December 2008 Archives

As we head towards the end of yet another year and coincidentally the premiere celebration of the Gregorian calendar, my birthday, I am determined to shine a positive light on these dark times.
We may be plagued by financial worry, domestic turmoil and the traditional festive invasion of the Gaza Strip but let's not let such small matters get us down.

The old cliche is changing. The are now three, not two, certainties in life; death, taxes and motoring fines.
Plod may be given the power to hand out fixed penalty tickets to drivers for de care and attention offences. Obviously using his skill and judgement.
In effect this mean that should a patrol turn up at a minor shunt, the sort where you used to swap details and leave it to Grasp, Twist and Wriggle, insurers to the stars, you may get a ticket.

So that was 2008. What leapt in as year two of the Crossover limped out as year zero of the car industry. Crossover? More like crossed fingers.
Hippy-kind and sustainable Luddites will be dancing naked around their solstice beanburgers as the economic Apocalypse Now overtakes anything that could be achieved though the taxation of personal choice and the ranking of 4x4 owners on the vilification top-twenty somewhere between Bernard Madoff and Shannon Matthews' mother.
And it all started so quietly. By February oil had dropped from $100 a barrel to $90 but petrol was still £1.10p at the pumps and a duty hike was in train. If this didn't rank as a hate crime against motorists it was certainly close to sexual assault. What else do you call having your pants pulled down for a public spanking?
Still, at that point, the credit crunch was a breakfast cereal, the Bishop of London was yet to call on car driving sinners to go for a low carbon Lent and nobody could have predcted that the cost of fuelling a car would, by summer, be chasing the Zimbabwean rate of inflation. In the drag race to madness the tyres were barely warm.
A good point to go live to the Formula One grid. Entertaining? Oh yes. If you thought S&M was dyslexic for Marks and Spencer you know better now. The only way the tugging and shoving of the track season could have been improved was if Max Mosley's home videos had been shown while the safety car was out. Any complaints? Only one, they gave Sports Personality of The Year to a cyclist. That's like making a lollipop lady Playmate of the Month.
The criminalisation of the motorist continued apace. A survey found 80% of the cash raised from cameras - £85million a year - is going on even more speed cameras. And a new device was announced that could detect blow-up dolls in the passenger seat. Is nothing sacred?
And what of the cars? Well, the Crossover revolution continued with some good, some bad and some no more worthy than cheese string. Small car launches were dominated by the Fiat 500, which was loved by so many it was a Chlamydia risk. For me the tiny tot of the year was Hyundai's i10 which is, frankly, almost too clever for its own play pen.
Cars like the Lamborghini LP560-4 (£147,000), Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe (£300,000) and the Bentley Brooklands (£230,000) gave no hint of what was to come.
Indeed my favourite of the year is also unlikely to fly out of the showrooms in 2009, the Jaguar XF. As British as Chicken Tika Masala and now owned by the Indians, the XF is something we should be proud of. Suitably gentlemanlike to look at and be seen in, it is packed with useful toys it proves you don't have to be German to have a poker up your attitude. However, I didn't really get off on the way the gear selector rose out of the centre console. If I want Reginald Dixon and his organ I'll go to the Tower Ballroom.
Bringing us to the present dire reality of car dealers eating their own shoes, third-pay sabbaticals for Vauxhall workers and families pondering how best to carve a single sprout.
A right thinking man on the Clapham omnibus might imagine some help for the industry would be in order but both Darling and Lord Mantelpiece have fiddled and faffed while doing nothing. What's that funny smell? Rome burning.
In a full and frank December letter to journalists, Dennis Chick, Communications Director for GM Europe, described the current climate as the toughest he had encountered in 43 years in the business. Of course, he didn't work for Vauxhall when it made the Viva E.
A merry wintertide to you all. Don't choke on your innersoles.

Look, I know the French are hardly likely to be top of any Englishman's Christmas card list, what with that nastiness at Hastings and the 2CV but when they protest they do it in style.
Yes, yes, all pretty damned annoying when you are stuck with the caravan on a Stena ferry while angry onionists blockade Calais with blazing cod, however they can teach us a thing or two.

Three quarters of smokers say their driving is negatively affected by smoking.
Three out of 10 young drivers become aggressive when smoking at the wheel.
60% of young drivers become distracted when they light-up.
Many people in Bethlehem struggled to grasp the concept of virgin birth.

So Honda is pulling out of Formula One but why did it ever got involved in the first place?
Car makers lavish millions on GP teams in the hope that some of the dashing glamour of the pit lane will rub off on their products.

I hold no brief for the city of Manchester. Over the years I have made it clear that I am with Mark Twain on this one, the only advantage of living in Manchester is that the transition between Manchester and death would be unnoticeable.
Today, however, I toast rather than roast the good people of Anthony Wilsonburg for they have very possibly struck the first blow in the victory over transport communism.

Further to the news that Britain is as safe as houses, not over-mortgaged ones obviously, I wouldn't suggest for one minute that now is the time to begin making cars from recycled cardboard.
Councils in many rural areas are doing their best to get the UK into line with the rest of Europe by keeping as many gritters off the road as possible, which is good for both climate change and the undertaking community.

Britain has one of the lowest rates of deaths on roads, with 5.4 people per 10,000 being killed, just above Switzerland, which has the lowest, and below Germany.
This is clearly down to wonderful speed camera 'initiatives', motorway gantry advice on how many minutes it is to the Trafford Centre and the smoking ban.

Apparently reality TV shows can turn you insane. Mad as surgical stockings.
However, not half as swivel eyed as Strictly Come Dancing.