Snow Joke

 It's been trying to blizzard a bit here today.

It's not sticking.

Merseyside tends to not get a lot of snow which has been useful this week - while the Eastern half of the country has been blanketed, this has been going on in Liverpool:

They are filming a TV version of the film The Ipcress File.  I don't know why that Austin Cambridge looks so stunning, they were ten-a-penny when I was a little boy.

Meanwhile, over on the Eastern half of the UK, we have the annual story of some twerp driving whilst looking through a little porthole he's made in the snow on the windscreen.  This year's is set in Dundee and is particularly stupid:

That is a Peugeot under there.  It was on an industrial estate but he could still have killed someone wandering by.  Maybe he was trying to get away from that ominous looking black square that is behind him.

Meanwhile again, over in the Eastern half of Europe this time - or maybe even beyond - we have these twerps:

Rouille en Paix

That's French for "Rust in Peace"

Google Translate says it is anyway - a Frenchman may disagree.

It's probably not a good idea to visit France at the moment, unless you don't mind a couple of weeks quarantine on your return.

Which means that you could be missing out on an unusual tourist attraction.

Last month's Top Gear Magazine plugged an interesting book entitled "Lost Wheels" by Dieter Klein.

"It all started in Cognac, in this French town in Nouvelle-Aquitane, at the edge of a small village close by, I fell in love with Rosalie"

I think that is a better opening line than "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" and certainly better than "Call me Ishmael."

Especially when you find out that Rosalie is an abandoned Citroën delivery truck.  The book is full of beautifully photographed abandoned cars and other vehicles.

So why am I bringing this up now?

I'll tell you.

Autocar today have an interesting article by American-based-in-France-with-an-Irish-first-name Ronan Glon which involves abandoned cars in France.

Some are old:

Apparently that is a Renault Monaquatre from the early '30s.  It would have looked like this:

Some are unrecognisable:

Believe it or not, that is a Renault Fuego.

 

What I like about this article is that Ronan and his researchers have tried to find out about the specific cars and vans - checking out number plates, VIN plates and even door hinges in one case to identify a Peugeot.

 

Some are surprising, like this Celica:

That Toyota is probably my favourite but this Renault 4 inspired Ronan so much that they have bought it:

It's a shame that some of these cars have ended up in this state - some have been stolen and stripped for parts - some just parked and forgotten about.  Some were used to build a dam - which didn't last very long.

A bit of a beautiful mess.

Talking of messes, our Government is insisting that the schools will reopen in September.  They may have a bit of a problem now:
You do realise we're all in France? say teachers (satire - but only just)

Expanding Peugeot

Last week, a brilliant young car blogger stated this:

"It looks like Peugeot are involved in negotiations to take over Vauxhall and Opel.

This would given them Peugeot, Citroen, DS, Vauxhall, Opel & Ambassador - and probably too many factories - not good news - especially since they have had financial problems over the last few years while Vauxhall & Opel have been losing money."

It appeared in this article by me.

Now, this other article, by Autocar, says they also want Proton.  It also says that their financial worries seem to have subsided - which will hopefully be good news for the workers of Peugeot, Citroen, DS, Vauxhall, Opel, Ambassador, Proton & Lotus.

Did you spot the way I stuck Lotus in at the end?

That's because Proton effectively own Lotus.

Now, that could mean some nice modern takes on collaborations from the past such as when Lotus got together with PSA (Peugeot Citroen Group) to produce the Lotus Sunbeam:

...or when they got into bed with Vauxhall/Opel for the Lotus Carlton (or Omega for the Opel badged version):

If Peugeot really do splash the cash, then why not a Lotus DS4 and a Lotus Insignia?

Of course, this could all be speculation - or even some of this fake news that the POTUS keeps warning us about (perhaps he should start by fact-checking Fox & Breitbart?)  Maybe we should swap the word "president" with "liar" and call him the LOTUS?

Anyway I'm pretty confident with reliability of the sources for the Hindustan and Vauxhall/Opel stories.

And as for Proton, I'm positive.

Peugeot Splashing The Cash

At the weekend, it emerged that Peugeot were buying the Ambassador brand - that is the Hindustan Ambassador -

 - not the Austin Ambassador -

The BBC story is here.

