400 and Out.

Is it really over?

Dennis Collins' Coffee Walk has been something I've loved for years.

A new episode has come out on YouTube every Friday for presumably 400 weeks.

Now he has stated it is over.  He did use the word "Break" - does that mean it may be back?  Or he's just having a holiday?

One commenter was hoping that it was just an April Fool's Prank - I suspect that commenter is not very good at using calendars.  Let's hope Dennis isn't either.

Does this mean that Zach Oncamera will be getting his P45?  His real surname may be Gorgas - I'm not 100% sure.

The final episode involved the purchase of a "Holy Grail" 1965 Ford Mustang "K" Car - which is the one with the biggest engine that Shelby used as a base for his ones.  I've learnt that plus a fair bit about Jeeps and VIN tags by watching Coffee Walk over the years.

He bought it from a Trump fan who had kept it in very good condition - I wonder if he thinks the show is called Covfefe Walk? 

Coffee Walk has always been my signal that the working week is over - it means I can relax and I usually enjoy it with a can of lager or two.  I guess I'll be going back to Gardener's World now - I'll be learning about Hydrangeas and the like.  Wonder how Monty Don and the Cockney bloke who is a good gardener but shouldn't be because he is a Cockney bloke have been getting on?

Oh well, if it really is over, then thank you Dennis and gang for entertaining me.  I'll miss you all.

Catch the 400th (final?) episode here.

The case for the defence.

I may have mentioned once or twice that I can't be doing with SUVs.

And people who like cars and driving tend to agree with me.

So what is Steve Walker, Head of Digital Content, at Auto Express, doing defending the stupid things?

Is he a website geek rather than a car geek?

His bio states that he has "been a motoring journalist, road tester and editor for over 20 years" so maybe not.

He gives several reasons why SUVs are extremely popular with the buying public, specifically:

• tough looks
• higher seating position that makes it easier to get in and see out
• outdoorsy image

His words not mine.

I get the easy access angle for those of an arthritic nature.

But I certainly wouldn't call a Ford Puma "tough-looking."

In fact, don't get me started on Ford prostituting their former glories by naming SUVs after them:

• Puma
• Capri
• Mustang
• Kuga/Cougar

Back to Steve though, and for all his words, at no point does he say that HE likes SUVs.

Despite this, his article does have a pro-SUV feeling and imply a preference for them so I expected a backlash in the comments.

It is now 7pm British Summer Time and there are only 10 comments.

Three of them are from either a Chinese bot or a Chinese moron using AI.  There is a comment about the Ford Fiesta and a reply stating that they don't make them any more and the final 5 comments are a pointless argument that doesn't really go anywhere.

Meanwhile, I think SUVs don't handle properly and they all look  alike:

So there.

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.

George Michael Impersonator

Two different BBC car stories caught my eye today.

Ford have launched a car that can be driven hands-free on British motorways.

WHY!?

OK, so I suppose you  have to start somewhere - but not with this.

Apparently, you have to keep your eyes on the road ahead and "the driver is not permitted to use their mobile, fall asleep or conduct any activity that takes attention away from the road."

So what is the point?

Plus, this is a Ford Mustang Mach e that has a maximum speed of 80mph.

DON'T CALL SOMETHING THAT CAN ONLY DO 80MPH A MUSTANG!

I hate the way Ford are reusing classic car names on horrible SUVs - I'm looking at you, Ford Puma.

I don't normally like the comments under BBC stories - the ones I usually read tend to be full of angry Gammons still trying to defend Brexit.  But this one is lots of angry Gammons and angry non-gammons coming up with more and more reasons why this won't work in Britain.  Smart Motorways being a good one - this car is supposed to safely grind to a halt if the driver loses interest in the road ahead - you will have cars stopping all over the place on warm, Summer afternoons.

And will Police have to check whether or not it is the right age of Mustang when they see a driver doing jazz-hands while travelling at 70mph down the M6? And that his hands-free subscription is up to date?

Yes, you need to subscribe to this hands-free driving lark as well!

So why have I called this post, "George Michael Impersonator?"

