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I was going to call this post "The Number's Up!" but I've already used that.

But I missed out the apostrophe which is unlike me and somewhat irritating.

Anyway, that particular post was about 18 months ago and berating the daft naming convention of Polestar.

It still seems to be a problem for them and they are trying to deny it - as reported by drive.co.au here.

And they have changed the rules a bit too.

18 months ago they said that the Polestar 2 would not be replaced by a Polestar 2.  Now they are saying that the Polestar 2 WILL be replaced by a Polestar 2.  Which will probably come after the Polestar 7 and before the Polestar 6.

Confusion reigns supreme.

I feel sorry for the new CEO, Michael Lohscheller, who didn't come up with the idea but seems to be spending lots of time defending it.

He likens it to Apple.  Which is wrong.  He should be likening it to the company I alluded to back in April last year - Renault.

When I also asked the question, "I wonder how many years it will be before they realise the error of this strategy and change to a better system."

Renault gradually and quietly replaced numbers with names and would never speak of them again.

Until they had a big hit with the new 4 and 5.

If they follow the Polestar numbering system, the next retro electric car will be a cute version of the Renault 7:

Oh dear - I think the number's up.

Sprinting Ahead?

Today is the British Grand Prix.

Years ago I would have been very excited by this event.

Today. Not so much.

I gave up on F1 when they sold out to Sky and from what I've heard and read on the subject, the races themselves became more processional and therefore more boring as the years went by.  If you look back at my posts around 2011 you see how disgruntled I got.

However, I found myself in a pub yesterday afternoon and the they were showing the inaugural Sprint Race Qualifying - and it felt a bit like a single-seater Touring Car Race:

That is a good thing.

OK, most of the action happened at the start they they settled down to more of a procession.  But at least there was some action - and there were still some decent overtaking moves later on.

Here's the take of the BBC's Chief F1 writer Andrew Benson.

I struggled recognising the Teams. I suspect it is still the same ones as when I used to watch but they've been renamed.  Alpine is obviously Renault while AlphaTauri seems to be Toro Rosso.  Meanwhile, Haas seem to be the Cannon-Fodder-Team-Making-Up-The-Numbers Team who go bust every year to be reborn again.  And always come last.

So - do I watch the race today?

Not unless I find myself in a pub.

When is a Turbo not a Turbo?

When it's an after-shave?

Mmm, nice.

 

But not what I'm thinking about.  How about when it is a fish?

Amusing but no.

 

Actually, it is when we are talking about the Porsche Taycan:

Porsche's upcoming electric car will come in three flavours, Taycan, Taycan 4S and Taycan Turbo.

 

Except purely electric cars don't have turbos.  Autoguide have the full story here.  I guess "Turbo" just means "top of the range" in Porsche-speak.

 

It's  just a name.

 

Nothing to get wound up about.

136

That's 2x68 because I have now seen 2 68 Reg cars.

After a prolonged period of seeing none.

I saw the first one on Sunday and I was composing a post in my head walking home from the shops this evening about how I had seen "a 68 Reg":

...when I spotted another one.

 

Incidentally, A68 REG is a valid number (it would have been issued in 1983 or 1984) - it just doesn't belong to anybody.

 

Not even somebody called Reg.

 

The two 68 cars I did spot were both Renault SUV thingies. Nothing exciting.

 

They were different colours so it wasn't the same car twice.

 

Maybe it means that Renault are the best company for sorting out their emissions levels.

 

After all, it was never going to be Volkswagen.

Hope His Air-Brakes Work

This is impossible, right?

Apparently not.

 

What you are looking at is a picture of an articulated lorry jumping over a Lotus F1 car - including driver!

 

FoxNews had the story yesterday.

 

Well, the story is true - but the picture misleading.

 

This is what actually happened: 

They broke the World Record for the distance jumped by a tractor & trailer unit and also the suspension of the tractor unit.

The F1 car was racing alongside (or behind as the photographer was looking) the jump and would have been flattened if it had been where the photographer initially wants us to believe it is.

Still very impressive.

Here they are receiving their World Record certificate.

I knew there had to be some interesting F1 news somewhere this week.  (Sorry Lewis, only joking, well done to you too)

E By Gum

The FIA Formula e championship kicked off this morning in Beijing.

It was on ITV4 so I watched it.  If it hadn't been on a Freeview channel I wouldn't have been that fussed but I'm glad I did - I have high hopes for it.

