Luce Lawless

Ferrari have announced their first all-electric car - the Luce:

Looks good doesn't it?

As long as you view it from that exact angle.

'Cause it just looks weird from every other one.

Auto Express cover the story here describing it as "New Ferrari Luce EV arrives with shocking design, 1,035bhp and £440k price"

Autocar have this describing it as "1036bhp, 329 miles, £440k: Ferrari Luce revealed as wild super-EV"

The Autocar one must be better because it has one extra bhp.

They also have more commenters - more in both number and knowledgability.

The Auto Express ones are just judging the car on the fact it is electric and isn't particularly attractive - not that any of them would be able to afford one despite one claiming that he could - yeah sure mate!  Oh and there is one commenter who is either a Chinese Bot or a Chinese moron - I suspect the former.

A lot of the Autocar comments are also negative but there is a more genuine mix and more constructive criticism.

There is agreement and positive commentry on both websites for the interior and both have comments likening it to a Jaguar i-Pace - something I can definitely see.

Personally though, I'm not that enamoured by the interior:

It has real buttons which is good and the instrumentation is innovative - in a good way - but what is that dashboard made of?  Plastic? Shiny leather?

More weirdness.

So I won't be putting in an order for one.

And not just because I can't afford one.

Getting Angrier

There's a lot to be angry about in the world today.

There's Crossover SUVs.

There's the Orange Man-baby and his British sycophant, Nigel.

There's Kygo molesting brilliant songs by deceased black female singers.

And there's missing out on the latest upgrades because my Volvo is FROM 2020.

All post-2020 Volvos will receive new 'conversational' Gemini system in massive over-the-air update

That story is from Autocar - a publication I also referenced yesterday.

I regularly check out their website for the daily car news but I don't usually look at their slideshows because I reckon they only have about 8 and they keep repeating them over and over again.

However, today they had a new one - 20 Very Angry Looking Cars!

Now, to look angry, you need to have eyebrows making a V shape and squint a bit.

Clenched fists help but cars can't do that.

So what do the Autocar Angry Cars look like?

The Mitsubishi Delica Mini does look extremely angry - good job they don't sell them here.

The Suzuki Alto Turbo just looks like it is wearing 1970s spectacles.

The Simca 1000 doesn't look angry at all - just mildly perplexed.

The Chevy Rondine concept looks more determined than angry.

Nope - not a clue why this is in here. Now I'm mildly perplexed. Wonder if I'm currently resembling a Simca 1000.

Also not angry - just very ugly with huge and sore nostrils.

And the Gordon Keeble can maybe be described as more grumpy than angry.

The rest of the 20 vary in angryness from not very to a bit.
 

Meanwhile I'm not angry on missing out on the free Volvo software upgrade - I'm used to how I currently interact with my car.

Even if I do find myself arguing with the 2020 voice command system.

In fact, it sometimes makes me angry.

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.

Build Your Dreams - like swimming or flying cars.

Autocar this week had this story.

It is titled, "BYD's bold plan to take on Mercedes, Ferrari and more"

To which my gut reaction was, "Then why does it look like a Mclaren?"

Not that I could read the article because it is hidden behind Autocar's paywall and I'm not paying £19.99 a month or £199 a year just to read some articles that would only be of interest to some people in the automotive industries.

That car is a Yangwang U9 and Yangwang is the posh arm of BYD - my only previous mention of whom I was grudgingly impressed by.

So I looked further into the Yangwang U9 and found this Australian article basically saying it can actually jump over potholes.

And it looks like it can!

There is footage.

And then I found Robert Llewelyn talking about it and its sibling the Yangwang U8.

The U8 is a Land-Rover lookalike that can swim.

There is footage.

He even forgives the U8 for being a hybrid.

There doesn't seem to be a Yangwang U2 though.

So it won't be trying to save the World (or "byd" in Welsh)

Feeling Firsty

Autocar News annoys me at times.

They like to do slideshows.

But then they repeat them.

Again and again.