Ah, well that's because of my second BBC story which combines my love of cars with my love of Swansea City Football Club.  Danny Graham made 54 appearances for us. This includes when we were in the Premier League, so I don't know why we are only a sub-note in the story of him crashing an expensive Jaguar-Land-Rover vehicle into a Co-op in County Durham:

Whilst over the limit.

I wonder if his hands were on the wheel at the time?

I Don't Like Pumas

Actually I DO like pumas.

I just don't like Ford Pumas.

Actually I DO like Ford Pumas.

It's just the new ones I don't like:

I also don't like Vauxhall Mokkas and Ford Ecosports and all the other jacked-up cars that sell in their millions to people who don't know about cars or, more importantly, about driving.

 

And the new Puma is an insult to the old one: 

That was a Fiesta-based affordable-ish, sporty-ish car that appealed to those who wanted a bit of fun and didn't have a few kids to ferry about.

 

A bit like The Mustang in America.

 

Or its equivalent over here, the Ford Capri:

Which is why this Autocar story perturbs me.

 

Amko Leenarts, boss of the Ford European Design Centre is quoted as saying, “Who would not want to bring back the Capri as a design?  We’d love it. But it’s got to be in the zeitgeist and has to fit, and work as a plural, not just exist as something for a designer to bring back an old car.”

 

Work as a plural!?

 

Does that mean they want to make more than one of them?

 

Ford tried a couple of times to revive "the zeitgeist" of The Capri, first with the very attractive Probe...

...which is not a phrase you want to be overheard repeating.

 

then with The Puma's bigger brother, The Cougar:

But given what they did to the Puma, Autocar's X6-shaped grotesque guess could be worryingly close to the truth:



It's enough to make you very angry:

Heartwarming or Heartbreaking?

This 1993 Ford Mustang has been sold twice...

…to pay for cancer treatments.

Rupert Murdoch's Fox News see it as a heart-warming story of how Wesley Ryan's children bought back the much-loved car that he was forced to sell to finance his wife's cancer treatment.

Fox News, the pro-Trump, anti-Obamacare propaganda outlet - I can't call them a News Network because that would imply serious journalism.

The story originally came from mySA, a San Antonio based news site.

And it is a nice story.

Apart from the cancer.

And the being forced to sell off expensive items when faced with cancer.

And the fact that they have bought the car off someone where "the seller was letting it go because her own mother had contracted ovarian cancer and they needed the money for treatment."

Thank God for the NHS.

Gone in 20 Years

Rather a sad story on BBC News today about the probable theft of a, judging by the number plate - 1978, Ford Mustang.

Unusual too in that it could have gone at any time in the last 20 years.

The owner was too ill to visit the car which was stored in a garage some way from his home - and only when he passed away did his family realise that it was no longer in there.


An American car like this would certainly have stood out in Welwyn Garden City so Police are hoping that someone would remember it being moved.

Now I know Starsky & Hutch used a Torino, twin headlamps and all that, but that Mustang would be an ideal base for a S&H Tribute car.

So I asked Google for pictures of UK S&H lookalikes.

Nothing doing Mustang-wise but I did spot this:

 

About the same age probably.

And if that got stolen, the story would be about someone losing his Cherry.

Some Say... ...He Assaulted Goodwood’s Hill with a Mustang Shelby GT350R

I'm starting to feel a bit sorry for Ben Collins now.

He can't do anything without being referred to as "the former Stig from Top Gear."

This story from Car+Driver has him driving a Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R up the Goodwood Hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed which is on this weekend.  I look forward to the highlights show on ITV4.

Maybe one year I'll make the effort to get down there.  This year I made the effort to check out their Website.  I then got distracted by this story on it.  I love old Volvos - especially the ones I saw at Oulton Park competing in the British Touring Car Championships in the '90s.  So much so that I have a signed print (signed by driver Tim Harvey and also by the artist) of a drawing of them in action at Brands Hatch in my hall.

The picture is in my hall, Brands Hatch isn't.

