Another Reason to Hate the Mustang Mach-e

Not only is it an SUV.

Not only does it prostitute the name of a classic Ford muscle car.

Now you have to pay to use the front boot!

Here's the Car+Driver story.

They want $495 to let you get at it!

That's over £350!

For a Frunk.  Or as we'd call it - a Froot.

Here's the result of the Car+Driver survey on the subject:

They can frunk right off.

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.

Unregistered

After yesterdays rather depressing post, this is another one.

Today is September 7th - the UK new car registrations came out last Monday on September 1st.

That's not the depressing bit.

I still haven't seen one.

That's also not the depressing bit - I haven't always remembered to look out for them so they are probably out there.  But when I have remembered to look this week, I'm seeing lots of 25s and 74s but no 75s.

Maybe everyone who buys a car in September usually buys a Land Rover vehicle.

The depressing bit is that nobody cares any more.

When I was a child, albeit a car-mad child, there was much excitement on August 1st when the new registration letter came out.

Wish I could claim the credit for finding that but it was in this other Blog talking about the same thing.  He does it a lot more eloquently than me and garners quite a few comments from like-minded people.

Now we have a system that you have to be a registration plate nerd to understand - at least for the September registrations.  The March ones are not too bad as nowadays, instead of a letter, the new registrations are the actual year - so people could get excited about that, especially if it was the ONLY new registration in the year.  There hasn't been an exciting September one since 2019 - and even then not everyone got the joke.

And, given that September car sales are always lower than March ones, maybe it is time to go back to once a year only - March 1st.

It might put a Spring back into car sales.

Electric Generation

I am Generation X so I like Ford Capris.

My children are Generation Z so they like Instagram - or, as those of us down with the kids know it, Insta.

There is news this week of electric cars for both groups this week.

Autocar and Auto Express are both reporting the new Ford Capri which is set to be launched in a couple of weeks...

No, that doesn't look much like a Ford Capri to me either.

Meanwhile, Jack from The Fully Charged Show, takes us on a tour of the Hyundai Insta - sorry the Hyundai Inster.

Both of these are cross-over SUVs, or as I prefer to call them, stupid cross-over SUVs.

Just like with the Mustang, Ford will be cashing in on classic car names to flog large numbers of vehicles to people who don't know much about cars.  And they will succeed while seriously turning off the real car fans to the brand.  Just look at he comments under articles about the new Capri.

Here's the only electric Capri that I approve of - I have one in my loft.

Meanwhile, Gen Z are getting a pretty decent car by the look of it - and check out the comments under Jack's piece.

What does this leave for the other generations?

I predict the forthcoming Honda Dailymail for the Boomers and the Mazda Dawsonscreek for the Millennials.

We are supposedly up to Generation Alpha now.

They can have the Tesla Heyduggie.

Slowing down electric cars

This isn't a story about regenerative braking.

I don't seem to quote many Autoguide stories these days - maybe because they don't put out as many as the other sites I like.  But here's one that is quite interesting for its contents AND for it in itself.

It is written by "AutoGuide.com News Staff" rather than by an individual.

And that is probably because "This article was co-written using AI and was then heavily edited and optimized by our editorial team."  Sounds like more effort than usual to create an article and that the longer term plan will be to do away with the editorial team once the AI has learnt to do the job properly.

Maybe I should look into AI for my blog.  And then if someone else could develop an AI to read my Blog, it could save everyone a load of time.

Anyway, the article is titled,

Ford Kills Key EV Program

What!?  Ford are stopping EV production!?

Well they can stop that one for a start - how dare they call that a Mustang!?

No, the key word there is "key".  The Key EV Program was one whereby US Ford dealers were told to invest huge sums of money to be certified, and therefore permitted, to sell EVs.

Somebody has noticed that EV sales have significantly slowed down and, meanwhile, unhappy dealers were starting lawsuits against the program.

