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Archive for August, 2007
One of my motor racing buddies reckons that the most dangerous form of motorsport is economy driving. “You crawl uphill, belt downhill, and hurtle through villages without slowing for roundabouts and junctions.”
Remembering the last petrol shortage and the antics of local drivers (myself included), I can only agree with him. Drive and Survive, a company which offers advanced driver training, says that drivers who’ve been through their driver training programme improve their mpg by around 22%. Twenty-two per cent? I can do a lot better than that, mate. I reckon I up my mpg by around 100% when I’m seriously worried I’ll run out of juice. Perhaps it would be more environmentally friendly to have long straight roads and no speed bumps.
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Last week I had a ride in the back seat of the new Fiat 500. Now, I agree with all the good things that are being said about the car: it’s a fabulous new creation from the company that has historically made THE best small cars, and it looks truly gorgeous, inside and out. But I have to tell you – after 20 minutes in the cramped back seat, I was desperate to get out. We bumped like a wheelbarrow over every pothole, accompanied by deafening boomy road noise, until my ears hurt and I felt sick. Fab car, crap ride, unbearable booming in the back seat.
Please, please, please can retro cars at least have the option of skinny, high-profile, retro tyres? Skinny old tyres would also give better mpg. And be safer in snow. And be more fun to drive (what’s the point of massive grip on the public road?). And be cheaper to replace. And so on.
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| Chip fat could have weight implications |
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About half of the new cars sold in western Europe are diesel-powered, compared with five per cent in America.
This is because most Americans think that ‘… diesel cars are loud, smelly and environmentally unfriendly’, reports a leading US auto industry magazine. Moreover, claims the publication, Americans do not understand any of the technology that has helped to make low-emission diesel cars so popular in Europe. For all they know, diesel cars run on chip fat.
Listen up, America. Diesel cars do not run on chip fat, or burger oil for that matter. If they did, not only would they be noisy and smelly, there could be weight implications, too.
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I should like to suggest to Iraqi insurgents a novel and humane way to discourage American patrols from driving through the streets of Baghdad.
Instead of home-made ordnance. I recommend roundabouts. Dozens of them, if possible.
According to a recent report in The Economist, American drivers are baffled by roundabouts, and when one is constructed, State Troopers have to be stationed at the approaches to explain the operating principle – time and time again. Yanks just don’t get it, which perhaps explains why fewer than 1,000 roundabouts exist in the whole of North America, compared with 10,000 in the UK and 20,000 in France.
Apparently, Americans find leaving the roundabout the biggest challenge and some have been known to keep circling until they run out of fuel.
I’m not sure how, but the Iraqis seem to have got wind of my idea, at least according to a recent newspaper headline, which read: ‘Americans faced with Iraqi merry-go-round.’
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With one year to go before China hosts the next Olympics, doubts continue to be voiced about the country’s human-rights record.
Yet despite the lingering concerns, western Europe daily consumes vast quantities of Chinese products without batting an eyelid. But if you are one of that small minority who prefers not to support China’s burgeoning economy then consider this: the engine in your next new car might well have been manufactured in China.
Fiat is the latest European auto maker to go shopping for its engines in the People’s Republic. It has just signed a deal that will result in its being supplied more than 100,000 engines a year by a Chinese company – in this case Chery Automobile.
It is impossible to predict just how many European cars will be powered by Chinese engines by the end of the present decade, but you can be certain it will be more than a few. Perhaps now is a good time to start asking the question.
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