A Knight Against The Museum

Social media pointed me at a couple of motoring stories this morning.

The first was an Autocar story from earlier in the week about the new Audi A6 "thanks to its complete reinvention inside and out, with a new look, fresh technology and a bolstering of its sporting appeal".

The "new look" was the bit of that phrase that was garnering most comments. Probably because it looks exactly like every other Audi produced this Century:

However, the story that I actually found interesting was from a source new to me - autoclassics.com

They were getting very excited about a proposed massive new motor museum to grace an area in The Cotswolds.

They got so excited about it that you need 15 minutes and a mug of tea to read the whole piece.  I was getting suspicious because it was such a pro article that I thought it was an advertorial.  But, after a bit of digging, including looking at the local press on the subject, I think they are just genuinely very excited at the prospect of American businessman and car collector, Peter Mullin, building something special to be enjoyed by classic car enthusiasts:

The fly in the ointment, is objections to the project from groups concerned that it includes a number of luxury "lodges" where low-cost housing would serve the locals better - plus there is debate as to whether this is building on green-belt or brown-field land.

The housing side of it certainly gets a lot more prominence in the Oxford Mail than in autoclassics.com.

A leading spokesman for these objecting groups is a bit of a car nut himself, Sir Patrick Stewart: 

He has a home in The Cotswolds so maybe he's concerned about traffic - or the view - both concerns are answered to some extent within the article.

You'd think he would be in favour of enterprise.

Racing Legends

This short series concluded on BBC Two last night.

I say "short" because it was only on for three episodes and the first two went out on consecutive nights - so why we had to wait a month for the third I'm not sure.

It was mostly a programme about knights.

In the first show, Sir Patrick Stewart spoke about and met Sir Stirling Moss. In the second show, car-nut and chef (but no knight) James Martin enthused about and met Sir Jackie Stewart and in show 3, Sir Chris Hoy learned all about Colin McRae who probably should have been a knight.

The BBC info on the series is here but the gist is that someone famous goes over a racing legend's life & career and with a little training, gets to drive that legend's racecar.

Since the first shows are now fairly distant memories, all I can really remember is that Stirling Moss is a Jewish name and that James Martin can't say "Formula 1" - he kept calling it "formlia 1" - very irritating.

Ironically - no, not ironic just sad - the only one of the legends not with us today is the youngest, Colin McRae, the subject of last night's show.

He will be known by anyone under the age of 20 as "the bloke behind those video games" but McRae was, indeed, a racing legend. He was winning from an early age although he did have the best start you could wish for given that his father was the very successful rally star Jimmy McRae, pictured above with Sir Chris. Jimmy played a big part in the show and showed that he hasn't lost any of his own skills.

Colin became the first British winner of the WRC whilst driving for Subaru where he proved a worthy match for his more experienced team-mate Carlos Sainz who spoke warmly about Colin in the show.

Colin was a driving genius - but I think the show showed us that he was a flawed genius too. His desire to win, meant that sometimes, he drove too hard. In 2001, driving for Ford, he nearly won the WRC again. He went into the last race one point up and was leading when he crashed out rather spectacularly. In 2005, he nearly won the Paris-Dakar Rally (which nowadays doesn't go anywhere near Paris or Dakar but in 2005 did actually still finish in Dakar) when, comfortably leading he crashed out rather spectacularly.

It's worth taking a look at him in the US X Games event though, driving too hard while trying to take the lead:He finished second.

Sadly he was killed, along with his young son, another boy and a friend in 2007 when a helicopter he was piloting crashed near to his home in Scotland. The inquiry verdict blamed him.

His father said, "We still believe we will never know what caused the crash but we were never in any doubt as to Colin's prowess as a fine pilot. Everybody knows from Colin's rallying career that safety is always an issue and that his reactions and eye and hand co-ordination were world-class."

He may be speaking the truth - I would love to believe that - or he may be in denial - the verdict statements seemed quite unequivocal.

"If in doubt - flat out!"

A sad end to a fine career and a fine series.