Sailing. What’s that all about eh? Little white triangles jostling amongst themselves. Ok, that is completely unfair to Britain’s Olympic sailors, even if they might admit the sentiment behind it.
This country has a superb record in competitive sailing disciplines yet the crewmen and crew women remain fairly obscure. This is, I suspect, due to a lack of coverage rather than public apathy.
Here’s where key sponsor Volvo comes in. Ahead of London 2012 it’s just released an app for iPhone and iPad with in depth info on Team GB. The free app is crammed full of images, videos and useful background on the sailing team.
It should now be a breeze (geddit?) to follow Nick Dempsey (windsurfing), Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark (470 class) and Ben Ainslie (Finn) – the latter already a triple gold medal winner across three previous Olympiads.
They - and the other classes of Team GB - have the potential for a serious medal haul in London 2012. Check out the Volvo app and see for yourself.
One commentator over-enthusiastically calls Ainslie “the greatest sailor since Nelson”, a confusing description since (a) I don’t recall Nelson racing around Portland Harbour for laughs and (b) Nelson only had one arm/eye so would’ve been in the Paralympic class.
See? I’m learning already.
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007 has been driving an Aston Martin – on and off – since Goldfinger hit our screens in 1964.
Although everyone’s favourite secret agent is inextricably linked with the great British marque, he’s also famously flirted with Lotus and even BMW along the way.
Some of the more distinctive cars in Bond films haven’t been particularly spectacular though. Remember the tatty yellow Citroen 2CV in ‘For Your Eyes Only’? Or how about that Renault 11 that gets sliced in half during ‘A View To A Kill’ – hardly an Aston Martin, but much more chuckable.
So it’d be nice if Cubby Broccoli and Co opt for something a little more low rent in Bond’s next outing. How about a yellow Tata Nano driven insanely through the centre of St Tropez… preferably with a consignment of chickens in the back, feathers flying everywhere. You get the picture.
Do a supply deal with Tata Motors, and Bond could even trade in his Aston for a Jaguar C-X75. A turbine powered supercar seems strangely fitting for England’s finest…
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In its quest to flog more number plates, the latest auction from DVLA Registrations has a Manchester United player theme.
DVLA Personalised Registrations: “On the day the Red Devils face Barcelona in the Champion League Final, the agency is auctioning UTD 80Y, a personalised registration which would clearly – and literally – enable Rooney to pin his colours to anyone [sic] of his flash cars!”
UTD 80Y (txt spk for ‘United Boy’ - ed) – is a young multimillionaire’s dream at a mere £450, and is just one of 1,500 which will go under the hammer during the three-day auction on Thursday, May 26.
Other exclusives include CEN 50R (‘Censor’), FOR 1T (‘For it’), F4 CTS (‘Facts’), G111 NNY (uhm… ‘Giiinny’?), and MCL 12C (‘Mcl 12c’).
But given the news this week, a more pertinent question might be – what number plate would suit a certain Premiership star who we can’t name for legal reasons?
No doubt he’ll be an anonymous telephone bidder.
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From behind the newsdesk we get to see the launch of a new car follow a well-trodden trajectory.
Over a period of months we are drip-fed a series of in-shadow, out of focus or just plain baffling ‘teaser’ images, sent through for us to try and make sense (or a story) of.
Eventually the car will be revealed at a motor show, simultan
eous to an internet ad and TV campaign. The press then drives the car before it heads to dealerships. Every stage has been carefully planned and takes time and effort (and money.)
It seems strange then that the death of a car can past almost unnoticed. Such as happened to the Alfa Brera recently.
With the end of a production run looming, you think there’d be value in shouting ‘future classic’ from the rooftops?
At the very least Alfa Romeo could’ve assembled the press, built a pyre and burnt the last example, Darth Vader’s body-style.
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“Women make the safest drivers, we could save a bunch of fivers,” chorused the Sheilas, those pink attired faux-Australians.
The Sheilas need a new tune. The European Court of Justice has ruled that under a statute called the ‘EU Gender Directive 2005’, insurers can no longer set premiums based on gender. (As an aside, this will also affect pension annuities – as women live statistically longer.)
It’s a thorny and divisive issue. Should a man who’s never made a claim pay a higher premium than his twin sister, by virtue of his gender? Yes, as somewhere there’s a bar chart proving the man is more likely than her to crash his car.
What the ECJ ruling highlights is the limitations of statistics: insurers can only assess the risks based on broad categories of people. Calculating individual likelihoods of a claim would be unworkable. It will be interesting to see if this paves the way for more rulings, such as those based on age.
In the meantime, companies like Sheilas’ Wheels are busy backtracking: “Sheilas’ Wheels has always insured men but most males simply aren’t attracted to our brand,” a spokesman said. Hmm, can’t imagine why…
Not that this ruling will worry car insurers. No doubt they’ll simply raise female premiums to the level of male ones. That’s equality for you.
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Is Clarkson a motoring journalist, TV presenter, entertainer or a comedian? Perhaps all four, although Steve Coogan has his doubts about the latter category, following a recent Top Gear gag. In case you missed it, Hammond said a Mexican car would be “lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus,” while May described the food as “sick with cheese on it.”