Even governments are noticing that plans to outlaw all petrol & diesel only cars by 2040 may be ambitious.  Perhaps the advent of solid state batteries (circa 2028) will help but there are too many uncertainties that need to become certainties in the next 16 years.  

Now, I just need to end this piece in a succinct and amusing way - how do you log into ChatGPT?

Video Nasty

On Tuesday I reported on the imminent demise of The Ford Fiesta.

This has now been confirmed.

And Ford have made an extremely sickly video to try to justify it.

In it, it becomes apparent that the Fiesta is to be replaced (and not in a Liz Truss way) with a quartet of electric SUVs.

"Because it's job was done."

They have a Puma in the Suella Braverman role which seems appropriate.

Never mind, here's a video from the BBC today with a happy ending:

The Party's Over

The Conservative Party?

I wish.

No, this party is a fiesta - the Ford Fiesta is dead.

Or will be soon anyway.

A bit of crappy Ford management-speak states,

"We are accelerating our efforts to go all-in on electrification and therefore review our vehicle portfolio in line with our business strategy. We do not comment on speculation and will share more information in the coming months.”

This is their response to being asked if the Fiesta will be joining its already deceased sibling, the Mondeo.

So they won't deny it then?

Auto-Express have the story here.

Autocar use it as an excuse to repeat one of their slideshows.

The Fiesta is already conspicuously absent from the top-selling cars lists - like this one - which is sadly dominated by cross-over SUVs - like Ford's horrific Kuga and Puma which both get mentions.  

Interesting that the Focus has gone from the top 10 too.

Also interesting though is that in at number one is Vauxhall's Fiesta-rival the Corsa.

I think Ford's Marketing Department have missed the party.

Badge of Honor

I've spelled it the American way because this is a story from over there.

According to Car+Driver, Ford can't sell 40 to 45 thousand of their top-selling F150 pick-ups because they are missing a vital part.

Which vital part?

Is it something to do with the global chip shortage?

Nope.

It seems to be to do with a naughty company called Tribar.

Here's the story as told by the website of Michigan Radio.  Basically, Tribar accidentally released about 10,000 gallons of hexavalent chromium solution into the local water system.

It's not nice stuff and it's not the first time this has happened.

Oops.

Although it is quite useful, for example, in the manufacture of Ford badges.

Tribar are now running at reduced capacity while they are trying to clean up their mess and Ford have a shortage of car badges.

It is probable that the two events are connected - ether that or the lots of little badges have been melted to make one big one for this place:

After all, it is named after the Ford badge.  It's called Blue Oval City.  Hope they've got a nice, clean water supply.

Oaty Crumble

Fox News aren't big on historical figures.  They have a story today that I probably can't link to - (if I can it is here)

But then I'm not happy about linking to a Fascist website anyway even if they do have some good car stories.

So, today they claim that "The Ford Bronco 'Oates' is a motoring mystery."

Ford have included in their latest VIN decoding information a variant of their Bronco called the Bronco Oates and this has confused the stuffing out of Fox News.

The only Oates's that they can come up with are an elderly writer called Joyce Carol Oates and half of Hall & Oates, John Oates:

He's toned down his moustache since his heydey.

And they can't see what either of them have to do with a rugged SUV.

So they have clearly never heard of Captain Lawrence Oates of Antarctic fame:

Maybe Ford plan to drive a Bronco to The South Pole.  But they would be 110 years too late to help Captain Oates.

Given what happened to him though, if that is why they they are using that name, they would be better off calling it The Bronco Amundsen.

Black Logos Matter

Ford US put out a cryptic tweet on Tuesday:

Circle, pawn, square, golf hole, spade, sunglasses, cross

That makes about as much sense as the emojis round in Richard Osman's House of Games.

Turns out that the only significant thing about the emojis is that they were black - like Ade Adepitan in that Osman clip.

The teaser, as Carscoops points out, is for a new "Black" package for the Mustang:

It even has a black logo.

