Getting Cozy

The UK's top selling car in March was the Jaecoo 7.

The US's top selling car at the turn of the Century was the Little Tikes Cozy Coupe.

Click on that link for a very amusing article from Car+Driver.

Although I'm not sure of the picture they have chosen - it is a black lad serving a white girl.  Bit of racial stereotyping going on there I think.

The story isn't about car sales in the early 2000s though.

It's about how Little Tikes are now producing an EV version of the foot powered sit-in car.

It takes 3 AA batteries for the pretend charging unit to provide lights and "charging noises."

The commenters underneath the story seem to get the joke.

Apart from one tosser who states, "It's downright crazy to drag toddlers into the EV Car drama with plastic peddle cars, don't you think? It's more of a adult topic. Over the top on this, toy designers."

He's got 18 downvotes, zero upvotes and various comments basically confirming that he is a tosser.

And wrong. 

He also can't spell "pedal" and The Crazy Coupe doesn't have pedals so isn't a pedal car anyway.

Right, I'm off now to watch Driving Miss Daisy.

What a grey day!

Sad news from Cupra here.

And I say that as the owner of a grey car who has previously owned a silver car and a black car.

Although my other three cars were vomit yellow, cherry red and racing green.

The story states that this...

..is a thing of the past.  Cupra creative director Francesca Sangalli has stated that,

"Cupra is about neutral colour with a twist, and this is why we give much more importance to matt finishes and the very oily treatment of colour.  You choose a Cupra if you like the brand, and you choose the range of colours that fits with the brand and not vice versa. You will never find a red Cupra."

Damn shame given that we have now got to the stage where nearly all cars are monchrome.

"Broadening the range with more colourful hues risks losing the brand because you go with what everyone else does" 

So now she's going grey.

Like everyone else.

Apart from Fiat.

Big Little Car

Another video from one of the YouTube Channels I subscribe to...

This is a review by the petite Imogen Bhopal of the Hyundai Ioniq 3 on Robert Llewelyn's Everything Electric CARS channel.

I say "petite"...

...she looks quite large here:

 

Or is it just a small car?

 

Then again? 

   

Is it a small woman and a big car?

 

At the start of the review, she states that they only had 30-ish minutes with the car.

 

And the more I watched it, the more it looked like she and the car were nowhere near each other.

 

She and the car appear to be digitally combined. 

 

Like Marc Almond & Gene Pitney in the video to the brilliant "Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart."

 

Then, all of a sudden, just before 6 minutes into the review, she opens the boot!

 

She also climbs in to it:

 

This really excites the commenters.

But I suppose the biggest takeaway is that you can stash the body of a petite person under the boot floor of a Hyundai Ioniq 3.

Which I suspect isn't what they were really going for.

Thinking About Plato

Here's Plato, in a candid shot, posing in front of a column with a statue on it.

Plato said, "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

This is what America is suffering from right now.

And the rest of the World.

He also allegedly said, "Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy."

Yep.

And then there was, "They certainly give very strange names to diseases."

OK, might have gone off at a tangent there.

"My right arm is generally quite strong."

That last one is actually Jason Plato - ex-racing driver and ex-TV presenter.

And current racing team boss.

He has started up Team Plato in less than 12 months and intends to start winning races in the BTCC straight away.

Very impressive.  His former Fifth Gear colleague Jonny Smith spends an hour of his YouTube Late Brake Show discussing it with him here: 

There's no sign of Jason's flat cap but he does appear to be sucking on a mint through the video which is a bit off-putting.

But, mint aside, it is fascinating stuff - for example, the Mercedes cars they are using were all originally water damaged write-offs.  And they've sourced spare bonnets from scrapyards.

Which makes it sound like they are working on a shoestring.

But they aren't.

He's got a crack team of engineers, a state-of-the-art driving simulator and some bloody expensive components.

I always look forward to the BTCC Season.  This year it kicks off tomorrow at Donington Park.  I normally support the BMWs and West Surrey Racing. Have done from before and after owning a BMW myself but, this year, the livery is a bit bland - I wonder of they are no longer a manufacturer team? And I was hoping that Colin Turkington, my favourite driver, might be rejoining their line-up but it looks like they have other plans for him.

So I think I'll be cheering on the Mercs.

"And guess what? I've never run a team before."

Chery on Top

Last time I mentioned Chery it was 2013.

Now, one of their brands, Jaecoo, has just topped the UK March car sales figures with its 7.

Not to be confused wth the Lotus 7.

Although it's more likely to be confused with a Range Rover.

It has beaten the Puma into second place.

The Qashqai is third and the Sportage is fourth.  Autocar report the story here.

Stupid SUVs.

They also report a sudden increase of interest in EVs due to a certain orange toddler-pillock stuffing up the World's oil supplies.

I've just asked the Internet how you pronounce Jaecoo.

Apparently it's "Jake who?"

So then I asked it for famous Jakes.  It listed about 30.

But the only one I'd heard of was Jake Gyllenhaal.

Perhaps it was an American site because it didn't come up with Jake Bugg.

Who at least has a car-related name.

I appear to have digressed slightly.