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Wilmslow Motor Show Sponsored by Etihad

I used to live in Cheshire.

Until they moved it.

Cheshire is one of Jeremy Clarkson's least-favourite counties - mainly because that is where a lot of Premiership footballers and their WAGs live.

Wilmslow is a town in Cheshire that is popular with such people.

Today I took my WAG and children along there for the second ever Wilmslow Motor Show Sponsored by Etihad.  They have their own Website.

Being Wilmslow, it had to be posh cars.  There were lots of Aston Martins - mostly new ones - but also this lovely example of a DB5:

There were three examples of the BAC Mono there - not a name that would go down well in America.  These cars look a lot better in real life:

There were a series of cars with their bonnets open.  From the tiny bonnet on this MG SV: 

To the huge bonnet on this Mustang: 

To the gigantic bonnet on this (admittedly rear-engined) Ford GT: 

Dave Newsham's BTCC Toyota Avensis was there: 

 Actually, that isn't true.

Despite this photographic evidence to the contrary.

This is actually Ollie Jackson's car with Dave Newsham's name and number on it.  I spoke to a member of the Speedworks crew who was there with the car.  He told me that the team were still working on the Newsham car after the damage it sustained a fortnight ago in Knockhill.

The Police (The Constabulary, not Sting and his mates) were also there letting children sit in one of their cars.  They also had a wrecked Renault Megane in which a 21 Year-old lad had died.  A woman was there handing out leaflets and telling us the story of what happened.  It was night, he was not speeding, he was very slightly over the drink-drive limit, weather conditions were fair, he lost control going around a bend and hit a tree.  A Doctor travelling in a car in front saw the headlights disappear and went back to see what had happened - he declared him dead at the scene which is why the car wasn't cut open.  The lad's parents donated the car to the Police and it was now being used to highlight how driving inexperience can lead to serious accidents.  It was about this point when the woman revealed that we were looking at her son's car.

Wow.

Sort of makes you think after looking at Lambo's, AMGs, Loti, Nobles, TVRs, Bentleys and the like.

Top Ghia

Two big companies hit the headlines (if you looked at the right sites) this week with announcements about new products.

The motoring press were keen to hear about Ford's new Vignale range which will be a posh-end sub-brand to their standard range. Here's a Mondeo Vignale to be debuted at Frankfurt next week:

It's brown.

 

CarAdvice have the story here while Pistonheads cover it here together with a very cheesy 1980s ad (although it's more like a music video) for Ford RS accessories featuring an Escort from that time.  Just about every motoring site around also has the story with their own take on it - most seem quite negative - especially if you read readers' comments.

 

I can understand why.

 

Ford have always had top-spec cars - usually with the Ghia moniker.  Ghia being an Italian coach-builder/design-house much like Vignale.  In America they used the Mercury brand - until they scrapped it.  Here, they owned Jaguar, Aston-Martin and Volvo - until they sold them all.

 

Ford are suggesting separate facilities within their dealerships for their Vignale customers - that will cost a fair bit and possibly make their existing buyers feel second-rate.

 

Rather than buy a posh Ford, people will just go out and buy a posher brand - BMW being the obvious one.

 

Now, where have I heard that name Vignale before?

 

Ah yes, here:

 

And why Vignale anyway?  Ghia is easier to pronounce.

 

Both have an illustrious history - here are couple of 1950s Abarth Fiats:

 

This is the Vignale. Hmm...

...and this is the Ghia.  The Ghia is moderately less ugly - even with Tweetie-pie's beak.

Of course, Ghia has its own connotations - here's Delboy's "Capri Ghia" as he liked it to be known or "Pratmobile" as Rodney liked it to be known: 

Some of the motoring press are saying that if this actually works, then the sporty Ford-buyer will be offered a sporty sub-brand - the ST - which just brings us back to the RS brand in the Pistonheads video.

 

Now, the other company with a proud, important pre-launch is Samsung.  They seem to like the name Ford is rejecting so let's just hope that there is no confusion between the Ford Galaxy Ghia... 

and the Samsung Galaxy Gear... 

Ferrari Dayto-forget

I heard this story out of Japan on Radio 2 this morning but it wasn't on the BBC Website (probably will be by the time you read this) but Bloomberg had it. Nobody badly hurt though. It was caused by a sixty-year-old who lost control on a wet motorway. He's now under threat of prison.

Maybe it'll make this bimbo from this story in July feel a bit better though. No, it's not Patsy Kensit, it's some anonymous French woman who drove a Bentley into four other prestigious cars in Monaco. And because she was trapped inside the car and it was a convertible, she was soon surrounded by tourists with cameras and camera-phones. There are hundreds of photos all over the Web.

Like this one...

Aston Martin Cygnet

Nooooooo! This is basically a Toyota iQ, built in Britain, with a leather interior, Aston grille and £30,000 price tag.

I can see the logic in that Aston need something with good emissions and economy to offset those of the barges in the rest of the range. They may even be able to tempt away some of the Chelsea Tractor drivers who like the idea of an Aston badge and have to drive through the Congestion Zone to get Tarquin to school.

The Cygnet will have Toyota engines. I don't know if they'll actually have Toyota written on them or not - I'd want "Aston Martin" written on the engine block of any Aston I owned.

The iQ is undoubtedly a very cleverly designed vehicle - not big enough to take four full-sized rugby players like their advert implies - but still very well packaged nonetheless. It costs about £10K to £12K so if I was in the market for a small car, I'd go for a Fiesta instead, or, if I was in the market for a very small car, then maybe an Aygo although that is one sector I don't see myself venturing into for the next forty years or so.