Black packages and variants are nothing new, Mercedes Black Series is supposed to

"represent the performance limit of a model range, where everything possible is drawn out of that model. This creates a new quality standard. Black Series bring together everything that can be achieved in terms of driving technology at a certain point in time and put it on the road."

Ford want us to come up with a name for this new black accent package.

How about "The Car of the Black Horse?"

I'm banking on that winning but can't be sure why that idea popped into my head.

Pet Patent Pending

Ford do like to come up with interesting patents.

A couple of weeks ago, Fox reported on a Ford patent which involved using in-car drones to spy on autonomous hire-cars.  The idea is to hide an inspection drone in the boot or glove compartment that would be deployed between rides to get a look at the vehicle.

I'd be tempted to lock the glove box.

Today, Car+Driver are reporting that Ford will have a "Pet Mode" - this would be similar to the Tesla version I reported on back in January 2020.

The full patent application is here.

It seems to be controlled by the car key fob.  Surely a mobile phone app would be a better option - otherwise, given all the options available, it could end up looking like this:

The fob instructs a selected group of the systems under the control of the car computer to operate in a specified manner so as to create a comfortable environment for a pet within the vehicle.

"For example, in pet mode, the vehicle computer may cause one or more windows to lower, the sunroof to open the trunk lift gate to pivot open, and the seat backs of one or more rows of seats to tilt or fold down."

I wonder if it will check as to whether or not the pet is under that row of seats at the time.

Apparently it can also check whether or not the pet is inside or outside of the vehicle which is presumably quite useful just after the trunk lift gate has pivoted open.

You will have observed that the pet in question - item 106 in figure 5 - is a dog.  I can't think of any other pet that might be left in a car but they couldn't call it "Dog Mode" for two reasons:

1. Tesla have already got that one.
2. People in Britain would expect the car to take them to secluded car parks.

Healing Words

There are a couple of Facebook Pages that I follow for their interesting motoring content.  I can recommend them both.

One is Silodrome.

The other is Hagerty UK. Other nationalities of Hagerty are available.

Both of them had Healey stories this week - although strictly speaking, the Silodrome one was a Healy story.  That spelling just looks wrong.  But then again, so does the car:

The Nissan Micra rear lights don't help but the Mini front lights make it look like a bloated Mini Convertible.

It probably looks quite good in the flesh though.

It is a kit car based on an MX5.  It is from Healy Designs reimagining a modern day Austin-Healey 3000.  I can see where they are coming from and I think they are making a fair fist of it.

The Healey name with an "e" allegedly belongs to a company called HFI Automotive and according to Wikipedia, without any citation, so it could be a load of tripe, in 2007 it was announced that Nanjing Automotive (NAC, who own the Austin name and are currently producing MGs) signed a collaborative agreement with them that aims to recreate the Austin Healey and Healey marques alongside NAC's MG.

The Hagerty story, on the other hand, harks back to how Ford could have but didn't invent the Hot Hatch.

With this car:

It was developed in the late '70s by Healey Automotive Consultants who were owned by the Healey family and went on to be sold to HFI Automotive who may well have signed a collaborative agreement with NAC in 2007 that aims to recreate the Austin Healey and Healey marques alongside NAC's MG.  It was actually Ford of America that was leading on this which is why it is a left-hand drive car and has American plates even though the letters and numbers point at a 1978 UK car.

According to MyCarCheck, that UK plate is now on a 2015 Ford Escort Sport - more tripe because there is no such thing.  I suspect that somebody has spotted the headlights on this exact car and re-registered it wrongly on it returning to the UK in 2015.

God I'm good.

I've just looked it up on the Government MOT-check Website.

Not only does it confirm that we ARE talking out this Healey Fiesta, it also picks up on the one thing that really annoyed me when I first saw the photos of this historic car.

Under "Repair Immediately" it states<

• Offside Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect (4.1.2 (c))

Van Morrison River Dance

We are in middle of Storm Christophe.

Here in the North-West of England we have a lot of water - the BBC report it thusly.

They have a dramatic picture:

That is a Ford Ranger.