Anyway, this is why I was drawn to that story:

It's a Volvo 240T Touring Car!  That I'd never heard of. But that is because it competed in the European Touring Car Championships in the '80s.

At this point I got distracted by the thought that I wish they were still competing - after all, back in 2012, I found this story about a new Volvo Touring Car.

So, a quick bit of  Internet research led me to the Scandinavian Touring Car Championships where Volvos have been very successful of late and they seem to have more manufacturers taking part too - including the likes of Dacia.

Now, the first Formula e race of the weekend has just started so I'll go and watch that.

Some say I get easily distracted...  ... ooh look, a duck.

I'm Not a Fan of Supermodels

I suppose I'm jealous of people who earn obscene amounts of money just because of how they look.

And they walk funny.

But I do admire Jodie Kidd.

She is more than a body.  She is an accomplished equestrian, a racer and she is intelligent.

And she is co-presenting The Classic Car Show on Channel 5.  (Although I caught episode 1 on Channel 5+24 - which shows Channel 5 a day late but rather than show yesterday's news and weather, they replace it with adverts for cruises)

Her co-presenter is Quentin Willson - the only smarmy person on TV I like since JR has died.

The show has a decent website.  It seems to be sponsored by a posh second-hand watch shop and Jaguar Heritage which could be a  bit worrying for product placement reasons but there was no actual evidence of it happening.

So what do I think of the show so far?

The opening titles were very cheesey but that's OK - there was much looking at watches to make sure they got to the studio on time - watches presumably from a posh second-hand watch shop.

The conversations seemed a bit stilted but time will heal that.  The first piece was Quentin enthusing about the Ford Mustang but they followed that with a story about taking a 1950s Mercedes 300SL Gullwing and it's modern equivalent to London Fashion Week to see which was best according to fashionable people like Tiny Tempah and Graham Norton.  Not very interesting.  But then they recovered well with a piece on the Triumph TR7 - brilliant!

The rest of the show was pretty good too - especially a 1950s Studebaker overgrown in a field in the UK somewhere (they wouldn't tell us where) - I shall be watching again next week.

Although the super models I will be liking will be of the Ferrari/Aston Martin/Lambo etc. variety.

And Jodie Kidd.

And perhaps Helena Christensen.

Don't Cry For Jeremy Argentina

I thought that the hoo-ha about the Top Gear Argentina Special would have blown over by now.

But watching Have I Got A Bit More News For You? last night convinced me otherwise.

For those who have been out of circulation for the last couple of weeks, the Top Gear presenters and crew has to abandon their trip through Argentina due to an unfortunate number plate on a Porsche driven by Jeremy.  Most news outlets reported it - here's the Telegraph's take on it.  The offending number plate was H982 FKL.

Some say that was a deliberate reference to The Falklands Conflict.  Top Gear say that it was a coincidence.  Others say that H982 refers to the year of the conflict (although it actually 1982) while obviously the FKL is from FalKLands which the Argentinians like to call Las Malvinas.

I can see some concern there.

Although a local councillor there lost some credibility when he said that the digits 269 on the number plate of the Ford Mustang Richard Hammond was driving were close to the 255 Britons killed during the 1982 war and that the numbers 646 on James May's Lotus could be taken as a reference to the 649 Argentinian casualties.

No they couldn't.

Top Gear are insisting that this was an unfortunate coincidence and that nobody realised the significance of H982 FKL until it was pointed out to them and then lots of war veterans (aged in their twenties according to Jeremy) started throwing stones at them.

There is no doubt that that Porsche has had that number plate for at least 10 years - this means that they didn't deliberately change it.  However, they could have deliberately bought that car due to its number plate.

They deny that they did this.

They also point out that when the significance of H982 FKL was pointed out, they changed the plates on the car.

This is true, there are photos of the car carrying H1 VAE.

That plate apparently belongs to a Porsche 911.  Maybe the original owner (maybe with initials VAE - perhaps ex-Brookside actor Vince Earl?) traded in the Top Gear Porsche for his 911 taking his personal number with him and left the old physical plates in the car when it got re-registered.

