Archive for the ‘News’ Category

The Ellesmere Port factory today, yesterday

Following today’s announcement that the next Astra will be built at Ellesmere Port, General Motors has revealed the key determining factor behind the decision – moustaches.

‘It’s a little known fact that car production is at its most efficient when performed by men with moustaches,’ said a GM speakingperson. ‘Moustaches prevent droplets of sweat from building up on the upper lip, reducing by 86 percent the time spent wiping your face rather than continuing to install a dashboard.’

‘For this reason we have traditionally centred car production in Germany due to the continuing social acceptability of the moustache amongst the male population,’ the spokerman continued. ‘Since the end of the 1970s, the UK has fallen way behind in moustache terms and in most regions the moustache is sported only by middle aged gay men and irritating hipsters, neither of whom seem especially interested in assembling cars. However, the managers at our Ellesmere Port plant were able to demonstrate that the Merseyside region is unique within the UK in boasting both a car building skill base and a large percentage of untrendy heterosexuals with moustaches.’

As a result of today’s decision, GM will invest £125m in the Ellesmere Port factory and hire a further 700 men and women with moustaches.

Whilst it’s good news for British car making, the announcement could be bad news for workers at GM’s plant in Bochum, Germany where moustache levels are falling. ‘We believe we can still compete with the Ellesmere Port moustaches,’ said a sprechenherr for the Bochum’s biggest workers’ council. ‘Und also, we still have 14 percent more mullets.’

A Micra, yesterday

Two years ago Toyota was forced to recall thousands of cars following well-publicised problems with brakes and cases of unintended acceleration. Now fellow Japanese car giant Nissan is to issue a similarly far-reaching recall for its popular Micra model.

The recall is in response to a number of observed problems with the Micra including loss of performance causing the car to move much more slowly than surrounding traffic and steering issues which may cause it to be in the wrong lane on a multi-lane road.

There are also suggestions of electrical problems which may cause the car’s indicators to operate too late, not at all or to remain on long after the turn has been made. It’s not yet known if these same electrical glitches are responsible for wipers that stay on the fast wipe setting long after the rain has passed and headlights that fail to illuminate after it has gone dark.

It is certain, however, that alerting the driver to these problems isn’t always easy thanks to serious flaws in windscreens and side windows which make the occupant of the car unable to see the wild gesticulations or hear the angry shouts of other motorists.

To find out how widespread these potential problems are, Sniff Petrol spoke to long-time Nissan Micra owner Rosemary Whasps. ‘You’re not Jimmy. Where’s Jimmy?’ she said. ‘What’s a Micron? I’m 89 you know. Would you like some cake? It’s got cat biscuits in it. I’m 91 you know.’

Meanwhile, Audi has been forced to recall all A3s, A4s and Q7s made in the last five years after accidentally installing a powerful magnet behind the front bumper.

Vauxhall announced today that its forthcoming baby car will be called the Adam, and the company has already outlined the trim levels that will be available on the car at launch.

Starting at a price likely to exceed that of a basic Corsa, the entry-level car will be the Adam ‘Sandler’. Vauxhall says this model will be ‘fun and amusing’ but also ‘quite tedious after a while’. As a result, it will be predominantly aimed at ‘the young, and idiots’.

Above the Sandler will be the Adam ‘Levine’ boasting an offputtingly gristly body which, Vauxhall claims, will ‘encourage onlookers to say, “I don’t care if you move like Jagger, for fuck’s sake put a shirt on”’. Vauxhall insists that, despite appearances, this model will err towards the middle of the road.

For around the same money, buyers will also be offered the Adam ‘Woodyatt’ which promises to maintain exactly the same appearance for over 25 years, though Vauxhall warns that it probably won’t go anywhere in that period either.

Finally, at the top of the range, the Adam ‘Ant’. This model will boast additional exterior trim including frilly wheelarches and an inexplicable white band below the headlamps. ‘Ridicule is nothing to be scared of,’ said a Vauxhall spokesman yesterday.

Sniff Petrol has obtained a secret first draft of the remarkable press release put out by Lotus to deny current speculation about the state of the company. 

Take a little look at what we found online (see left). Don’t you think it’s funny? We do. We had a good old giggle. After all, we love a bit of self belief. Although it’s funny, this one’s not accurate but then again, why let the facts get in the way of a good story? The inconvenient truth is – surprise, surprise – we have never said that there are no lunatics at Lotus.

So whilst lots of people obviously feel the need to comment on Lotus’ current situation in the absence of proper facts or evidence, we can’t ignore these particular mistruths any longer even if we would like to, so we have decided to turn a negative into a positive and use this hilarious piece of ‘arse’ to set the record straight regarding the status quo at Group Lotus and try to return a little stability to a fast changing situation.

False rumour #1: Dany Bahahaha is no longer taking his tablets.
Fact: Rubbish – Dany Bahahaha still is.

False rumour #2: Dato’ Sri Syed is no longer struggling to release himself from the ropes that tie him to the plastic chair in the cupboard.
Fact: Again rubbish. He still is.

You can thank good old Tony Fernandes for these two. He is out to get us. He is. Last night we heard a noise outside and when we went to look there was no one there. We couldn’t see him but we know it was Tony Fernandes. He is like a fat fox. Perhaps he is frustrated because he owns a Formula 1 team instead of doing the smart thing and just giving his name to various racing teams and then realising he hasn’t got the money to pay for all this shit.

