You know… that’s not a horrid-looking little interior right there. What does an adorable little “yacht tender” Aston Martin Cygnet cost, anyway Jeeves? £30,995 base? Why that’s a duke’s whisker away from fifty thousand of those colonial greenbacks! One could nearly afford three Toyota iQs for that amount of filthy lucre… and aesthetic improvements aside, they’re the same ruddy vehicle! But then, one imagines that the Aston version at least offers the sporting thrills one expects from such a storied… what’s that now? It takes 11.8 seconds to reach 62 MPH? Egad Jeeves, we’d go faster if you pushed me in the old S3! In fact, a peasant-powered Bentley is both lower-emissions and infinitely more befitting ones station than a rebadged Toyota. So much for all that “progress” nonsense…
Do you live in a challenging neighborhood, like, say, Afghanistan, Sudan, Downtown Detroit, or St. Louis? Then you’ll like Land Rover’s latest offering: The new Discovery 4 Armored, a car impervious to road rage of all kinds. (Read More…)
London Mayor Boris Johnson finally fulfilled his campaign promise to cut 230,000 residents out of the area where the UK capital’s congestion tax is imposed. The last £8 (US $12.40) toll imposed on motorists driving through the boroughs of Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster during business hours was collected Friday at 6pm. These areas were part of the so-called Western Extension Zone added by former Mayor Ken Livingstone, just before voters threw him out of office in 2008.
Speed camera operators in the UK are looking to hike costs for “educational courses” and redeploy cameras to more lucrative locations to address a growing budget deficit. The options for the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership were discussed in an August 11 strategy meeting, the minutes for which were obtained from a freedom of information request. The partnership consists of local police agencies, local council members, the courts and the staff who run the speed cameras themselves.
What’s better than a Bentley 8-litre? A Bentley 8-litre with a 42 liter Packard V12 from a World War II-era torpedo boat, of course. [via The Telegraph]
Surf on over to dodge.co.uk, and you’ll find that the only vehicle being offered for sale is the Journey crossover. Look a little closer and you’ll find that Dodge has announced new electric vehicles, an online reminder of the embarrassingbailout-eraENVIproject which has since been expunged from Chrysler’s corporate history. Given this sorry state of affairs, is it any wonder that Dodge is getting the heck out of Dodge, er, Old Blighty? (Read More…)
Lotus has approved its Emas city car concept for production in 2013, giving the sportscar firm an in-house competitor to Aston Martin’s Cygnet rebadge of the Toyota iQ. The extended-range electric car was first shown at the last Geneva auto show, when our own Martin Schwoerer praised its “enormous’ interior space, and well-engineered packaging. The Emas uses Lotus’s three-cylinder range extender, mated to an electric drivetrain with a peak output of 75 kW (101 HP) and 206 lb-ft of torque, and will be the only non-performance vehicle in the Lotus range. But it won’t be the cheapest bit of Lotus-branded kit you’ll be able to buy when the brand relaunches, as the NYT reports
Lotus will also put its name on an array of quotidian objects like key fobs, cellphone holders and laptop bags, which a Lotus publicist described as “cool, high-end pieces that provide an entry level to the brand.”
But with so much emphasis being placed on turning Lotus into a “lifestyle brand,” there’s a major cloud hanging over the whole project: though Lotus is one of the quintessentially British brands, the firm says it will shift production to a supplier on the European continent (think Valmet and Magna-Steyr) if the British government doesn’t make with a £40m ($62m) Regional Growth Fund loan to support a new factory in Hethel. Which means that if the British government doesn’t take a huge gamble on a firm that even Bob Lutz thinks only has a 60 percent chance of success, Lotus will not only no longer be a true British brand, it won’t even build is own cars. But should British taxpayers bankroll such a risky play at a luxury niche?
