Red lorry, yellow lorry

Why did Suzuki call its new car something which no native Japanese speaker can pronounce? If we’d not had a written invitation to the press launch earlier this year, I’d have been convinced that the new mini-MPV was called a Sprash.

It’s cruel. A bit like a manufacturer employing an MD with a name like Bernd Pischetsrieder, a let’s-put-British-motoring-journalists-in-their-place-so-they-daren’t-ask-for-an-interview sort of name. At least he’s now firmly out of the pichsture.

Nice one, Rosemary

At what age do we stop wanting to be older and start wanting to be younger? It must be somewhere between 14 and 30, I suppose. So, when I saw a press release about 82-year-old Hugh enjoying the ‘open-air fun of a Daihatsu Copen’, and ‘cruising down to Cambridge’ every week to take his 92-year-old friend Rosemary for a drive, I thought Daihatsu was treading a dangerous line. Because no one over the age of, what – 25? – will want to be associated with this age group. No one under 82 will buy a Copen on the strength of this charming story.

Then I thought again. If, when I’m 95, I still have some bloke turning up once a week to take me out in his open-topped sports car, I’ll feel pretty darn smug.

Right, where’s my nearest Daihatsu dealer…?

I stopped at a service station on the A14 the other week, where they sell hot food over the counter: sausage rolls and so on. In the window was this Food Hygiene Star Rating poster. Take a close look, and you’ll see they scored a two-star rating which, according to the poster, means the service station is ‘Mainly compliant with food safety legislation’.

From this I infer that it’s only occasionally so filthy in its food preparation that it actually breaks the Law.

I had a chocolate bar and some crisps.

The OCD model comes with hygienic wipes and an array of small soaps

I found myself stuck in an airport hotel room the other week, watching daytime TV. On offer was an American cop series based on, of all things, an obsessive-compulsive detective.

Talk about scraping the bottom of the genre barrel. Since the 1970s we’ve had every conceivable variation on the theme: fat detective, dirty detective, racial minority detective, sexy female detective, detective-in-a-wheelchair and alcoholic detective. What’s left? Gluten-allergy detective?

Now I hear that Ford has been given an award for its cars, not on the basis of performance or economy or styling or low carbon footprint – but for their ‘allergy-friendly’ interiors. Before you get all uppity and tell me that, for allergy sufferers, this is mould-breaking stuff, let me point out that I suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder but I don’t see anyone designing cars with hand-washing facilities and little objects to count, adjust and straighten. And what about cars for fat people? Or dirty people? Or alcoholics?

A Bugatti Veyron

That recent news item – about the Mafia-run factory in Sicily building fake Ferraris – made me laugh. Surely a potential buyer would hear the difference between an American V4 and a full-blooded Ferrari V8? Even the Police said the fakes were easily spotted because they have ‘narrower chassis and thinner wheels’.

There was a fake 250 GTO which used to come to Italian classic car events – the last place on earth the ill-advised owner should have shown his face. A collective shudder would go up from the other participants when the car tippy-toed, all tall and deformed, into the display area. People would look away, embarrassed. Except for one chap next to me who muttered, “What a terrible waste of a perfectly good Datsun 240Z.”

Why, oh why, oh WHY did Alfa Romeo gives its gorgeous new sporty supermini such a silly name? First, it was going to be the Alfa Junior, which is bland but inoffensive. Then they decided they didn’t like it, so they held an online poll, asking Alfisti to choose between a list of names which Alfa had come up with. And ‘Furiosa’ won.

But Alfa decided they didn’t like that, either (so why hold a poll?) and called the new car the Mi.To – a name which wasn’t even on the list. And if it had been, it certainly wouldn’t have won. I mean, nobody’s going to vote for My.Toe, are they (which is certainly how all the British punters are going to pronounce it)? Is this toe thing some sort of April Fool’s joke? Sadly, it seems not.

It was the loss of the sensuous styling and sheer good taste of the 1950s and ’60s that fuelled the rise of the classic car movement; but don’t get too misty-eyed.

Here is an advert from Motor magazine, 50 years ago, for the Styla “Western” Spotlight.

Yes, it’s a gun with a bulb instead of a barrel. The advertisement asks: “Are you one of those car owners who like their accessories to have that touch of individuality?”

Indeed, what an individual addition it would make to your Mercedes Gullwing or Ferrari 250 GTO.

Fiat 500: the car so light it floats. Honest.

The Nationwide Building Society is “proud to be different”. I know this, because I’ve seen the adverts on telly. What I don’t know is what it means.

I like adverts that tell you something about the product: it tastes nice, or you’ll lose weight, or Action Man’s eyes swivel back and forth.

Which is why I’m so surprised that I love the Fiat 500’s marketing. It tells you absolutely nothing about the car but I love the fact that you can buy a computer mouse in the shape of a Fiat 500 with lit headlights and a split bonnet for the right- and left-click buttons and everything. I love the ‘video configurator’ on the Fiat 500 website. I love the thought of the little Italian going round and round in the London Eye. It’s fun. And the main thing, the best thing, about the little car itself is that it’s fun. So maybe the marketing is not so nonsensical, after all.

Incidentally, I’ve just looked on Northern Rock’s website to see whether they have the stomach for an irritating platitude and do you know what it says on the home page? “Catch it while you can.” Ha ha ha ha ha…

Economic indicators suggest... we're buggered

As the world economy spirals into a black hole, there are all sorts of economic indicators which apparently herald financial boom or bust. Well, let’s face it, bust. When did you ever see a headline foretelling an imminent boom?

Pictured here is an indicator more accurate than any of yer FT statistics. It’s one small cross-section of my (sad this, I know) motoring magazine archive: the main weekly motoring magazines dating back to about 1940, stacked year by year. You will notice that the piles vary hugely in height. Since the pagination of motoring mags depends solely on advertising revenue, it’s no surprise that there are very small piles corresponding to WWII, and the 1970s oil crisis; huge tomes as we trip merrily through the 1980s before descending to mere pamphlets by the end of the decade…

And what about 2008? Well, a leading weekly motoring mag recently went from ‘perfect bound’ to ‘saddle-stitched’. In non-publishing terms: oh dear.

Modus Tinnitus: instant irritation at the press of a button

A car can be almost perfect, and then some miserable journalist spends a big chunk of his (and it usually is ‘his’) review criticising some tiny detail. Such as the lack of a footrest in the Fiat Stilo. Or the ‘vibrating’ seatbelt when the window is open on the Chevrolet Matiz. I once read a lengthy rant about a ‘bogey’ smeared on the inside of a rev-counter’s transparent cover. Honestly.

 

Well, here’s mine. I’ve been driving the Renault Modus, an excellent small MPV with all sorts of commendable features but it gives me tinnitus. Or so I thought, till I worked out that the faint, high-pitched ringing is coming from the heater fan. Is it just this car, I wonder, or a standard feature on every Modus? Maybe it’s a selling point of the Modus Tinnitus limited-edition model. I don’t know but it’s spoiling my enjoyment of an otherwise desirable car. Still, at least there’s no bogey.