It doesn't say whether or not they are taking on the whole Hindustan Company, factories etc.  I suspect they are not which is a shame because they could restart manufacture and maybe restyle it on a more modern car than its original base which was the 1950s Morris Oxford:

 

A Peugeot 404 perhaps?

I imagine labour is a bit cheaper in India than Europe - they may wish to start building the other ranges they've just purchased there too.  Check out this story that has been building all week.

It looks like Peugeot are involved in negotiations to take over Vauxhall and Opel.

This would given them Peugeot, Citroen, DS, Vauxhall, Opel & Ambassador - and probably too many factories - not good news - especially since they have had financial problems over the last few years while Vauxhall & Opel have been losing money.

Although, allegedly, Peugeot shares are doing quite well at the moment.  They may be hoping to do a Fiat who had their own problems not that long ago.

In any case, I would be worried by that sudden Indian connection.  I'll just stick with my Jaguar in the meantime.

Tata for now.

Future Proof

Back at the end of 2015, there was speculation about a new car company called Faraday Future.  I speculated upon it myself.  Most of my speculation was about who was behind this ambitious electric car start-up. Apple was a contender but there was also much consideration of The Chinese.

The latter turned out to be the case.

There was also speculation about whether or not they would actually be able to produce a vehicle.

Well they have.  They launched it last night at CES in Las Vegas

Autocar have it here.  Autoguide here.

It looks quite nice.

in a Peugeot/Citroën Crossover sort of way.

Although it is huge.  And probably very heavy.

The BBC go into a bit more detail about the launch, the backers and ensuing awkwardness therein.

I have no doubt that there will be potential buyers out there but now the speculation has moved over to whether or not they will be able to build it in big-enough numbers.

It should be fast.  According to the BBC, pre-recorded footage showed the car accelerating from standstill to 60mph in 2.39 seconds - that's faster than the competition from Tesla.  Autoguide say it can do 500mph which sounds unbelieveable unless you read it properly and realise that it can get enough charge for 500 miles in one hour.  It doesn't say what sort of charger they are using.

If you're interested, it's a $5000 deposit now and another $175000 when if rolls off the production line.

They are speculating 2018 for that.

Ditch the Peugeot

MSN seem very excited this week by this story of a crash involving Jeremy Clarkson & James May in a couple of Peugeots.

MSN summise that it must have happened while filming a new series of Top Gear.

 

Well, DUH!!

 

I actually knew that they were filming a new series because Jeremy mentioned it recently on something he was on that I can't remeber what it was.

 

Given the nature of Top Gear, this crash may well have been planned anyway.  Clearly nobody was hurt.

 

Unlike in this crash story that I also read this week.  It is in the Liverpool Echo and involves a three-car collision between a Rolls, a Nissan Navara and something called a "Daimler Mercedes".  Not sure what a "Daimler Mercedes" would be - I know that the two companies were once one and the same at board level but I don't believe they ever produced anything with that name.  Besides, Daimler the corporate entity was always separate to Daimler the car manufacturer which did happen to be named after the founder of Daimler the corporate entity.

 

But I digress.

 

Without any knowledge of what actually happened here, I blame the Navara driver.

 

It looks like the Rolls hasn't come off too well - but it should be repairable. 

Two of three cars were wedding cars so I bet there were a few frantic phone calls being made this weekend.

 

With hindsight, should have gone for something like this:

Drivel 2022

Sounds like a desktop computer doesn't it? Maybe from the mid-1990s.

It's actually a GM plan for the future prosperity of the Vauxhall Opel Group.

It is outlined in a story in Autocar yesterday. The article tells us that "Under the plan, which was approved six weeks ago by GM's main board,
 Vauxhall-Opel will cut fixed costs by $500m by mid-decade, launch 23 new models and 13 new engines between now and 2016 and start building non Opel-Vauxhalls" and it "will also expand and implement the recently announced alliance with PSA." That follows on from my story a few months back in which I voiced my concerns about a possible merger with PSA, the French group behind Citroën and Peugeot.

It appears that this is the latest of many rescue/restructuring plans but there's not too much management-speak - apart from “Vauxhall 
is an example of best practice” and “not to include hope as part of the strategy" which are not too bad really when you think about it. I've checked out the photos of GM Europe
 president Steve Girsky and vice CEO Thomas Sedran and neither of them look like this manager:

or, if you happen to be American...

so there's a bit of hope there to go with the strategy.

