I knew that Audi was formed from four German car companies and that one of them was Auto Union so assumed that was why the first two letters of Audi are AU.
My assumption was incorrect and my knowledge was a bit incorrect.
The company name is based on the Latin translation of the surname of the founder, August Horch. Horch, meaning 'listen', becomes audi in Latin. The four rings of the Audi logo each represent one of four car companies that banded together to create Audi's predecessor company, Auto Union.
Thank you Wikipedia.
Audi have now teamed up with SAIC of China to produce a Chinese-only sub brand aimed at "younger, tech-oriented Chinese EV buyers." This sounds a little bit like what Toyota did in The States with Scion - that didn't really work out for them in the end.
Autocar have the Audi story here while Auto Express have an opinion piece on it here.
The Autocar piece has pictures of what looks like an attractive car:
Auto Express opinion pieces tend to be right-wing rants nowadays so maybe it explains why they have only had one response to their question in it, "What do you think Audi should have called its new Chinese sub brand?"
If you have read either of those articles you will now know that it is not to be Audisaic.
But it is to be AUDI.
Not to be confused with Audi - who have sold cars in China for many years now under the name of...
...Audi.
At least the new shouty version will tie in better with the image of your typical Audi driver.
...the knowledgeable and dapper vehicle appraiser and regular contributor to Jay Leno's Garage.
I was watching their latest output on YouTube yesterday. They are clearly great mates and the way he takes Jay's gentle mockery is a pleasure to watch - especially about the concept of their regular segment, "Assess and Caress" in which the idea is for Jay to decide which of three vehicles chosen by Donald has gained most value in the previous 5 years.
What do those millions of fans see in Trump? He is creepy, he cannot string together a coherent answer to any normal question, he makes up lies and statistics on the spot, he managed to bankrupt casinos.
I see no redeeming credentials whatsoever.
You could argue that it's none of my business being a Brit but happens with America affects the whole World. There is already talk of him doing a Putin and Xi to change the rules to stay in power longer. And as Putin has him by the short-and-curlies, it doesn't bode well for Ukraine - and therefore the rest of Europe and NATO.
Meat Loaf was a fan - and I believe that cost him his life as he fell for the Anti-Vaxxer nonsense that Trump liked to promote.
So how can intelligent, articulate, hard-working people such as Dennis & Sean be voting for Trump?
This picture Sean posted on Facebook of the keys his wife had in her pocket imply that he is of the Trump persuasion:
They can't be falling for the Fox News tripe - they're too busy to watch it.
Maybe they are simply life-long Republicans - or maybe they see something in him that very few people outside of the States can see.
I hope they are right - evidence from 2016 to 2020 does not look promising but democracy has declared a winner so we need to accept it and work with it.
Maybe they didn't see a better candidate, over to Jonathan Pie...
I don't like Little Mix - I'm just using this picture as clickbait.
This post is actually about a lot on the US online car auction site Bring A Trailer - this lot.
The cars involved are smaller than their usual ones.
In fact, it's a mix of little cars - and other vehicular entities - 41 Matchbox models to be precise.
I remember the ones I used to have - I played with them a lot so I don't regret not keeping them in original condition in original boxes.
This is despite the auction lot, at time of typing up this post, sitting at $1400.
I had a couple of the ones that are for sale - like the Greyhound bus and the Fire Engine - I also had several models of American cars but was surprised to see Americans would have models of British cars - there is a Ford Corsair there and one of the BMC ADO16s - the MG option if I'm not mistaken. I imagine most American buyers would be a bit bemused by it.
Nice to know they were made in England though - the real cars and the toys.
The few of mine I still have are pretty wrecked.
But I'd still like to give a shout out to my wrecks.
They were all out this morning. Several were driving white vans. I caught a lot on my dash-cam.
To start with, I had someone decide that he was coming off at Junction 3.
Nothing wrong with coming off at Junction 3 - I've done it myself on many occasions - it's handy for The Asda, And Tranmere Rovers.
But this guy was in the outside lane when he decided it and had to cut in front of two other lanes of traffic - one of which included me. I didn't bother including the footage because, rather annoyingly, it looks less dramatic when you play it back.
Or maybe I'm just a drama queen.
But then look at this other twerp joining at the same junction:
This morning saw the usual collection of tailgaters and middle-lane hogs.
But this lane hogger in particular annoyed me because, not only was he driving a white van, he didn't have his lights on.
Then you get the white van man who does have his lights on but doesn't use the handy orange flashing ones that give other drivers a clue as to your intentions. It's a good job BMW don't make white vans.
But that wasn't his worst crime. Note that the other two white van drivers knew which lane they needed to be in and how to position yourself going around a roundabout.
My main take from that programme involved Vicki (aged 52) hooning around in the Ford Mustang Dark Horse - and thoroughly enjoying it.
This was a car that I had just watched Dennis Collins (who is actually about 18 month OLDER than me) hooning around in his latest edition of Coffee Walk.
Dennis commented on how the manual versions (like his) seemed very rare - in fact his local dealer wasn't aware of another one.
Vicki was driving one though so I suspect that is a US/EU thing. She also announced that it is available in right-hand drive.
Which is nice.
The other thing Dennis said that slightly amused me was that not many people over there had heard of The Dark Horse Mustang.
Maybe time to look up what "Dark Horse" actually means.?