So I normally ignore them - but something made me revisit one today (and several days in the past) entitled, The first-ever cars of the world's most famous car-makers.

Several of the car-makers seem to have two or three first-ever cars - Jaguar, Skoda and Ford for example - so I haven't a clue what licence they've taken with their definitions.

But when I read the Volvo one, I realised that someone with a sense of humour had been in there.  Check this out.

Meanwhile, the first Fiat was the 4HP of 1899 and the first Tesla was the Roadster of 2008.

Which brings me to the following creation which is apparently the work of someone called @carbreeding.

I don't like the Fiat Multipla because it is pig-ugly and I don't like Elon Musk because he is a right-wing, ranting individual who has completely lost the plot.

But I really like the Cyberpla:

Look away now!

Two stories have caught my eye so far this year.

One from my default Aussie site which is about yet another Tesla crash.  This one is unusual though for two reasons:

1. It seems to be the first one involving a Cybertruck and...
2. It wasn't the Tesla's fault

They've reversed the picture for some reason - maybe to appeal to a right-hand-drive audience:

But this is good news for Tesla in that their vehicle has come out of it considerably more unscathed than the Toyota that crashed in to it:

Although it does raise questions about safety for any other vehicles, or indeed pedestrians, who do get entangled with them.

The other story with something to look away from was one I found in Autocar but I can't view it on my laptop because they won't show it to me unless I switch off the ad-blocker that I don't have. They instead rather unhelpfully show me how to switch off various ad-blockers that I don't have.  I found the story here on Just-Auto instead so Autocar can sod off.

The gist of this is what LG will be showing at the big tech show CES in Vegas next week.

They have technology that allows drivers and passengers to see different things on the same display screen.

Except Land-Rover had that over 10 years ago.

And, judging by the photo,

the LG version works by the driver looking away from the display.

This to me appears a little dangerous.

He'd better hope there isn't a Cybertruck coming the other way.

Quietly Taycan

There is an interesting opinion piece in Autocar today by their contributor Lawrence Allan.

Although I mused on the same subject back in 2011.

Seen any football lately?

You can choose whether or not to have artificial crowd noise or listen to the eerie sounds of professional football happening in empty stadia.

I prefer the real sounds.

The fake crowd noise is provided with a little help from EA Games - specifically the FIFA franchise.

Well, what Lawrence today and me nine years ago have been talking about is artificial sounds for electric cars.  Lawrence recently (pre-lockdown actually) got to drive the Porsche Taycan:

He would like artificial V8 sounds added and suggests Gran Turismo to provide it.

Before I got to that bit of the article, I'd already in my mind settled on Grand Theft Auto for the job - accelerate - screech to a halt - murder a prostitute.

I think it may just catch on.

Brand New

Did I miss a story in Autocar last week about a VW Group rebranding exercise?

On October 7th they told us that VW has a new look for it's sporty "R" brand.

On October 14th they told us that Seat could be rebranded as Cupra.

On October 21st I think I must have missed one because...

On October 28th they told us that Skoda may or may not be rebranded as a budget brand.

Checking back, there WAS a rebranding story on the 21st but it was GM rebranding Hummer as an EV brand - a more suitable story for April 1st I'd have thought.

They also had a very interesting slideshow listing what they believe to be the most significant car for every year from 1945 to 2000.  The one for the year of my birth is the Fiat 124.

But I digress.

Traditionally, the VW Group's four main brands have always been:

• Skoda - the cheap one
• Seat - the sporty one
• VW - the mainstream one
• Audi - the posh one

Then you've got the likes of Porsche, Bentley, Lambo and Bugatti as luxury, sporty add-ons.

So they really don't need an R Brand.

Or do they?

Messerschmitts v Spitfires

Just been watching an Episode of Chasing Classic Cars where Wayne Carini was at an auction where they were selling one of these:

...a Messerschmitt KR200.

 

Which is a slight coincidence because today's Autocar Throwback Thursday was looking at their old report on...

 

...the Messerschmitt KR200!