Sounds a reasonable scenario - it would explain why there was a spare set of plates in the car.

So the story can die away now?

Wrong.

Clarkson writes for The Sun so the other papers want to keep twisting the knife.

This weekend, The Independent had an interview with the Argentinian ambassador to the UK, Alicia Castro.  She accuses Jeremy of portraying Argentinians as savages.  I only really mention it because I like her quote, "We eat a lot of beef, but we have never eaten a journalist."

However, news has now emerged of another set of plates with the car.  This is what they were talking about last night on HIGNFY.

These were almost certainly meant for Jeremy as a joke to be used at some point in the show.

 

Being pedantic, I hate mixing upper and lower case letters in words - I find it particularly iRriTatINg.  But "BE11 END" is clearly meant to be "Bell-End" - a penile insult probably lost on most non-Brits.

 

So why would they expect to need a new set of plates?  Without seeing a script it does look a bit dodgy.

 

The Star took it a bit far though, claiming Jeremy could end up in prison.  Apparently, "The DVLA has said it is an offence to drive a car in the UK or abroad with a plate which is different to the one assigned to the vehicle."

 

Well, I doubt if the DVLA have any authority in Argentina and there is no evidence of it being driven with the wrong plates over here.

 

Besides, The Star's main story today is a complete hoax that they have fallen for about a giant crab.

 

So maybe not a very reliable source of news?

Spoiler Alert

Not that type of spoiler.

 

No, the more modern type whereby we get to find out what's happening in Coronation Street this month before it airs next month.

 

Or, in the case of this story from Autoguide yesterday, the new AMG GT is seen before its launch on September 9th  (aka Tuesday).  Mercedes were keen to get their car into the Driveclub Computer Game and footage of the car in the game has now leaked out onto the Web.

Meanwhile, over in The Middle East, as told in this Telegraph story, we have to presume that Aston Martin would not have been too chuffed with Oman Air deciding to publicise the fact that they were transporting the new Aston Martin Lagonda with undisguised pictures.

 

The car was being shipped out for warm-weather testing - it has not had its official debut and first deliveries aren't due until next year. 

Meanwhile, over in the USA, as told in this Car&Driver story, what is believed to be engine & brake information for the forthcoming 2016 Mustang GT350 has been accidentally included in Ford's own parts website.  Oops.

So, has the motoring industry become more leaky?

 Or maybe this was just an excuse to put in a picture of Alex Kingston...

Gone in 30 Seconds

500 reservations for the 2015 Mustang that is.

Car and Driver cover this story here.

I like their wording - obviously done from an American point of view:

"If there’s one thing Europeans like, it’s soccer. Or ‘football,’ if you want to be particular about it. If there are two things Europeans like, they’re soccerball and Ford Mustangs, baby."

Yes, we do need to be particular about it - the USA is the only country in The World which doesn't call football "football" - they reserve that word for something that has more in common with rugby.

But that is besides the point.

I am European.

I am also Welsh and British but I am happy with the European tag too - none of that UKIP piffle for me.

And, as a European, two of my favourite things (note the spelling of "favourite") are football and cars - or is that just because I'm a bloke?  And when I say cars, I'm not specific about the 2015 Mustang - although it is rather attractive:

Anyway, C&D continues...

"Ford leveraged its 'official vehicle supplier' position with the UEFA Champions League to promote the 2015 Mustang, including letting 500 fans preorder a car during the UEFA Champions League final. Those cars were reserved very quickly."

Within 30 seconds, in fact.

The orders were placed by Europeans from 20 different countries, presumably including the UK, where, for the first time ever, the Mustang will be available in right-hand-drive - good news.

I bet those 500 reservations weren't from people interested in the football that evening though - despite it being an enthralling game which I watched whilst not reserving a Mustang.

I didn't notice any of the players with mobile phones either so they wouldn't have been among the 500.

The FIFA World Cup starts in a week or so.

