Opportunity Knocks for Vauxhall

Here's a story for the Brexiteers to cling on to.

 

It involves the tranquil Mediterranean fishing village of Ellesmere Port (pronounced L.S.Meer Portay)

 

Actually it's pronounced as it's spelled - only with a Scouse accent.

 

I drive past it every day on my way to work.

It's where a lot of Vauxhall/Opel Astras are built.

 

And will hopefully continue to be built after Brexit.  The boss of PSA who own the Vauxhall and Opel brands is reported as stating in this Autocar article, that Brexit may be a good opportunity for Vauxhall.

 

He may be right.

 

A British-badged vehicle built on this side of any tariffs that may be imposed could be a winner.

 

He is quoted thusly, "I am not facing Brexit always on the dark side of this outcome: there may be for the Vauxhall brand an opportunity for us. We are managing our marketing communications in the UK in a way that is very supportive of a British brand in the UK."

If his English is a little stunted, it is infinitely better than my Portuguese (his nationality) and my French which is presumably the language he spends a lot of time talking in.  This is him, Carlos Tavares:

He was almost certainly correct with,

"We prepare for the two outcomes and will deal with them when it comes up. Most probably there’s going to be a delay, which gives us a little more visibility for 2019."

Although the quote that I, as a devout Remoaner, mostly picked up on was,

"We can go on the dark side and say ‘perhaps we have to shut down plants’, and if we have to make difficult decisions we will."

Vauxhall/Opel only assemble Astras and Vivaro vans in the UK which they also assemble in Poland and France respectively so what about the Opel-badged vehicles?  And the rest of the Vauxhall range?

Nissan has already part-blamed Brexit from stopping the X-Trail in Sunderland while Honda is refusing to blame it for shutting it's Swindon factory but I think that has more to do with the fact that their customer-base is old people.

For the sake of the local economy and people I know who work there, I hope that Vauxhall Ellesmere Port goes on to thrive.

And I mean that most sincerely, folks, I really do.

A Glut of Car Shows

Gluttony is one of the Deadly Sins.

So is Laziness.

But they called it something different in those days.

Anyway, there's yet another new car show - or new doing-up cars show - it's on Dave and it's called "Lazy Boy Garage"

I watched the first two shows last night.  I quite liked it.

The opening credits are a bit misleading "For 10 years, the boys of the Lazy Boy Garage have been making money buying cars off the Internet and flipping them for profit."

That may all be technically true in bits but The Lazy Boy Garage is a brand new concept where the three presenters/mechanics/auctioneers don't leave the premises.

The presenters are Jonny Smith (from Fifth Gear), Tom Ford (formerly Fifth Gear currently Top Gear Magazine) and Tim Glover (a garage owner and mechanic apparently) They are stood in exactly the wrong order here:

The narration was quite funny, possibly because they got a comedian to do it - Jayde Adams - I'm guessing they gave her some free rein and hope she is a petrol-head:

This show mustn't be confused with Goblin Works Garage featuring Jimmy de Ville (recently started appearing in Fifth Gear), Anthony Partridge (a Canadian) and Helen Stanley (got tattoos) 

or Turbo Pickers featuring Dave Southall (Cockney hard geyser) and Paul Cowland (Salvage Hunters Classic Cars)

or Salvage Hunters Classic Cars featuring Drew Pritchard (Salvage Hunters) and Paul Cowland (Turbo Pickers)

or Car SOS or Wheeler Dealers or the American ones like Gas Monkey Garage or Sin City Motors or Detroit Steel or Wheeler Dealers.

I don't believe you can have too many shows like this but keeping up with them is quite tricky - they tend to be on Dave or Quest mostly for me.

And they need a collective noun.

A Spanner of Car Shows?
A Fleet of Car Shows?
A Showroom of Car Shows?

I quite like a Manifold of Car Shows.

Flint-Off The Road

This is the sixth post on the row with "accident" in the labels - although two of them were the same accident.

The new series of Top Gear starts on Sunday - the last with the good presenters.

None of them would have mangled a market stall in Mansfield.

Nearly an Octogone

But fortunately, the driver swerved out of the way.

Note the spelling.

Now a heptagon:



...is nearly an octagon:

But a flat octopus on the A381 between Malborough and South Milton in Devon would represent an octo-gone.

 

Just surprised it wasn't Norfolk.

I was driving along...and I saw this dragon!

Nice win for Wales on Friday.

Pity England had an even nicer one yesterday.

But that's beside the point.  Today's point involves a very impressive Welsh dragon - carved out of oak and overlooking the A5 in Gwynedd.

Today's BBC story tells of how, as a result of this dragon being there, there has been an accident and several near-misses on that stretch of road "which really does require a driver's full concentration."

 

It has been carved from a fallen tree - so is potentially moveable.

 

So maybe they should move it.

 

Perhaps to somewhere overlooking the road between Twickenham and The Principality Stadium.