Automobilwoche [sub] has it on good authority (Mini chief Wolfgang Armbrecht) that BMW plans a minier than Mini car. They want to show a prototype at the Detroit Auto Show next year. They probably can bring it as carry-on. (Read More…)
You want a McLaren? You know, the car made by the folks who usually only do Formula 1? All you need is exactly €200,000. Or $262,940 in today’s dollars. According to Automobilwoche [sub], that buys you: (Read More…)
Some say the future of the car business is in China… and for certain employees of Jaguar Land Rover, the maxim seems to apply awfully literally. The Telegraph reports:
Des Thurlby, human resources (HR) director at [JLR], said he had held “pointed” discussions with up to five of the company’s best employees urging them to consider moving “out of leafy Warwickshire” to China to help the company capitalise on emerging markets. Those who refused had less chance of being shortlisted for a future top job at the company…
Mr Thurlby said: “We’re getting to the point where we’re having some quite pointed conversations with people, where we’re saying, ‘listen matey, if you want to go to the top you’re going to have to go to China, Russia or the US. We’re an international business, we’re 70pc overseas. It’s critical you move out of leafy Warwickshire.'”
Oh dear… this is what happens when you stop designing your interiors like a 19th Century club room, isn’t it?
As mentioned in an earlier article, I’m getting old. Far too old to understand the younger generation. But with experience comes cynicism (maybe that should be a TTAC slogan?). The more things change, the more things stay the same. In the recent cutbacks, which the new UK government introduced, a fund called the “Grant for Business Investment Scheme” (GBI) is to be phased out by 2012. The fund was used by Nissan for their plant up in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. Production of the Leaf came to the UK on the back of a £20.7m grant from the GBI fund. Well, Nissan didn’t take too kindly to the news of the dry money well, says the Daily Mail. (Read More…)
Dealerships are a pain in the neck. The salesman tries to convince you that they’re your friend (when you know damn well they want as much money as they can squeeze out of you), getting warranty work out of them is sometimes a nightmare and, if you’re buying used, you don’t know what the car has been through. You can write a letter of complaint, but will that really help*? You may get a discounted service as compensation, but will anything REALLY change? Well, BMW wants to shake the dealership experience up a bit. In the customers’ favor. (Read More…)
The Royal Automobile Club (RAC) held its first Future Car Challenge. This was a race from Brighton to London (about 57 miles). The Auto Channel says it was to see who could consume the least during the trip. To keep things fair, the trip consisted of different driving conditions from country roads to traffic jams. Well, the race was done and the results are in. I can now reveal that the winner of the first RAC Future Car Challenge is, (soft) drum roll, please… (Read More…)
A few days ago, I wrote about car sales all over Europe falling faster than a…..erm……really fast thing. I also wrote how this didn’t bode well for the UK car market. Well, the figures are in and, unfortunately, I wasn’t wrong – this time. It’s pretty bad. New car registrations fell 22.2 percent in October. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) also said that further declines are likely for the rest for the year. Oh goody(!) Looks like I’m going to have to find more words for “dropped”.
Shall we take a look at the carnage? It’s not for the faint of heart. (Read More…)
No story should ever start, as this one does, with “my First Rover Metro.” The implication that there are more Metros to come is all too obvious, and could probably be best categorized as a “cry for help.” In any case, my first Rover Metro was a teal 1995 1.1L Kensington edition, purchased for £60 from a friend in Bishop-Stortford. The Kensington edition meant I got shards of carpet over the door panels, and the kind of pizzazz that only an engineer from Coventry would be able to come up with. The Metro lasted only 19 hours in my hands before a brake failure led to its demise into the back of a yellow Hyundai. My second Rover Metro was a 1997 Tahiti Blue 1.1L Ascot edition*, which meant I got full wheel covers and blue piping in the velour. This only accelerated my descent into the world of English motoring, where I found joy and fulfillment in the death rattle of a Rover K-series engine.
*astute readers will recall that both vehicles are technically Rover 100’s, but are always remembered in pop culture as the Metro.
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