Pride and Prejudice

Here's a short piece of footage that I filmed at Paris Pride last month:

It was a brilliant atmosphere.

So, if someone told me that there was a car show especially aimed at gay people, I would be interested in going along.

Oh look!

And, of course, they've held it at Gaydon.

Autocar have the details here.  It was called Petrol & Pride.

I particularly like the fact that they had awards for "the gayest car" and the "the butchest car"

The comments section at the bottom of the story was both disappointing and heartening.  The few who chose to disparage the event, or even the existence of the story, were quickly shown up by responses from people with brains.

And no, I'm not LGBQT+

Not that I would feel insulted if someone thought I was.

I'm not even MGBGT

Antiseptic Cars

That phrase would, to me, imply boring cars.

Put that phrase into Google and it asks you if you meant "antiseptic cats".

Google Images just gives various pictures of antiseptic products - mostly with pictures of the Disney Pixar Cars characters on them.

However, this concept car, which offers "surfaces that hands will touch the most often are made of antiseptic material" looks far from boring:

It's not often that you see a futuristic concept car with Polish number plates.

But then again, this is from a Polish company.

It is an electric car with a range-extender engine.  The Autoguide article that pointed me in the direction of it claims that they intend to actually build it in limited numbers.

Which implies that it doesn't exist as of yet.  They say "A full-size prototype will debut at a major international auto show in the future and the sedan is slated to enter production after 2018."

I hope it does - I do like it, even if it doesn't have a front passenger seat - instead it has a mobile office/spa thing going on:

 

Those antiseptic surfaces look like veneer to me - they'll need antiseptic furniture polish.  If that comes with the car, it'll be Polish polish.

Bristol's Perked Up

This a follow-up to my 2011 article - Bristol's Gone Tits Up.

Basically, The Bristol Car Company is back from near-death and even has a new model.

Autocar have some photos ahead of next week's official launch of the Bristol Bullet.

I have to say I'm not that keen on its looks - like in my 2011 article, I think they seem to look too much like other generic cars from the past - in this case Austin-Healey.

The rear view is much better - I do like those fins.

 

Although 1960s Volvo anyone?

Anyway, I'm not sure next week will be the first official launch - look at the Bristol Bullet shown at the 2009 Classic Motor Show at the NEC:

 

So the design goes back to before the recent troubles.

But that doesn't matter.  As long as enough pipe-smokers are attracted to it, Bristol should be fine.

All ship-shape & Bristol Fashion.

Viral News

Mike Brewer's been getting a bit of stick today.  But only from a couple of people who you would never invite to your party.  It involves this picture which he posted on Facebook with a comment about how Curt should have asked for a replacement jacket.

Many hundreds of his fans reassured Mike and posted suitable comments against those with a sense-of-humor by-pass.  I deliberately spelled it like that because it seemed to be Americans who didn't get the joke.

I say "seemed" because it was actually two English blokes who put the main comments up there.  They claimed children could be upset at the joke.  Well children under 13 shouldn't be on Facebook and children 13 and over would have found it funny.

So there.

I guess it must have had an effect though because today he said, "What a day! trolled because of a guys name badge, abused cause I post too many times! and angered people who didn't get an answer in a clearly posted 10 minute Q&A which went on for 12 minutes with over 50 questions answered...please..if you don't like this page/me or what I do..please unfollow me.."

He does post a lot.  But that's fine by me.

Anyway, the fans reassured him some more.

Don't know if there was enough activity to call it viral though.

So here's some really viral news:

Tata to rename Zica car over virus woes

It is the headline to this BBC story. Tata are having to rename their new car being launched at the Auto Expo in New Delhi because its name sounds like the virus affecting The Americas at the moment.

 Meanwhile, it looks like an MG.

This is perhaps more horrifying news, MG are going to be selling an SUV!  Here's the MG section of carnewschina.com where the story can be found.

It will be called the MG GS Rui Teng or maybe something different if it comes to British shores.  Which I hope it doesn't.  I've got nothing against the car per se.

Except IT'S AN MG SUV!


The name Zica, meanwhile, is meant to be short for "Zippy Car" so how about they rename it "Highly Intense Vehicle"?

Or HIV for short.

Here’s What the Future of Acura Sedans Will Look Like.

What?  A Mazda parked somewhere dark?

I hate these teaser pictures.  Unhelpful and designed to get people talking about products they don't normally bother about.

Like I am now.

This is the Autoguide story I took the Post Title from.

This is better from Car+Driver.

The car is a Concept for the Detroit Auto-Show next month and it is called "The Precision Concept".  Since Acura is the Honda for posh-people, I'm getting a whiff of pretension here.

“The Acura Precision Concept will signal the stronger and sharper focus of Acura styling on our core DNA we call ‘precision crafted performance’,” said Dave Marek, global creative director for the Acura brand. “It is our intention to more strongly express performance through design and the Acura Precision Concept will serve as the inspiration for the styling and proportion of the next-generation of Acura vehicles, especially for our sedans.”

I'd call it  "The Acura Pretension Concept".

Precisely.

Beer Wagon

It is SEMA Time!

 

What is SEMA?  Well, SEMA stands for "Speciality Equipment Market Association" and every year they hold a big motor show with lots of pimped up cars, vans and other vehicles.  I first heard of it through watching American Hot-Rod with Boyd Coddington regularly unveiling his creations there.

 

The big manufacturers are also interested with contributions this year from Honda, Mazda and Toyota to name but three and some nicely tricked out vans from Mercedes that I particularly liked.