Official Partners are Kia/Hyundai.  The Kia site looks better.  This also explains a recent series I've been watching on the Dave channel whereby two of my favourite (note the spelling again) comedians (Henning Wehn & Mark Watson) have been travelling (two "L"s) around South America on their way to Brazil in a Kia.

Stangely enough, they have not been travelling around in a Kia Rio though.

 

So, I wonder if, during the World Cup Final, we will get the chance to reserve a 2015 Kia Cee'd.

Wilmslow Motor Show Sponsored by Etihad

I used to live in Cheshire.

Until they moved it.

Cheshire is one of Jeremy Clarkson's least-favourite counties - mainly because that is where a lot of Premiership footballers and their WAGs live.

Wilmslow is a town in Cheshire that is popular with such people.

Today I took my WAG and children along there for the second ever Wilmslow Motor Show Sponsored by Etihad.  They have their own Website.

Being Wilmslow, it had to be posh cars.  There were lots of Aston Martins - mostly new ones - but also this lovely example of a DB5:

There were three examples of the BAC Mono there - not a name that would go down well in America.  These cars look a lot better in real life:

There were a series of cars with their bonnets open.  From the tiny bonnet on this MG SV: 

To the huge bonnet on this Mustang: 

To the gigantic bonnet on this (admittedly rear-engined) Ford GT: 

Dave Newsham's BTCC Toyota Avensis was there: 

 Actually, that isn't true.

Despite this photographic evidence to the contrary.

This is actually Ollie Jackson's car with Dave Newsham's name and number on it.  I spoke to a member of the Speedworks crew who was there with the car.  He told me that the team were still working on the Newsham car after the damage it sustained a fortnight ago in Knockhill.

The Police (The Constabulary, not Sting and his mates) were also there letting children sit in one of their cars.  They also had a wrecked Renault Megane in which a 21 Year-old lad had died.  A woman was there handing out leaflets and telling us the story of what happened.  It was night, he was not speeding, he was very slightly over the drink-drive limit, weather conditions were fair, he lost control going around a bend and hit a tree.  A Doctor travelling in a car in front saw the headlights disappear and went back to see what had happened - he declared him dead at the scene which is why the car wasn't cut open.  The lad's parents donated the car to the Police and it was now being used to highlight how driving inexperience can lead to serious accidents.  It was about this point when the woman revealed that we were looking at her son's car.

Wow.

Sort of makes you think after looking at Lambo's, AMGs, Loti, Nobles, TVRs, Bentleys and the like.

Holiday Photos

I've been on my holidays!

 

Did anyone notice that I hadn't posted anything for over two weeks?

 

Why not?

 

Anyway, I went to Gran Canaria.

 

Whilst there I read two books and the September issue of Top Gear Magazine.

 

The two books were "Me Of Little Faith" by Lewis Black which had nothing to do with cars whatsoever and "Back Story" by David Mitchell (the comedy actor/writer not the author).  This had almost nothing to do with cars apart from the revelation that when he tried to learn to drive at the age of 17, his instructor stopped the car and told the young Mitchell how he had seen an alien spacecraft land.

 

David Mitchell never went on to get a licence.

 

I've been meaning to mention Top Gear Magazine for a while now - they "refreshed" it again a couple of months ago.

 

This is a term used by marketing people and Tesco Store managers for moving stuff around.

 

In Tescos this means you can't find anything so I stop going there. The Top Gear Magazine refresh wasn't too bad and they've introduced a couple of new features like "Ask Uncle TopGear" and "James May's Almanac" that are quite amusing.

 

Now for the photos I took while I was there:

A fine example of an elderly Fiat 500 - the original one.  You can really see just how small it is when parked in a car park amongst ordinary vehicles. 

Talking of small, here is a Renault Twizy.  I saw one here in Britain once but it was covered in the car-dealer's logos and travelling in the opposite direction to me so it was a fleeting glimpse.  I actually got to take a peek inside this one.  When I posted on this car a while back I implied that I didn't like it.  Now, having seen one close up, I still think it's horrible. 

Talking of horrible, that is a word I would never use to describe this Volkswagen Kharmann Ghia. 