 

For those of you who don't know about Formula e, read this excellent piece on the subject.

 

Actually, don't.  That was written ages ago before anyone knew what it would evolve into - you'd do better checking out their official website.

 

Formula e is the all-electric alternative to Formula 1 - and based on the first race, could be more exciting than Formula 1.  I was wary that using street circuits as they do and having same-spec cars would mean overtaking was going to be difficult but the fact that they have to control the power in order to conserve battery-charge did lead to some very entertaining overtaking.

 

Swapping cars half-way through the race because the batteries wouldn't last is a bit strange and I'm sure that will die out once battery technology improves.

 

We also have the new innovation of "Fan Boost" (or #FanBoost if you're into Twitter) whereby fans vote for their favourite drivers and the top three vote-receivers get a power boost that they can use once in the race - but more about that shortly.

 

So...let's meet the teams...

 

First the ITV4 team who will be presenting the Season to us - 85.7% of whom I had not heard of before.

 

Firstly, we have Jennie Gow (who doesn't seem to be any relation to BTCC boss Alan Gow) but who does seem to be knowledgeable (and genuinely excited) about motorsport and seemed to ask the right questions.  Jennie is the main presenter based in the studio with race engineer Kyle Wilson-Clarke and F3 Driver Jann Mardenborough.  It was quite refeshing and interesting to have a race engineer in there with a different take on things.  Jann seemed a bit nervous and a bit young:

In fact, he even looks younger than Leonardo diCaprio if that is possible.  I'm sure his confidence will build up as the series goes on.

 

Former F1 mechanic Marc Priestley joined roving reporter Nicki Shields provided trackside insight with Jack Nicholls and Dario Franchitti doing the commentary.  Dario Franchitti being the 14.3% of the team that I was familiar with.

 

Now the actual teams.  There are a few familiar names from motorsport in there: Virgin, Renault, Senna, Prost, Piquet and Andretti to name but six.  Ten teams in total, running cars that look like this: 

• British based Amlin Aguri is led by Japanese ex-Formula 1 driver Suzuki Aguri who also founded F1 team Super Aguri.
• Andretti Autosport is led by Michael Andretti (part of the American Andretti motorsport dynasty).
• Audi Sport ABT is the team behind Audi's DTM cars.
• China Racing - not to be confused with...
• Dragon Racing who are from California.
• E.Dams Renault are sponsored by a Dutch Cheese Manufacturer. (No they aren't)
• Mahindra Racing - from the Indian motoring concern responsible for some Jeep look-a-likes that got imported to the UK.
• Trulli GP led by ex F1 racer Jarno Trulli.
• Venturi Grand Prix a joint effort between Venturi an American car company who have experience in electric vehicles and Leonardo diCaprio (serious electric car advocate) who has experience in looking very young.  He wasn't seen once during the coverage - I hope he was actually there.

• Finally (for alphabetic reasons) we have Virgin Racing - Richard Branson has moved over from F1. 

In terms of drivers, Alain Prost has employed his son Nico:

That is actually a picture of Alain but with their helmets on, the likeness is uncanny.

Amlin Aguri have one of the two female drivers in the series, Katherine Legge who also happens to be a Brit.

Mahindra have the charismatic ex-F1 duo of Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna.

 

 Jarno Trulli is driving his own car whilst giving his other seat up to Italian Michela Cerruti.

 The other Brit in the series is Sam Bird driving for Virgin.

We also have several other ex-F1 stars (or their sons) in there too.

 

I think the fan boost may be a waste of time though with most people voting for the team with the best PR (Mahindra) or for the ladies (women voting for women and men voting for people they fancy) or for the countries with the biggest populations for for their own (Brazil, USA)

 

As it happened Mahindra's Senna, Brazil's di Grassi & Katherine Legge got the fan boosts.

 

We never got to find out when the boosts were used in the race.  I reckon a better system would be to have the vote during the race to potentially nobble someone or to help someone challenging for the lead.

 

The race itself felt a lot shorter than most motorsport I watch - but that was quite good - all done and dusted within three hours of TV.  Some excitement, some overtaking, some crashes, and, most importantly, a very dramatic finish with Nico Prost, who has led from the start, about to be overtaken by Nick Heidfeld on the last corner so cutting across and taking him out in a spectacular crash and taking himself out in the process allowing di Grassi to take the win.

 

As is traditional in motorsport, both blamed the other.

 

Prost was wrong.

