Space Tourism

It looks like NASA are not very pleased with Elon Musk sending his Tesla Roadster off to discover new worlds.

Here's the Metro (the newspaper not the motoring Blogger) story.

 

They are worried about space junk. (They being NASA, not me or the Metro newspaper)

 

I would be more worried about finding charging points.

 

Or more philosophical questions like, "If it was travelling at the Speed of Light, what would happen when you switched on the headlamps?"

 

Anyway, at least the thought of cars touring about space is pretty exciting.

 

Which is presumably why Citroen have a car called a Spacetourer.  They've had it for a couple of years but I never noticed.

 

Presumably because it is this...

- a van-sized people-carrier.

 

I only found out about it today because I read this Autocar story about Citroen renaming their C4 Picassos to be C4 Spacetourers - to bring them into line with it.

 

Now I regard people-carriers (or MPVs) as highly as I regard SUVs and CUVs. In other words - I don't.

 

Someone in the Citroen marketing department is being very optimistic.

 

Maybe they need a rocket under them.

Recalling Picasso

D'Oh!










Another BBC story today, and it's also a trailer for Watchdog. I'm surprised the rest of the motoring media hasn't picked up on this one because it is a howler - and a dangerous one at that.

The Citroen C3 Picasso......an attracive (if cubist) car, was, unsurprisingly for a Citroen, designed in France - where they drive on the right side of the road. That is right as in "left/right" not right as in "right/wrong" - after all, we all know that the left is the right side to drive on. (That sentence won't make a lot of sense if translated from English!)

Now to convert this car to drive on the left, you need to move the controls to be on the right and therein lay the problem.

I've experienced problems with French cars before - I think the pedal positioning of the RHD Peugeot 206s, for instance, is an accident waiting to happen.

But the C3 Picasso's problem is that, rather than move the whole brake mechanism, they put a bar running the width of the car where the pedals go. This means that someone stretching out in the passenger seat, can move the bar and apply the brakes.

This could lead to some serious rear-ending - leaving you with a face like this...










Apparently reluctantly, Citroen are recalling more than 20,000 cars.

Enough to make you weep...