And whilst we’re on the subject of jokes – do you know the latest F1 joke? My dog’s got a stepped nose. How does it smell? It doesn’t. It’s a Formula 1 car. Can someone explain this to us please?

Speaking of F1: It seems that one special so called ‘independent’ source is at the root of the lion’s share of damaging rumours and misleading stories. The delightful Joe Saward which leads us nicely to….

False rumour #3: Joe Saward has a helicopter that can fly to the sun.
Fact: Helicopters cannot fly to the sun.

And unlike some, we don’t want to get too personal, but Joe Saward is a gaylord and he looks stupid in any kind of hat.

False rumour #4: Group Lotus is no longer involved in F1.
Fact: Lotus F1 Team and Group Lotus have rearranged their living room so we can both watch F1 in comfort. We just need to get some money off Genii so we can buy a Sky subscription. In return, they can have the factory. We don’t want it any more anyway. The reception area smells weird.

False rumour #5: Group Lotus is going into administration.
Fact: Rubbish. Administration is a type of succulent plant found in dry regions of southern Europe. How could a company with no money left afford one of those? We couldn’t. Oh. Bollocks.

The simple fact is, and we haven’t denied this – Lotus is going through a very difficult phase at the moment but we are totally over you, okay. Do you understand, we don’t miss you at all. It’s over. We’ve moved on. In fact, we’ve got a date next week with someone we met recently. It’s none of your business who. Do not try to call us. Also, we want that Dido CD back.

ENDS

Inside the new 911, yesterday

Porsche was under fire again this week as British car journalists launched a series of uncompromising attacks on the quality of the new 911’s radio.

‘In one fell swoop they have ruined their most iconic model,’ raged Trent Hammer of Dab Of Oppo magazine. ‘They probably think it’s better to have a radio that sounds clear, but a 911 isn’t a 911 unless the radio is crackly.’

This criticism was echoed by Tred Shuffel of Firm Motorist magazine. ‘Porsche probably believes a normal radio that unobtrusively plays music is somehow better,’ he wrote. ‘They are plain wrong. A 911 should have a radio that is distracting and keeps hissing, just as 911 radios have since the 1960s.’

‘We are sorry that British car journalists feel this way,’ said Porsche’s head of audio systems, Dr Wolf Teeshirt. ‘I can assure them that the 991 radio installation is of the highest quality and it was tested extensively on Nurburgring FM.’

Nonetheless, Porsche has promised that in future it will calibrate all of its radios to suit the tastes of people who borrow its cars for a week rather than actual customers who pay money for them.

There was shock amongst car enthusiasts this week with news that Toyota has changed its mind about making a rear-wheel-drive coupe.

After years of rumours followed by concept cars, spy photos, brochure leaks, the release of production specs and – finally – first drives of the long-awaited GT 86, sources in Japan say Toyota has experienced a sudden change of heart and ‘literally can’t be bothered’ to build the already-announced sports car.

‘We used to be really into this,’ said an anonymous Toyota insider. ‘But then we had a meeting to decide between the GT 86 and a facelift for the Avensis and I think we all surprised ourselves with just how much we’d all rather concentrate on the Avensis. So that’s what we’re doing. Sorry’.

Toyota’s sudden volte-face might sound like bad news for Subaru, their partner in the rear-drive sports car project. ‘Actually, we’re not bothered at all,’ said a senior Subarist. ‘Frankly, we went off the whole idea ages ago. A Subaru coupe with no turbos or four-wheel-drive? We must have been mental to sign that off. We were going to tell Toyota that we’d lost the designs or something but now they’re not bothered either, we can scrap the whole thing and get back to making a series of saloons and estates that don’t quite look right. Sorry.’

Subaru’s stance was reiterated by our Toyot-o-mole. ‘It’s important for us to get back to our roots,’ he explained. ‘Unfortunately, our roots are making extremely ordinary saloon cars rather than acting as a sort of masturbatory aid for helmsmiths. Sorry.’

Toyota has revealed fresh details about the ashtray it will fit in its forthcoming rear-wheel drive sports car, codenamed FT-86. Naturally, the Japanese company wants to keep some details of the ashtray a secret for now, but it has confirmed that the ashtray will be made of plastic and will have a lid.

For the first time, Sniff Petrol can reveal that we were given exclusive access to the ashtray during a top secret Toyota test session back in May. This was very much a development ashtray and key details such as the lift-out insert and the underneath bit were kept under wraps but we were permitted to play with the lid a couple of times and we can report that it had a crisp, short travel action and felt highly responsive. The ashtray engineers were keen to stress that they still had work to do on the texture of the lid but on the evidence we saw it seemed to be quite nice, even though we weren’t allowed to look at it directly.

Meanwhile Subaru, the lead development partner in the FT-86 project, has let slip some tantalising details about the door pockets that will be fitted to its version of the exciting new coupe. A spokesman claimed that these pockets will be slightly more accommodating than those fitted to Toyota’s version of the car and will be capable of taking ‘just under one bottle of water, a sunglasses case and a load of old sticky parking tickets that have gone a bit curly’.

Toyota is not saying anything about its car’s door pockets but has promised that next week it will reveal some exclusive details concerning the FT-86’s upper seat belt mounting point adjustment knob. A Toyota spokesman later denied that his company was revealing the FT-86 ‘too slowly’ and that there was ‘no need’ for them to stop pissing about and just show us the fucking car.