September 2009

Why oh why do we get represented in the media by such idiots. Jeremy Clarkson is for the most part a funny guy but when he is mostly the voice of car fans everywhere it isn’t exactly great. His hatred of words like global warming and climate change and his love of insulting people make us all seem like hedonistic fools and pompous assholes. Now though he has competition from James Martin, of the awful Mille Miglia TV program that was on a while back. He has decided to wade in and ‘joke’ about how he hates cyclists and had great fun scaring them, in a national newspaper! Being a bike user and a car user I know how much each side hates each other and to admit to purposefully driving dangerously towards cyclists in a written article is just plain idiocy.

here is what he actually said in his article (from BBC News, I couldn’t find anything on the Daily Mails site.)

“Knowing they wouldn’t hear me coming, I stepped on the gas, waited until the split-second before I overtook them, then gave them an almighty blast on the horn at the exact same time I passed them at speed.”

He added: “The look of sheer terror as they tottered into the hedge was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my rear-view mirror.”

After causing quite a lot of controversy and sparking a lot of complaints from cycling groups he then issued this apology.

“Regarding the The Tesla Roadster Article…

May I take this opportunity to apologize for any offence I have caused through the article in last weekend’s Mail on Sunday. It was never my intention to offend the many cyclists who share our roads across the country. What was intended to be a humorous piece was clearly misjudged. Further more I do not condone any form of reckless driving.

Once again, I am sincerely sorry for any upset caused in relation to this article.

James Martin”

Hmm, I think I may have missed the ‘joke’ there. I know I’ll go out for a drive later and try and hurt some cyclists, see if I understand the comedy element then.

Now an apology from me for the negativity of this post and lack of car pictures.

“Regarding the James Martin Article…

May I take this opportunity to apologize for any offence I have caused through the article in today’s blog post. It was never my intention to offend the many James Martin fans who share our roads across the country. What was intended to be a humorous piece was clearly misjudged. Further more I do not condone any form of negativity on the Internet.

Once again, I am sincerely sorry for any upset caused in relation to this blog post.

Loxlee”

See what I did there? I’m a comedy genius!

I cant say much on the car itself, although I have always had a bit of a soft spot for them, but the advert is fantastic

Testament to the builders of the car, the driver wasn’t hurt and lived to tell the tale. Footage of the crash can be found on Youtube

I feel I have been talking about modern cars way to much recently, so I will redress the balance a bit with a tasty retro pic-age.

From Hot Rod

From Speedhunters

From Hot Rod

McLaren are finally producing a new younger brother for the legendary McLaren F1, which is still the fastest naturally aspirated car in the world even after 17 years! A newly assigned wing of the McLaren business called McLaren Automotive has meant a big expansion according to BBC News with the company hoping to produce 1,000 cars to start with but leading up to 4,000 cars a year over with 3 models being available including a entry level 911 rival costing £60,000. The new factory that will be in Woking along with the normal McLaren headquarters will produce 800 jobs, which is always a helpful thing in these times of economic crisis.

The MP4-12C (rubbish name by the way if your reading Mr McLaren boss man) will be powered from a  twin turbo 3.8l V8 engine producing 600 bhp and 433 lb-ft of torque, McLaren show that they are also an eco friendly company and have produced one of the first ever super cars that seems to be concerned with climate change. They claim that the engine has the highest horsepower to CO2 ratio of any car available including hybrid vehicles. A full one piece carbon fibre monocoque construction also means it is very light which helps keep the co2 levels down.

It will be on sale from 2011 and will be between £125,000 and £175,000, I’m pretty sure with the relative low CO2 levels I could get some kind of grant to buy it….

I guess with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix being behind schedule McLaren must have been bored, yay for us!