I might use it to describe the Dacia Logan (or budget brand Renault - I think it's based on an earlier shape Clio but don't hold me to that).  This car is probably quite common-place if you are in Southern or Eastern Europe but they don't sell them here so I took a photo of it. 

Talking of "they don't sell them here so I took a photo of it" - here's a Mark 2 (I think) Ford Mustang.

 

 

...and the weather was nice and I got a bit of a tan.

Classic Car Rescue

Since Channel 5 lost Fifth Gear to Discovery UK, they have obviously needed something else to fill that gap and they have come up with Classic Car Rescue.

It's on a Monday evening at 8pm (9pm Channel 5+1 Time) We are now half-way through the series.

In this Blog, I will review the show in the style of…the show. You will read me giving my opinions of the bust-ups and the work that goes on in restoring some classic motors from the past, turning them from barely scrap value to (literally) prize condition. I will comment about how Cockney mechanic Bernie Fineman has teamed up with Canadian Car Salesman Mario Pacione (no, I hadn’t a clue about him either) to buy and restore classic cars such as the E-Type Jag and an MGB GT. I’ll also tell you about their very contrived arguments and apparently catastrophic set-backs.

I was fully aware of Bernie Fineman from his previous work on Bangla Bangers and Chop Shop, London Garage – a couple of Channel 4 series where he was teamed up with a Bangladeshi designer so that they could have very fake arguments and produce some impressive-looking motors. I had never heard of Mario Pacione and wouldn’t be surprised if Bernie hadn’t either before he was teamed up with him to make this series.

This series is definitely more of the same except the arguments seem even more fake.

Each episode starts with them deciding what make of classic car to restore – so far we’ve had an E-Type, a Porsche 911 and an MGB and next week, it’s a Mustang. Once the car has been decided upon, Bernie will go out and about and try to find one. First, he will succeed in finding one that is a complete mess that the seller wants far too much money for. Bernie will then succeed in finding another one that is also a mess. He will then buy that one at a price that either he or Mario is not happy with. We will then be told how much it will cost to restore the car and that, to keep down costs, Bernie’s team of mechanics will be given a very, very short time period in which to do it.

Both partners will go out and source some spare or replacement parts from some local Cockney and/or Asian characters. Would it be wrong to call this ethnic group Cockasians?

Then it’s time for a near disaster followed by one of the partners (usually Mario) doing something really stupid and the other partner shouting at him, then storming off.

Next we get the good bit of the show – a look at the actual restoration work interspersed with a few interesting facts and figures about the history and manufacture of the featured car.

Now it’s time for a break – this Blog is sponsored by Adrian Flux Insurance – at least I wish it was – I could do with the cash. After the break, I’ll tell you about the door-slamming and how a posh bloke will value the car at more than was spent on it. There’s also a chance to win a copy of the finished Blog.Adrian Flux – for all your insurance needs – I’d like them to sponsor my Blog now please.

In the first part of this Blog, we learned that Cockney mechanic Bernie Fineman has teamed up with Canadian Car Salesman Mario Pacione to buy and restore classic cars. We know Bernie buys a classic car in need of much work and gives his team a very short timescale to complete it. Some parts will have been purchased and Bernie will then have had a contrived argument with Mario and one of them will have stormed off, slamming a door very loudly behind him.

We then see the conclusion of the restoration including the paint-job and the electrics. This is very reminiscent of American Hot-Rod and the whole series does have a strong American Hot-Rod vibe. Which is good. Mostly.

Each episode ends with a professional car valuer turning up in his BMW 850 and telling them what he believes the restored car to be worth. It’s been a respectable profit each time so far. The production company then presumably buy the car and give it away to the winner of an expensive-to-enter competition.

So, it’s a case of enjoyable car bits, and very irritating fake bits – like American Hot-Rod. Now, if you would like to win* a copy of this Blog, just answer this easy question and transfer £1.50 into my bank account:

What is Bernie Fineman’s surname?
A: FINEMAN
B: JONES
C: £1.50

*Terms and conditions apply – the main one being that this isn’t a real competition.