 

So will I be watching the next race on November 22nd?

 

By gum I will.

Renault Space

A few different Renault stories have caught my eye this week.

The first comes on the back of my story last week about Ford's new Vignale sub-brand - it seems Renault want their own upmarket label.  They are calling it "Initiale Paris" and although it won't be a sub-brand, it will adorn the classiest versions of their range.  Like Vignale, it was launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

It's purple.

 

Autocar, amongst many others, had the story.  Initiale Paris sounds pretentious - but that is probably because I hate the perfume adverts that pollute British television.  I wonder if perfume adverts in France have an English voice saying "Pie and Chips, the new scent from Fred Higginbottom"

 

The second story involves a priest giving the Pope a Renault 4 to potter around Vatican City in. 

The BBC used this photo in their story of a priest after a few brownie points.  Maybe the priest was inspired by my earlier story on that subject.  It's supposedly only 20 years old.  Yes I know that sounds old for a car but I didn't think they were still making Renault 4s in 1993.

 

Searching for a good link for that story of the Pope's newest car did lead me to this picture of Carly Pope.

Apparently, she's a Canadian actress.  But I digress.

 

The final Renault story of the week is this one. 

This handsome chappie is Carlos Ghosn who, according to Wikipedia, is a "French-Lebanese-Brazilian businessman."

 

There is no doubt, however, as to his position as president of Renault-Nissan.

 

He has been telling us, at the Frankfurt Motor Show, that the worst of the recession for the auto-trade is now over.  Hope he doesn't end up looking like an idiot.

 

Not that a French president could ever look an idiot.

Or could he?

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.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly...and The Beautiful and the Blobby

All, and when I say "All", I Mean "ALL" of the car press today are going on about the 2013 Geneva Motor Show.  The show opens on Thursday in, of all places, Geneva.

But they've let the press in already.

Very much as I'd love to be there with them, I cannot be for various reasons including work commitments, family commitments, finances, logistics and the fact that I'm not a real journalist.

So I have to pick apart what they are all reporting.

Let's start with the good. That would be The Mitsubishi CE-MiEV.

This is the much-better follow-up to the i-MiEV.  Autocar cover it here.  It is an electric car with better range and recharging times than the i-MiEV but still not as good as the Silex Power Chreos.

 

Most importantly, though, it doesn't look stupid like the i-MiEV - actually, I think it looks a lot like a Prius.  But not as good looking as Mitsubishi's other offering at the show, the GR-HEV:

A futuristic- looking  hybrid pick-up with a one-tonne payload.

 

OK, so that's the "good", evironmentally friendly and all that, now for the "bad".  I don't mean "bad" as in "not good", I mean "bad" in the Michael Jackson way.

 

Now, I don't mean "Michael Jackson way" as in the dodgy allegations that saw him in Court, I mean the "Michael Jackson way" as in the 1987 album he called "Bad".

 

Now that's clarified, I expected the "baddest" car at Geneva to be the McLaren P1 but it seems to have had the headlines taken off it by the Rolls-Royce Wraith. 

Here's one of Autoguide's stories on it. It is described as the most powerful Rolls ever. I'd say it would be a bit of a Bentley-worrier. They claim it's in a different price-bracket but I think it's a lot more attractive and should appeal to the Cheshire set - it's only the suicide-doors that I don't like. It also has a neat headlining inside which looks like a starry sky at night. It has been done before but will give that "out in a cabriolet on a warm Summer's evening" feeling that everyone loves so much.

 

Don't they?

 

Oh well, even so, it does look appealing.

 

Which brings me neatly round to...

 

...THE UGLY!

Not sure what the man in the photo is doing.  That thing is a Toyota i-Road.  It's an electric three-wheeler, two-seater much in the vein of the Renault Twizy.  And the glass doors means it shares a problem with the Twizy in that people will be able to see you driving it.  I've read a few reviews of the Twizy being tested in the UK and each time the reviewer has commented about derogatory remarks being shouted at him.  Now I can't possibly condone such action. 

 

But I can well understand it.

 

Now to "the beautiful".  When I read this article in caradvice.com.au about the ItalDesign Giugiaro Parcour concept, I immediately thought of  the Silex Power Chreos in as much as it is a pretty, computer-generated car:

However, if this is vapour-ware, it is very solid because here are some people having a good, close look at it...

I think it is gorgeous and very reminiscent of the supercars of my childhood in the '70s.

