Scaremongering

No, not Fox News for once. Although they do cover this story, unusually for them they go with a headline that immediately reassures. Maybe they are still reeling from Obama's success so haven't got back to their vitriolic best yet.

The headline that grabbed my attention was in caradvice.com.au and reads "Toyota Prius joins Fisker Karma in Hurricane Sandy fire troubles"

Their story seems to add fuel to the fire (intentional pun usage) of the worries that electric cars can spontaneously combust.

Fisker have had a few issues with car-fires in the past which pleases the right-wing, Fox News watching, Oil-Industry tycoons but these have been identified and resolved.

Not sure if these non-electric ones have been yet although I have heard glue may be at fault.

Anyway, the caradvice site refers back to The New York Times home of this brilliant quote: “We can’t be certain exactly what happened at the port,” Russell Datz, a Fisker spokesman, said in a telephone interview. “But we think being submerged in 13 feet of saltwater had something to do with it.”

These latest fires do not seem to be connected to the fact that Fiskers and Prius's (what is the correct plural there?) are electric or hybrid so restraint is needed. Otherwise, this brilliantly eloquent man needs to get on the case:

I found him on the Car&Driver site when I read this excellent article which coincidentally mentions electric car fires and Toyota. I'm not sure why he has a European number plate in his picture but his rant is perfect - I could easily imagine Lewis Black coming up with it - and if you don't know who Lewis Black is, look him up on YouTube and prepare to hear some swearing.

So, in summary, don't park your electric car in the sea and, most of all, as the great Clive Dunn who passed away yesterday would say, "Don't Panic!! Don't Panic!!"

Fox Speculate On Killing President

Killing Lincoln to be precise - This is a car blog after all.While I'm sure Fox News will continue to character-assassinate President Obama, this story of theirs today is about Ford possibly killing Lincoln. This is on the back of earlier this year when they (and then I) reported about a Lincoln MKZ show-car literally smoking and back in 2010 when Ford announced the end Mercury.

All that Jim Farley, Ford's group vice president of marketing and sales would say is "Stay tuned!"

Now President Lincoln was killed in Ford's Theatre while President Kennedy was killed in a Lincoln. See the Ford link? But then again, President Ford survived his own presidency and lived a very long life afterwards.

Quite a fusion of coincidences to focus on there.

Left, Right?

Back at the start of Summer, I posted about Alexei Sayle becoming a motoring correspondent with The Daily Telegraph.I think I don't particularly like his motoring writing - his latest piece, on the Paris Motor Show, is quite short and quite vague. It does, however, really wind up a small number of Telegraph readers who like to vent their spleen in the comments section. This amuses me very much and I enjoy their annoyance.

I have made the point myself in the past that the better motoring columns tend to be found in the more obnoxious right-wing media - Fox News, The Telegraph and The Mail.

But, then again, I hadn't really looked in the left-wing media.

So I took a look in The Mirror.

I did find two of my favourite correspondents, Richard Hammond & Quentin Willson. But overall, it is quite a disappointing site and very rarely updated - it's had the same couple of stories including one about an electric car called "The Lightning" on its header for at least three weeks now - and some very intrusive advertising.

Socialist Worker doesn't appear to have a motoring section.

I think they should.

Now, who on Earth could they possibly get to be their star guest motoring correspondent?

Hot New Lincoln

Literally.Well it looks nice enough - but not enough to using words like "Hot".

This is the new concept car, the MKZ, from Lincoln. Lincoln being the only posh brand owned by Ford since they said bye-bye to Mercury. And it looks like Lincoln are being allowed to produce their own designs and products rather than just re-badging existing Ford ones.

I found this car report on the Fox News site:

Now, I can't stand Fox News - or anything really with Murdoch's grubby paws on it - but I was curious as to what they were making of the current Republican primaries with their favourite Tea-Party-friendly candidates being beaten by Romney who they wouldn't want to be slagging off too much just in case. That was when I found that report and was soon bored watching it by the little Australian man using lots of management-speak.

I didn't think too much more about it until a day or two later when I read this report in Autoguide.

Here's the video:

Well that just takes the biscuit - the Lincoln Biscuit.