July 26th.

If it was a bit nearer to me geographically, I'd have quite fancied going along.

But it isn't.

It celebrates cars that used to be all over the place in the '70s, '80s and '90s - not special - just quite common.

They aren't interested in vintage cars either.

So it is cars that people a bit older than me and people a bit younger than me will remember - sometimes fondly.

And Renault in particular have been tapping in to this - and doing a very good job with the new electric Renaults 5 and 4.

Mini have been at it for a quarter of a century now.

So now it looks like Skoda might want a piece of the action.

The story is here of a reimagination of the Favorit:

Only there's no indication that they would actually put this in to production.

So maybe Vauxhall should take note:

Daily Fail

 The Mail is up to it's usual nonsense again.

The top half of the front page, on a day when:

• Israel launches another major offensive in Gaza
• Russia kills 9 civilians in a bus in Ukraine
• A new deal for cooperation between the UK and the EU is on the cards
• 3 Iranians have been arrested under counter-terrorism legislation
• Tributes are being paid to two firefighters who lost their lives yesterday

...is dedicated to some nonsense about buying a book to get "a scientifically proven biological age of 20 at 61."

Can't help but think that there won't have been much peer-checking done on that "scientific" proof.

The bottom half of the front page claims that parking fines could rocket by 75%.

COULD - it says COULD.

Apparently, it would be a "major blow" for millions of "hard-pressed" motorists.

No it wouldn't.

Even if it did happen - IF - it would still only affect those that parked where they shouldn't.

Maybe, their chief political correspondent, David Churchill has a sense of entitlement that he should be able to park where he likes.

Or maybe he was short on Labour-bashing stories.

Or maybe he's just not a very good journalist.

Tempo

My favourite driving home DJ Johnny Vaughn was talking today about how a recent survey had pointed out that fast music while you are driving causes fast driving.

He quite correctly pointed out that this is a regularly occurring story and is stating the bleeding obvious.

There was then much debate about AC/DC and he asked his listeners to suggest their most speed-inducing tunes - funniest of which was The Benny Hill Theme.

He also mused about whether this applied to someone riding a donkey and, if it did, would the rider or the donkey have the headphones on.

Personally, anything written by Jim Steinman or anything Rave-ish from the '90s will do it for me.

I decided to find the latest findings and one article I found was this one from The Driving Instructor's Association.

Basically, insurers Allianz have teamed up with Spotify to curate safer playlists for driving to.

It actually seems like a very good idea.

The only thing is, I also sometimes like to listen to my Chilled Ibiza CDs.

What will they do about drivers falling asleep at the wheel?

I could teach the U.S. Secret Service a thing or two.

Specifically how to drive a manual car.

The U.S. Secret Service have been gifted 10 high performance cars by GM (story here) including two equipped with manual transmissions.

One of their driving instructors has stated that, "Not everyone is able to operate a manual shift,"

And, "Having that platform here will enable us to give instruction on how to drive manual vehicles for overseas trips."

At least until electric cars take over.

Although I'm not convinced that a V8 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing is the ideal choice for learning to drive a manual in.

Buzzin' Back

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over in The States says that the ID.Buzz's third-row bench seat is too wide and three people could sit on it.

I wouldn't describe it as a "bench" and I wouldn't want to be the third person if they were sat in the middle:

Car+Driver have the story here.

It has led to a recall with the rear seat being made narrower.  They say they will add unpadded trim to limit the seating surface width of the third-row bench.

Haven't a clue what they mean by that AND IT ISN'T A BENCH!

Seems a bit over the top to me - if someone sits in the middle then gets thrust forward to their death in a collision because they haven't got a seatbelt on - then that is misadventure and not Volkswagen's fault.

Things were much simpler in the olden days!