Unfortunately it is not a Ford Ranger Splash which I think were only available Stateside.

It is, however, a Ford Ranger splash.

If you have a Ford Ranger then you can confidently make a big splash.  More of a splash than was happening on my commute home this evening - but we still had to make a splash:

Apologies for the lack of sound, I guess I must have accidentally switched off the audio recording.

I was amazed that most of the other vehicle drivers didn't test their brakes after going through that.

They could have got into an accident - like the Morrisons van driver in this other story from BBC News today.

I always think that Morrisons vans look like UK ambulances:

So I tend to refer to them as Morrisons Ambulances.  The driver of the van in the story was taken to hospital although it sounds like it was precautionary rather than necessary.

He "had to be rescued from his overturned van after he careered off the road and ended up in a fast-flowing ford", police said.

The pictures are pretty dramatic so it looks like he was very lucky although how he ended up in there is a bit of a mystery - on the radio it said he was driving through the ford (in his Mercedes) but it was swollen and too deep.  The Web story talks about careering off the road and speculates about sat-navs.

In any case, I like Morrisons because they give me 10% off my shopping because I work for the NHS.

So I'll finish this post now without any of my usual comedic comments or puns despite the list of Van Morrison albums with very relevant titles.

 

Chubby Chasers

I saw what I thought was a Mondeo estate on Friday.

But it had "Focus" written along the back of it.

And modern Astras are bigger than Cavaliers - (and a lot better looking but that's beside the point)

Anyway, Autocar looked at this phenomenon this weekend:

They suggest several reasons including greater crash protection (crumple zones and the like) and the fact that we are getting bigger ourselves (McDonalds and the like)

 

However, I've noticed that when Vauxhall, for example, bring out a new Corsa, they claim it's bigger and better than the Polo or Fiesta so when VW or Ford update their equivalent, they have to make it slightly bigger than the Corsa and an upward spiral ensues.

 

So much so that you don't see Mondeos or Insignias on dealer forecourts any more because they are too big for anyone to want - especially when the Focus and Astra are plenty big enough.

 

This also means that manufacturers have to come up with new names for even smaller cars to slot in at the bottom end of the range.

 

Meanwhile, new-build houses are getting smaller so nothing will fit in a garage any more.

 

To get around this severe problem (the car names not the small garages) we need a pact between Ford, VW and Vauxhall such that every 10 years:

 

The Focus is renamed the Mondeo

The Fiesta is renamed the Focus

The Ka is renamed the Fiesta

 

and similarly with the Up, Polo, Golf, Passat and the Adam, Corsa, Astra, Insignia.

 

It may cause a bit of confusion in identifying a Mark 7 Golf - but at least you'd know what size it was.

Meanwhile, in a Ford Galaxy, Far, Far Away...

Today, Autoguide tell us that "If the Millennium Falcon Was a Car, Here’s What it Would Look Like" - together with this picture: 

No it bloody wouldn't!  That's a Nissan!

 

And, worse than that - it's an SUV!

 

Wouldn't fancy taking that down the local high street, the view out is abysmal:

Also, I'd always assumed the MF was right-hand drive, like the USS Enterprise.  I thought Chewbacca was the driver.

 

Meanwhile, the Minecraft Millennium Falcon looks like an Oreo.

It's probably actually very clever - I'm not sure because I never ventured beyond Lego.  The info is here.

 

Meanwhile, back to Nissan:  What has Star Wars got to do with a Nissan X-Trail (for that is what that car really is) anyway?  Surely they'd be better with a Ford Falcon - especially a late '70s version from when Star Wars was good: 

Ah, well there's the clever bit.  In the US, the X-Trail is called The Rogue - as in Star Wars Rogue One - Geddit?

 

Meanwhile, back to the '70s when Star Wars was good (Phantom Menace put me off for ever) - another Japanese manufacturer produced a special Star Wars themed car, I give you the Toyota Celica GT - Star Wars Special:

Nice.

