Van Gogh-ing Nowhere

I had to register to read this article in Autocar.

It was free but I didn't have to register when I read it at lunchtime.

And now they have my details - I've ticked all the don't send me stuff boxes.

On top of that, do I want an organisation who have produced an article with a massive flaw in it having my details?

For those of you who haven't read the article or don't want to register to read the article, they are stating that UK vehicle production is dramatically down on the same period last year due to a significant drop in commercial vehicle production - 78% in fact.

They state that the SMMT have stated that the fall was "mainly down to work taking place at Stellantis’s Ellesmere Port plant, which is being upgraded to take on extra workload resulting from the closure of the firm's Luton factory."

I think, the fall may actually be down to something alluded to there that happened in March - THE CLOSURE IF THE FIRM'S LUTON FACTORY.

Jacked Up

Sometimes when you're walking along the pavement, you may see a glove or a baby's hat on a fence or wall.

Someone has lost it and some other kind soul has put it somewhere safe and visible for when whoever lost it goes back to retrace their steps.

Today I saw this:

I can only assume that somebody had a puncture, swapped the wheel at the roadside then completely forgot about their jack.

And whoever found it and put it out of the way of being a trip-hazard is a diamond.

A Jack of Diamonds.

A Ginger Car for Ginger People

 All of the main car news sites I visit had this one - but Autocar had it first so I'll link to them.

Not sure why they've named it after popular 1970s beat combo ELO though.

It is electric and quite light but absolutely nothing to do with an orchestra.

They claim that it is named after the second letters of the words rest, play and work.

Which should, of course, be "Work, Rest & Play"

But that would be OEL which is harder to say.  It's also the last three letters of Noel.

Which is more appropriate for December and not the first three letters of Elon.

I think I quite like Citroen's new concept MPV:

It's very Citroen.

The interior is very strange and seems to be a mobile office and bedroom (with no curtains)

Lots of weird innovations that you need to read the article to get the full story.

Lots of Blue Sky thinking that if I tried to explain would just lead to confusion.

Kei Proposals

 The orange man-baby has been waxing lyrical about Kei cars.

He has  called them "cute" and "beautiful."

Car+Driver have the story here.

As usual, he is wrong.

Also as usual with Trump, whoever speaks to him most recently is the one he is in agreement with.

He "touted how smaller cars are more efficient thanks to their smaller engines, and he specifically named brands like Honda and Toyota as potential sources for these machines."

Then he will speak to someone from Ford or the oil industry.

He also spoke about how if these cars were to be made available in The States, that they would need to be built there.

Not convinced - Americans don't have a good history of building small cars.

The Evolution of Buttons

 

But not the sort that keep your cardigan together.

I had a mild panic attack today when a big orange square appeared on my dashboard as I was driving home from work:

It turns out Radio 2 have changed their logo-image thingy on DAB Radio.

I usually listen to Johnny Vaughan on Radio X or Simon Mayo on Greatest Hits when I'm driving home.  But I switch between them when adverts come on and today they had adverts on at the same time so I happened to switch to Radio 2 and up came that big orange square.

Now for some reason, that got me thinking about warning lights and dashboards.

My first car had the Triumph "All Systems Go" warning light cluster - I loved it.

Never managed to light up all 8 segments at the same time though.

The original dashboards had nothing on them - they were the boards at the front of carts that were pulled by horses - they were meant to protect the driver from mud and other unpleasantries thrown up by the horses hooves when travelling off-road.

The name stuck when the first motor cars appeared - logical given that most looked like "horseless carriages."

Eventually, as cars became cars, the dashboards were used to house instruments and controls for new fangled additions such as windscreen wipers - and, as anyone who subscribes to idriveaclassic on YouTube will know, pull switches were very popular for many years right up to the 1960s:

...and beyond for things like the hazard warning lights on my Triumph.

These were eventually replaced by toggle switches:

Then it was the turn of my favourite - the rocker switch!

These prevailed in the 1970s when I was becoming fascinated by cars.  You could could buy them in Halfords and Motorworld to add accessories (usually fog lamps) to your Vauxhall Victor or Ford Escort.

By the '90s - buttons had taken over:

In quite a big way in some cars - My Jaguar X-Type had buttons to operate a phone I didn't have.

I like buttons - not as much as I like rocker switches - but they are tactile and necessary when you need to control lots of things like heated seats and electric windows and climate control.

But, as even more complicated things (like Apps!) are becoming part of motoring, touchscreens are taking over from buttons.  VW famously took them too far and had to reinstate some - it was getting dangerous having to look away from the road to do basic things like put the air on re-circ.

I sometime use the voice commands on my car but I have found myself arguing with it a few times too and voice control is also no use to people with Scottish accents.

My car has a mixture of real buttons and touchscreen which is about as far from the horse and cart dashboard as you can get.

Imagine having to put up with a boring dashboard.