Note that Clarkson didn’t actually say either of these things himself, which is the first part of the problem. Top Gear’s successful presenting team adheres to the Harold Ramis rule of comedy teams: there should be “the brains, the heart and the mouth.” It worked beautifully in Ghostbusters, but increasingly on a Sunday night there seem to be three mouths. Clarkson is in danger of being overshadowed.
But the second and bigger problem is that Top Gear started life as a factual programme, only later finding much better traction as a mildly subversive comedy. I’m struggling to think of any other TV programme that has followed this trajectory. Trawl some internet forums and its clear not everyone understands the shift; that Top Gear’s chit-chat is scripted and impromptu mishaps are planned in minute detail by a production team. By the same token, opinions expressed in the show are there for comic effect and not necessarily the presenter’s own.
Which begs the question, what is Clarkson? Is he a character, a la Coogan’s Partridge, an awkward caricature like David Brent?
Perhaps Jeremy should ‘out’ himself as a classically trained actor called Brian who invented ‘Clarkson’ at boarding school in the 1970s. Nobody would take him seriously anymore, but perhaps that’s what he needs.
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We road tested the Nissan Navara recently, and found it to be a hugely capable – if slightly crude – piece of kit. Watch the video to see how large the Navara truly is.
These gargantuan pickups seem to be everywhere at the moment, perhaps as they blend the comfort of a large 4×4 with a huge load space. Not to mention that as a commercial vehicle the 20% VAT is reclaimable.
Besides the Nissan Navara, current offerings include the Toyota Hilux, Mitsubishi L200, Mazda BT-50, Ford Ranger and Isuzu Rodeo.
But now Volkswagen wants a piece of this market with an all-new model called the Amarok. The company chose the London Boat/Outdoors show to preview the car last weekend.
Up close the Amarok looks equally well made, comfortable and capable as its rivals. Incredibly, it appears to be even larger… even putting some boats in the shade.
We’re planning to test the VW Amarok when it goes on sale in the UK in April.
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Audi has this week posed an interesting question: what should electric cars sound like?
I’ve driven the Tesla Roadster, MINI E and Renault’s ZE cars and loved the near-silent whirr of the motor. But the stealthy approach of an EV is a menace to pedestrians, apparently (don’t they look before crossing anymore?)
Forging ahead with development on its e-tron range, Audi has employed special ‘acousticians’ to tackle the problem of silent and near-silent cars.
First idea was something that sounds broadly similar to a combustion engine – but why make your lovely new car of tomorrow sound like the car of yesterday?
Asked to describe the noise a car of the future should make, like me you’d probably think of a humming klaxon (a la George Jetson’s car), or the Theremin from Forbidden Planet.
Audi has tried all that, and is now experimenting with more ‘natural’ noises: not as silly as it sounds, when you remember that nature often influences design in the first place.
I plan to load my Mitsubishi Lancer EV’s noise unit with ‘basking shark’ effects. With a barking dog horn.
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London’s hippest and coolest were in Central London last night, at a launch event hosted by MINI. We were there too.
Promised a true ‘MINI product launch’, supermodel Agyness Deyn was hungrily avoiding the canapés, electropop star Little Boots was the DJ, with BMW design chief Adrian Van Hooydonk as MC.
The big unveil turned out to be not just one vehicle but three… electric scooters, no less. One was electric ‘MINI E’ green and yellow, another British Racing Green, with the third a special English ‘mod’ edition, complete with roundel. Strap on the beaver’s tail and Brighton here we come.
Tying-in to MINI’s cars, Mr Van Hooydonk focused on the latter two-wheeler, remarking on the scooter’s “Britishness”. In Quadrophenia terms he’s justified, although Vespa and Lambretta might have something to say about scooter origins.
Nonetheless, the three concepts all sport the typical design cues and retro touches synonymous with the MINI brand. And with ‘E’ badging and plug-in battery power, offer a ready route into electric mobility that the prototype MINI E car currently can’t provide.
In terms of brand ‘lifestyle’ then and as a cheaper route to MINI ownership, the scooters are likely to see production.
The inevitable ‘Issigonis will spin in his grave’ brigade will be along in a moment…
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I was lucky enough to be a guest of Renault at its Z.E. roadshow in London earlier this week.
The first two (of four) electric zero emission, or Z.E. models were formally introduced, along with a detailed presentation of the company’s battery-powered strategy.
Later, we had the opportunity to drive the Fluence Z.E. and Kangoo Z.E. van around the streets of London.
Renault is certainly upfront about the advantages and disadvantages of going electric, and is honest enough to admit that “EVs won’t be for everyone.” Yet the company believes up to 10% of car buyers could be tempted into plug-in battery powered cars by 2020.
To facilitate this, a key part of the Z.E. strategy is pricing electric cars the same as their combustion-engined equivalents (the Fluence and Kangoo both have conventional siblings.)
Neither loses anything for being electric – the Kangoo ZE has the same loadspace (commercial fleet managers take note), and the Fluence is an utterly usable 5-seat family car. The only compromise is that old EV bugbear: range. Both cars have approximately 100 miles from full, and are fast charge capable in 30 minutes.
So electric cars won’t be for everyone - but to be fair nor are motorbikes, bicycles, or trains. Our travelling lives of the future will be inexorably shaped by crowded cities, pollution and dwindling oil supplies. As this becomes ever more apparent, a mildly compromised car will seem a no-brainer.
In that context, Renault has delivered the most compelling case for electric car ownership yet.
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