The Emperor's new Clothes

Rather depressing news this week.

Autocar have it here.

The Ford Puma, which isn't a real Ford Puma like this one:

...remains top of the UK's top selling cars list.

Like 8 out of the top 10, it is a crossover SUV.  

Obviously being bought in large numbers by people who are not particularly interested in cars or driving.  Only the Corsa and Golf remain in the list representing proper cars.

You can't really blame them, they will be looking for decent value cars that meet their requirements and if the dealerships only have crossovers in the showrooms then people will buy those.  And the dealers only tend to be showing crossovers because manufacturers are concentrating on producing them.  And manufacturers are only producing them because they are selling in big numbers.

And now we're stuck in a depressing spiral.

Interestingly, (slightly) none of the top ten are specifically electric cars - although some are available as electric variants.

Meanwhile, in the Driven section of the latest Top Gear Magazine, where they review new cars to market, 9 out of 12 of the cars reviewed are electric (including an electric Puma) but only 6 are definitely cross-overs (including an electric Puma).  A couple it's difficult to tell...

What about this?

Yes that is a cross-over but is it much taller than this?

I've decided that that one is not a cross-over.

I think cross-overs are getting shorter in height so maybe manufacturers have noticed that, although profitable, they are not very good.

So, based on what's coming - there is a glimmer of hope - but it depends on your idea of what a cross-over actually is.

Underwhelming

What we have here is a van hogging the middle lane being overtaken by another van going about 2mph faster.

I'd have been going at about the speed limit.

The Golf driver was in a hurry.

So who's fault is this dodgy manoeuvre?

Excuse the cheesy music - that's Simon Mayo's fault.

Justin Case

Actually, it's Justin's Court Case.

Penny Mordaunt really annoys me.

She's a rabid Tory but I still fancy her.

Here she is playing an important part at The Coronation:

Although arguably not as important a part as this chap's:

And he has a better frock.

It has been a busy week for The Archbishop of Canterbury.  First he had to crown King Charles III.  Then he had to hear about getting 3 points on his licence and a £510 fine.

He was caught driving his Volkswagen Golf at 25mph in a 20mph zone - which is probably very racy for an archbishop.

I hope this doesn't overshadow The Coronation.

After all the careful preparations, a perpetrator of misdemeanours would not look good in The Abbey.

That's not a Golf

It's a 3-Series BMW.

But it is in the Golf section of the BBC Website.

I'm not an expert on Golf but I would suspect that most top-class golfers would be able to hit a ball a great distance in a straight line.

So Paul O'Neill is doing the hard work in this successful World-Record attempt:

(click on the picture to see the video)

And yet Marcus Armitage gets to be the record holder.

I'm looking forward to seeing Paul in action next weekend for the return of the BTCC where he should be presenting and commentating for ITV Sport again.

Obviously, Paul was wearing a crash helmet for this attempt - I really don't understand why Marcus has one though.

At this point, please insert your own joke using the word "Driver."

What has the VW XL1 Got in Common With the Beastie Boys?

Two things actually.

I dislike both and they both wear a VW badge.

 

My main argument with the XL1 is how ugly it is. But I covered that back in 2012.  It does, however, have something in its favour in that it gets exceptional economy and ultra-low emissions per mile out of its little diesel engine.

Or so Volkswagen claimed anyway.

But can you trust them?

Even the non-motoring press has exploded this week about the VW emissions scandal.  Here's a pretty good, albeit brief, summary from BBC News. Today it was announced, as was suspected all along, that it wasn't just US cars affected.

Their boss, Martin Winterkorn, has Winter-gone.

They could lose their Economy World Record too.  The test car was economical - but it was outputting silly, maybe illegal, amounts of NOx while it was doing it.

Well, to help redress the balance, here's some free advertising for them from me:

After all, they're not really a bad company are they?

I mean, it's not like they were set up by Hitler or anything is it?

G'Day Australia

While my Blog Hits from the US have been steadily increasing, prompting my previous post, the last fortnight (that's two weeks, America) has seen Australia shoot into the lead so I figured I'd better do something for our Antipodean cousins.

So what do I know about Oz motoring?

Holdens, Utes and Bathurst.

So I checked out the Holden Website expecting to see what we would call Vauxhalls.

But it seems to mostly consist of what we would call Chevrolets albeit with a couple of nice mental monsters thrown in as well.

So, next stop on my web-based tour of Australia was the top listing when you type "Australian Car News" into Google - www.caradvice.com.au

This had the usual mix of Toyota and BMW and Porsche news that I've been reading about in the British and American car news sites. I'm not a fan of this global car industry - where has the national individuality gone?

Then I spotted this item in their editorial.

This asks, and attempts an answer, to that age old decision that I'm sure we've all had to make at some time in our lives, choosing the best new car to survive a Zombie Apocalypse.It is a brilliantly written article and they do eventually get around to cars. Apparently, the answer is a Knight XV:but that looks a little thirsty to me and I reckon that once the Zombies have taken over, the fuel infrastructure would be compromised. So you'd be better off with a VW Golf Bluemotion.

Of course, this article assumes that Zombies themselves can't drive - and I'd say that that was an unsafe assumption.




Now, Zombies being dead, would want a car for dead people, so after the Apocalypse, I'd imagine them causing havoc in vehicles like this one below.