 

How big is your wife?

 

I only ask because, according to the review from 1957:

 

"at the back there is a bench which will hold a small wife and child, or a larger wife and a shopping basket."

 

Meanwhile, the interesting bit for me was that I would be allowed to use the reverse gears but if I only had a motorbike licence (they were more popular in the '50s) I would only be allowed to go forward.

 

However, I'd rather have a Spitfire myself:

Prior Warning II

'Twas March 2015 when I published Prior Warning - A little piece on the musings of Autocar journo, Matt Prior.

I've just read his latest piece and it looks like there's a bit missing.  It seems to end a bit abruptly - perhaps you have to buy the mag to get the full story.  Fair enough I suppose.

It feels a bit short because the item is subtitled "We discuss why F1 isn't as exciting as it once was."

Unfortunately, the total actually said on the subject is, "The spectacle probably peaked when cars were at their noisiest and wildest and drivers at their most visible, which is why classic car racing is so popular, regardless of how tech-laden some racing series, contested by companies with cars to flog, have become."

That doesn't sound like much of a discussion.  Although I do like watching classic car racing.

The gist of the article is that sometimes, rather than look to the latest hi-tech solutions, the old ways are more than good enough having proved themselves whilst standing the test of time.

My example of this would be that, in the olden days, British people were encouraged to shoot Nazis rather than to read their crap in the Daily Mail.

What there is of Matt's piece is written well enough and he does manage to both use the word "eschew" and talk about tweed trousers.  Although he does also claim that there is such a thing as a "digital salt dispenser."

Ludicrous eh!?

Prior Warning

I read Matt Prior's latest article today.

No, not Matt Prior the mentor and very good friend of Kevin Pietersen:





I'm talking Matt Prior the Autocar writer:

He is basically talking here about how it is important that car reviewers don't get freebies or payments or little extra jobs from car manufacturers.  It looks like a dig at other car magazines - he specifically points to "one US car magazine is actually presenting a TV car advert" - I'm guessing he is talking about Car+Driver who do sometimes feature car ads - but only to comment on the ad or show a particularly good one but I've never seen one and thought that they were endorsing the car in question.

I got the feeing that Mr.P is trying to say how wonderful Autocar is compared with the competition.  Understandable given that he works for them.  I hope it isn't an indication that the magazine is struggling though.  If they are, I am not exactly helping because I only read their articles online.  The only Car mag I purchase is Top Gear and I don't pay full price for that thanks to my Tesco Clubcard points.

I then looked back at some other Matt Prior articles.  Back in February, he was saying "why the Autocar road test is so important."  He is extolling the wonderfulness of his magazine for finding a potentially fatal braking problem with the Suzuki Celerio they were testing.  It caused the car to be taken off sale while it was sorted out.

At this point I should point out that Celerio is a stupid name for a car.  It sounds too much like celery or celeriac - which I believe is related to the turnip.

The other Prior article which caught my eye was this one.  Probably because of the picture they chose to illustrate it:

 

Ironically enough,  it is a short article about the use of glamourous women at The Geneva Motor Show (and all other motor shows) that Matty P had recently attended.  He plays the feminist card - and gets a lively little debate going in his comments section.

At this point, I decided to see if I could find any suitably sexist material in Autocar.  I can't speak for the physical magazine (because I haven't bought one in many years) but online they look very clean.  Best I could find was from 1973:

 

So then I decided to look up the 2015 Geneva Motor Show in Google Images - and I found hardly any glamourous females adorning the cars.  The few women that did show up there had two things in common:  "Autoevolution" written across the photo; and virtually no way of identifying the car.

I think I'll use this photo when I advertise this posting on my Facebook page.

Autoevolution, incidentally is autoevolution.com, a Bulgarian based car site that I delve into from time to time - they tend to have lots of stories, sometimes interesting, sometimes trashy.  I can guess which way their Geneva 2015 coverage went.

Are they competition for Autocar?

I hope not - but I suspect so.  Let's see if Matt Prior can knock them for six.