Sniff Petrol issue 27

There were red faces at Vauxhall this week after the company was forced to admit that it tricked the actor Ed Harris into appearing in the recent ad campaign for the new Vectra. Observers were surprised that such an esteemed actor would agree to appear in an ad for such a mediocre car and it now appears that in fact the Hollywood star was duped by wily advertising bosses. 'Jeez, we've been done pretty bad here,' squawked Rancid Weaselburger, a spokesman for Harris's agent. 'We were told that Mr Harris would be starring in some sort of sequel to The Truman Show and he was real excited about the project. I mean, it seemed so plausible. It was a story of an alternate universe where an ugly and dynamically average car could be considered worth fighting for. It's not like that would happen anywhere but in some spooky and sick world created by malignant masterminds.' Sources say the beardy actor is now trying as best he can to put a brave face on the fiasco. 'Well hey,' Weaselburger parped. 'At least he wasn't in that stoopid Citroen advert with the fighter plane in it.'

There were red faces at Mitsubishi this week after it was revealed that an error in translating the name of a forthcoming model from Japanese to English has resulting in a sweary mess. The rude blooper came to light when a delegation from the company's American importer flew to Japan for a preview of a new saloon range and were proudly told that it was to be called the Mitsubishi Happy Happy Nice Big Cock. 'Apparently in Japanese it means something to do with excellence and dynamics,' said Mitsubishi Motors North America spokesfella Twat Beefburger. 'I guess they didn't realise that in English it's kinda rude.' Mitsubishi's Japanese marketing team were reported to be highly embarrassed by the slightly offensive badging balls up but claimed that there was nothing they could do to change it. Under an obscure Japanese copyright law known as the 'Kichiwan Oba' or 'Suck my face off, lady' once a company has registered a name for a given product it must use it for at least three years. In an attempt to placate the flustered Stateside guests Mitsubishi bosses immediately directed them towards a lavish buffet which included such delicacies as 'Old Man Head Flakes' rice biscuits and 'Smiley Weasel Spunk' premium strength beer.

There were red faces at Ford this week after it was revealed that the company's embarrassing sale of the Kwik Fit chain for barely one third of what they paid for it is just the tip of a fiscally inept iceberg. Here is an list:
- BMW 745i bought for evaluation from dealer in Cologne for 80,000 Euro. Sold two months later to man in bar for 23,000 Euro.
- McDonald's cheeseburger and fries bought for engineer's lunch during hot weather testing in Nevada at cost of $1.99. Sold immediately to engineer from DaimlerChrysler for 25c.
- Copy of Kylie Minogue's latest album Fever: Bought for �13.99. Sold three days later to Richard Parry-Jones's mate Steve for �4.20.
- Picture of Wolfgang Reitzle kicking a spaniel to pieces, estimated value to German tabloid newspaper 1000 Euro. Pointlessly thrown into a river.

There were red faces at Auto Express this week after it was revealed that Britain's thinnest and shiniest motoring magazine had run out of exclamation marks. The shortfall was discovered during a weekly punctuation stock take and its announcement spread panic throughout the editorial team. 'Oh my God!' one staffer reportedly wailed. 'How are we going to make the intros to all our news stories seem really trite and cheesy?' More experienced Auto Express hands immediately began to make contingency plans which revolved around making the headlines even more pun-laden and dreadful or, failing that, buggering off to be become a PR person.
The exclamation mark crisis is believed to have been caused by an accident on the M4 near Reading which involved a punctuation delivery lorry carrying a fresh consignment of hackneyed sentence conclusion points. The crash rendered the lorry undriveable and strewed exclamation marks across a wide area causing an outbreak of shouting in the nearby village of Theale.
Sniff Petrol tried to ring Auto Express staffer Dan Strong for further comment but he wasn't there.

Sniff Petrol, the car-based amusement interweb site which accidentally celebrated its 100th anniversary this month, has been forced to admit that the launch of the Ford Focus RS has resulted in a sudden shortfall of easy and predictable jokes. To date the orange coloured motoring stupidity webernet site has made over four billion jokes about the non-appearance of Ford's oft-rumoured performance flagship and sources say that they hoped the car may never appear, allowing gags at its expense to continue forever. However, with the RS now released to the press and on sale within weeks that isn't to be. Those close to the fortnightly auto smirk ninterwebernet site say that unless another manufacturer announces a new model and that takes fucking ages to actually get round to making it they may have to actually think of some new jokes instead.