 

The SEMA 2014 Website is pretty good but does point out something I hadn't realised before - this is a TRADE ONLY event, mere members of the public can't go along!  I don't think writing a semi-serious car blog would class me as being part of the trade - shame.

 

Obviously, the American car press is full of SEMA at the moment but also the Brits and Aussies are also seeming quite enthusiastic.  That was acouple of links to cars that stood out to those journos.  Here's the one I like:

It started out as a standard, boring Kia Sedona but has been converted into a mobile bar selling Ballast Point products.  Ballast Point are a brewery/distillery formed during the last Century (1996 to be precise).  Autoguide have the story of this beer wagon here.

 

I like it because it combines two of my favourite things - beer and cars.

 

I had a look on Google Images to see if anything combined three of my favourite things - beer, cars and football. Plenty of interesting images did come up but none that met my remit - so here is a picture of Loic Remy: 

- a footballer found guilty earlier this year of drink-driving.

Who's The Boss?

That was quite a good series in its day - especially the character Mona played by Katherine Helmond.  And isn't Judith Light scary now as the old biddie in Dallas?  This was much better than the British version, The Upper Hand.  There seems to be new version of this now called Melissa & Joey.

 

But that's besides the point.

 

A lot of Ferrari employees may now be asking the question, Who's the boss?

 

This follows on from today's news (in Autocar for example) that Ferrari are being split off from the parent Fiat-Chrysler organisation - or FCA as it's known by its friends.  Ferrari will be a stand-alone company.

 

It feels like only 23 days ago that I was reporting on the changes at Ferrari with FCA boss Sergio Marchionne taking Ferrari over from Luca di Montezemolo.

Today, FCA currently owns 90 per cent of Ferrari, while the other 10 per cent is owned by the son of Enzo Ferrari.  Apparently,10% of FCA's interest in Ferrari will be offered to public investors. The remainder will be distributed among FCA shareholders.

 

So FCA shareholders will own 81% of Ferrari and more if they buy some of the publicly offered shares.

 

So will they be happy for Sergio to continue in charge?

 

Interesting times.

 

Meanwhile Fiat are getting involved with interesting cars:

This is from this caradvice.com.au story.  It's a much more interesting story.  Possibly because it doesn't talk about shareholdings.  But probably because it discusses a concept premiered at the Sao Paulo motor show in Brazil.  It's a coupe SUV which I shouldn't like given how much I hate the looks of the BMW X6.

 

But this one, the FCC4, is longer than an X6 and not as tall - and looks really cool.  Will the Brazilians go nuts for it?  I don't see why not.

 

But if they don't, blame the boss.  Whoever that is.

Car Body Language

It's all change at Ferrari.

Alonso is out and Vettel is in.

But, more significantly, di Montezemolo is out and Marchionne is in.

Both these changes seem to be F1 related.

Well, obviously the first one is!  It is covered in this week's news from many sources including The BBC who also covered the news last month about Sergio Marchionne taking over the chairman's chair from Luca di Montezemolo.  As can be seen in that article, there is speculation that Luca's departure is him being pushed out due to disagreements with Marchionne.  These will be partly down to the very poor recent performance of the Ferrari F1 team.  I don't see swapping Alonso for Vettel altering things there - the problem is the car not the driver - I reckon Alonso is the better of the two albeit not by a lot.

Anyway, as boss of Fiat-Chrysler, the parent company of Ferrari, Marchionne has the power to take over and that is what is happening - on October 13th to be precise.

Which leaves things a little awkward for them at the Paris Motor Show this week.  Paris saw the last ever Ferrari press conference for Luca with Sergio there to "support" him.  Andrew Frankel of Autocar covered it in two articles first factually, then artistically.

The first article reports the usual corporate press-conferencey stuff - the future direction of the company etc. and does have the little dig where Marchionne claimed his most important priority was to return Scuderia Ferrari to the top of Formula 1, a goal he described as a "non-negotiable objective."

The second article looks at how the two men appeared at the press-conference:

The outgoing boss is enthusiastic and open while his successor looks bored off his trolley and decidely uncomfortable.

 

It makes an interesting read.

 

And I know who will be the happier man on October 13th.

The Fifth McGann

Everyone knows the four famous McGanns.

Paul, Stephen, Mark and Renault.

Paul is being particularly famous this week seeing as how he is the 8th Doctor Who.

But as well as an eighth Doctor, we have a fifth McGann:

Porsche McGann (although the spelling has been changed for artistic reasons to "Macan")

 

Drive.com.au tell us that the new Porsche Macan, as debuted at the LA and Tokyo Motor Shows is going to be the smallest Porshe SUV ever available.  Porsche have got Maria Sharapova to model it for them.

 

I like Maria Sharapova.

 

I don't like tennis but I still like Maria Sharapova although I'm not convinced  by this photo of her. 

Her proportions seem wrong.

And so do the car's.

That photo comes from the Forbes site, specifically the work of Hannah Elliot.  I've already decided I don't like Hannah Elliot - maybe I'm jealous that, to quote Hannah Elliot, "I cover the fun stuff: Fashion, Cars and Culture" although, having said that, I have no interest in fashion or culture.

But back to the Aussie site.  It states that, "The Porsche Macan, measures 4699mm in length, 1923mm in width and 1624mm in height, making it 146mm shorter, 16mm narrower and 82mm lower than the Cayenne" - and here's the Cayenne:

Which is where we get back to proportions.  On a car this size, those size differentials make no difference - 14.6cm shorter! - under 6" in real money! - this will look exactly like a Cayenne - the only real difference is that this car utilises VW's new MQB platform so will be cheaper to engineer.  They should just call it a MkIII Cayenne and be done.

 

More of a Macan't than a Macan.