 

Unlike the Nissan.

 

Last week, on Star Wars day, Car+Driver ran with this story about that car.  Today, nobody knows what happened to it.

 

Unusually for a Japanese car, I suspect it has broken down somewhere:

Puddled

We've all heard of Ford Door Protectors.

Well now you can get AMG Door Projectors.

You can fit them to any car in the current Mercedes range - even the more lowly ones.

What a naff, gaudy, pointless, show-offy piece of kit.

I really like them - I'm going to have to buy a Merc!

Merry Twixtmas

That's not a time for eating Twixes,

It is the time betwixt Christmas and New Year.

So here are a couple of nice videos to enjoy.

The first was what Americans were enjoying in the 1980s  which I can thank Car+Driver for pointing out.


The second is what we were enjoying in the UK at about the same time.  Probably not the first time I've linked to it - but it is one of my all-time favourite car ads thanks to getting Brian May on board.

Models

Sorry, that should read "Model S".

This story from Autocar today makes it look like Ford are being a bit cheeky.

It reports on how Ford are planning to get into the electric car segment using the name "Model E" - including a rival to Tesla's Model S.

In fact, according to that article, Ford blocked Tesla’s attempts to trademark the name "Model E" back in 2013 leading to Tesla then choosing the Model 3 name for its forthcoming entry-level car.

But, then again, Ford could have laid a claim to "Model S" too if they had wanted to - after all, they were using it 109 years ago:

This was a precursor to the more famous Model T - which I reported on in 2014 challenging a Tesla Model S to a race from Detroit to New York.

That article included this picture that I really liked:

And now this article gives me an excuse to publish another picture of a model that I really like.

Rolls Royce Brexit

Last week, I decided that there could have been a Ford Brexit.

Then, the World (or Europe at least) fell apart.  We have reports of an acrimonious split and headline-hitting resignations.

Yes, apparently, Matt LeBlanc will quit Top Gear if Chris Evans isn't sacked.  It was reported by The Sun after speaking to "a source".  Now, The Sun does have quite a bit of form for publishing lies but Evans & LeBlanc do seem to be harder to find at the moment than Boris Johnson & Nigel Farage.  Evans didn't do his scheduled Radio 2 show this morning.

While we're discussing form, Top Gear has form for controversial number plates.

And last night, we saw Evans' Rolls Royce Corniche driving about part of the EU with a Brexit Number Plate:

That's  BRX 522 T  which is near enough.

5 is the number of the Top Gear episode that came straight after the Brexit vote.
2 is the number of Top Gear Presenters that include Evans and LeBlanc.
and 2 is thember of guests that we now have every week on the Top Gear sofa.

Wow.  Spooky Huh?

Would EU Believe It?

I have touched on the EU Referendum before.  It was in March.

And now I'm touching on it again.

Autocar report that Nissan are planning to sue Vote Leave over a Brexit flyer in which they claim that “Major employers have all said they’ll stay in the UK whatever the result of the referendum” which may be true but they use various employers logos alongside this statement implying by association that these employers are pro-Brexit. Nissan are pro-Bremain so don't want to be appearing on these flyers.

I suspect it will be something about use of a trademarked logo that they will get them for.

The FT have the story too.  I love the way that their website is pink to match their newspaper.  They state...
"Some of the country’s largest manufacturers — Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota, BMW and Vauxhall — on Monday issued a renewed pledge to protect jobs and investment by voting to remain.

Other major manufacturers such as Nissan and Ford have already said they would prefer the UK to remain part of the EU, although none of the companies have said they will close UK plants in the event of a Brexit."

So Nissan haven't actually said they will stay open, they just haven't said they'd close.  Toyota & Vauxhall logos also appear on the leaflet - I guess they won't be too happy either.

I could imagine a small 1970s saloon being called the Ford Brexit.  But that's just how my mind works.

Meanwhile, Jeremy has backed his up Remain views (look back to my March article) with an amusing video featuring James May.