 

That was a time when ItalDesign were doing their only other work that I am aware of - ie, the squaring off of the Morris Marina to produce the Morris Ital:

Also, the peak time for Ford to be producing the Escort.  I keep thinking they've started again because I keep seeing stories about this car at Geneva:

It's the Ford EcoSport - which looks like "Escort" when you're flicking through car stories.  This car looks nothing like an Escort, though. It looks like a tall Ford Kuga - the Ford Kuga it will be replacing as opposed to the bigger "World Car" Ford Kuga that seems to have replaced the outgoing Ford Kuga here in The UK.  Confusing eh?

 

So, in summary, that's the 2013 Geneva Motor Show.  You don't need to go now.

Getting all in a Twizy

Mike Rutherford (No, not the bloke from Genesis) in his column in The Telegraph has written an article seriously praising the electric Renault Twizy.

It costs £7K plus battery-rental which sounds cheap enough.

You can park it sideways like a Smart as in the picture above. But you shouldn't do that because cars don't have bumpers on their sides so parking nudges will result in dents.

Anyway, it isn't a car.

It's a quadricycle.

Like a G-Wiz - and we all know how they crumple in a crash-test.

The biggest problem though is it doesn't have doors.

That means that people would be able to see you driving it.

Anyway, there are cheaper alternatives available...

Was Chris Hughton Sleeping with Mike Ashley's Wife?

No. Mike Ashley is divorced so he doesn't have a wife. So that can't be the explanation for his sudden sacking as Newcastle United manager this week. No, the straightforward answer is that Mike Ashley must be an idiot.

If only everything in sport was nice and straightforward like that.

Take Formula 1 for instance.

For a couple of seasons now, we have two teams sponsored by Red Bull, there's Red Bull and Toro Rosso (which happens to be Italian for "Red Bull") - one uses Renault engines, one uses Ferrari engines. Renault meanwhile had their own team powered by a Renault engine - but then again, they sold their stakes in their team so the Renault team isn't really the Renault team at all, it just had their name and their engine - they also had sponsorship from Lada and a Russian driver - but then again, Renault own a bit of Lada. Meanwhile, Lotus, who are owned by Proton, also rejoined F1 in 2010 using an attractive green livery and a quite unsuccessful car.

Renault and Lotus were both successful during my favourite F1 period from the late '70s into the early '90s with lovely looking cars such as these...It was announced today, though, that Group Lotus has joined F1. Does that mean the existing Lotus team has been renamed?

Does it buggery!

Well, actually it has been renamed to Team Lotus, but that isn't to be confused with Group Lotus who will own the team but also own "Lotus Renault GP" which is what the old Renault-but-not-owned-by-Renault team will be known as..

I think.

So, we'll end up with four Loti (James Hunt invented the word "Loti" as plural of Lotus - I invented the word "Double-decker-bi" as plural of Double-Decker bus), four Red Bulls, two McLarens and two Mercedes, as opposed to two McLaren-Mercedes as we had before 2010, two Ferraris (but at least four Ferrari engines) and Lord knows what other combination of Hispanias, Williams, Saubers and the like.

I think I know which will be the best looking cars on the grid though...

Trapped Wind

Sorry, that should read "Renault Wind".Daft name but the car looks quite good. Top Gear magazine and Fifth Gear online have both recently reviewed this car so here's my two cents.

This is a coupe-cabrio with an electric folding metal roof - quite a clever one at that with the roof flipping backwards and getting protected by a metal cover. With the roof in place, it reminds me a bit of the old Lotus Europa of the 1960s with the top of the door sweeping back to the tail of the car - only this car has the roof and decent-sized boot where the Lotus had an engine.

The main competition seems to be the Vauxhall Tigra but this looks a lot more manly - I would be seen dead in this - unlike the Tigra.

With the roof stowed away, the Mazda MX5 comes into play - that car being rear-wheel drive is probably more fun and more traditionally roadster-ish although I wasn't overly impressed when I drove one - give me a MkII Toyota MR2 any day.

The Wind has been developed by RenaultSport on Clio underpinnings but looks suitably different. Engines are a 1.6 or a 1.2 turbo so plenty powerful enough for the class of car it is.

Just a shame about the name. I guess Volkswagen used up all the good wind/breeze names like Scirocco (Hot desert wind), Golf (Gulf-Stream), Jetta (Jet-Stream) and Passat (Trade Winds). That just left the word "wind" itself (flatulence).