The new car sales situation is very mixed at the moment - looking at the BBC Global Car Industry News page today is showing Ford taking on 2200 workers in America because of increased sales with BMW and Rolls Royce reporting record sales. There are also reports of increased car sales in both Japan and the UK.

However, they also report Honda laying of 800 UK staff blaming weak demand across Europe and that Ferrari sales slump in Italy. Perhaps more significantly for this item, Peugeot Citroen hit by 'crisis' in European car sales.

I live quite close to a Vauxhall factory and know people who work there. The GM management-speak here does seem positive and they do seem to have a 10-year plan which is unusually forward thinking these days.



Oh, my eyesight! It says "DRIVE! 2022"

The Americans Are Interested in Vauxhall

Or are they?

Most of the American sites I follow are very interested in the Vauxhall Cascada - they are even showing photos of right-hand-drive cars with British Number Plates.

Although the Google images that stood out for me when I searched were this one of the Cascada's early predecessor, the Vauxhall Cavalier Convertible:

and this one apparently of a Singer Cascada:

I remember Singer cars from my youth but don't remember one that pretty - actually - I'll take that back - the later (1970s) Singer Rapiers were nice. Singer were part of the Rootes group who eventually found themselves under the ownership of PSA Peugeot-Citroen.

But I have digressed somewhat. Or have I?

The reason that America is so interested in this Vauxhall is that it may well get re-badged as a Buick Regal over there. Here is the Fox News story on it.

The Buick Regal, of course, should not be confused with the Reliant Regal:

Vauxhall, or as it is known in the rest of the World, Opel, is GM's loss-making, European arm - hence the interest in the Cascada being the new Regal soft-top. The GM accountants, however, are more interested in the loss-making part of that sentence - and a possible solution has been mooted this week. This Autocar story covers it quite well. It talks of a possible merger between Vauxhall-Opel & Peugeot-Citroen although GM would only own 30% of the new organisation.

I don't like the sound of this - it sounds more like a take-over and given the model-range overlap would probably lead to some factory closures - and probably not in France.

The article states that "According to Automotive News Europe, this tentative plan is said to have been one of a number of ideas being considered by the management teams of PSA and GM, including selling Opel outright to PSA or GM buying PSA’s automotive division"

I guess it will all come down to whether or not the Americans are interested in Vauxhall.

Parking Space Sex

The Telegraph had this story today, but not in its motoring section. It's about how the mayor of the German town of Triberg has "courted controversy by allocating so-called easy parking spaces to women"

Controversial!

It is probably a publicicty stunt - he does try to imply this when interviewed - but it will bring back once more the old arguments about who makes the best driver.

Their motoring section does cover this woman driver though:
Although it is the bloke who was in the passenger seat who is an idiot - albeit a lucky one.

Au Revoir Arnoux Clochend

This month's Top Gear Magazine arrived yesterday and I was sorry to see the news that Arnoux Clochend is now undergoing a course of residential therapy after being removed from his post of European Junior Deputy Under manager of Design at the Hang-Su Motor System.

According to my Blog Stats, I get quite a few hits from Google through him. This is because when you type in "Arnoux Clochend", it is my earlier piece, "All-New" Top Gear Magazine that leads the search results. Today's post may be nothing more than a shameless attempt to get some more hits.

I guess it had to come to an end soon, because his writings have been about preparing a concept for the Frankfurt Motor Show which starts on Tuesday.

One concept that may be there, although I am still sceptical, is the Eterniti Hemera as reported by Autocar today. It looks like a real car but could be a photoshop job but is obviously a modified Porsche Cayenne - certainly not like the Peugeot in their original drawings. Plus, the name sounds too much like Haemorrhoid.

Anyway, I'm going to miss old Arnoux and his seriously undervisited Facebook Page.

Oh yes, and I DO KNOW HE WAS NEVER REAL!

Conceptually Speaking...

In my most previous posting, I used this picture:of the Eterniti - a luxury British SUV to be launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

I described it as a "cardboard cut-out of a Peugeot" and claimed it would never appear in the metal.

Looks like I was wrong!

Only thing is, Peugeot themselves have built it.

It's called the HX1 and it's their concept for a 2020 MPV. It's a Plug-in Diesel/Electric Hybrid and the details and more photos are here on the Autocar site today.