Hyundai Veloster

What do you call a donkey with three legs?A Wonkey!

What do you call a car with three side-doors?

A Mini Clubman.

Or, now, a Hyundai Veloster.

There is a first drive report in the latest Top Gear Magazine which again sports a Seat ad on the back cover - normal service has been resumed.

So how does that work then?

Well, if you take a look at the driver's side...... you will see a quite attractive coupe. Hyundai have a history of providing cheap, attractive coupes amongst its range of cheap, unnattractive runabouts.

But look at the other side of the same car......and you see what looks like a compact five-door hatch. Even with the hidden Alfa 156-style door handles, it is obviously equipped with normal-sized, normally-hinged front and rear doors.

The car goes on sale here in the UK in November and should cost between £17000 and £20000 and, unlike the Mini Clubman, will not expect us to deposit our children into the path of traffic as the door configuration will be reversed for right-hand-drive markets.

It shouldn't really matter that either side will look different because, unless you park next to a big mirror, you will never see both sides at the same time - (this was also useful if you lost two wheel trims - you only ever had to buy two new ones even if they didn't match the existing ones because as long as they were on the same side of the car, nobody would be any the wiser)

This car will appeal to yummy mummies on a budget who like the idea of a coupe but want the practicality of a car they can get the children in and out of easily - it is a very good idea that could also have worked on the Range-Rover Evoque of which it has already been commented upon that the three-door is difficult to get in and out of the back of.

Now they just need to sort out the name - Veloster - are they trying to imply velocity? It will be starting with a 1.6 petrol engine which, although fast enough for any town-coupe, isn't a sporting tool. And "velo" to me implies bicycle. Will they call it that in France?

How about they call it The Hyundai Trois-Pattes-âne?

Sat Naff

Yet another story from my new Aussie source www.caradvice.com.au.

Only trouble is - I don't think it's true.

I don't like being let down by my news sources. This comes in the wake of the shock of this month's Top Gear magazine NOT having an advert for Seat on the back page. This must be the first time in many, many years that this has happened. Certainly the All Old Top Gear Magazine from 2004 had a Seat ad on the back. An even older copy I have from 1999 has a Mazda ad on the back but we're talking a minimum of 7-years worth of Seat ads here.

And what have they put there instead? - a flamin' perfume or after-shave ad! I don't take any notice of them - the TV versions are particularly grating. Usually black-and-white and full of very pretentious people you really wouldn't want to meet. Anyone fooled by these ads must be very shallow and very gullible.

Anyway, as Ronnie Corbett would say - I digress.

The story that led me to start wittering on here is about three women who let one of these thingslead them into a lake where they nearly drowned.

It seems far-fetched that even a woman driver (only joking!) would drive into a lake. Even at night, the headlights would show up a large mass of water where a road should be.

The other suspicious thing is that this is supposed to have happened in Washington, Tyne-and-Wear. And yet there is absolutely zero mention of it on the BBC North-East Website, nor on the sites of the Sunderland Echo or Newcastle Chronicle - nor anywhere else on the Global Interweb so how on Earth did a reporter in Oz get hold of the story?

I suppose it does reinforce the need not to blindly rely on Sat-Navs though. It's not as though we haven't been warned...

Not that everyone follows such warnings...
Anyway, what's wrong with good old-fashioned maps and following signs?

Alfa Romeo & Juliet

Looks like the Volkswagen Group are courting Alfa Romeo.

Don't think much of the chat-up line though:
Volkswagen’s Chairman Ferdinand Piech announced in Geneva that the company would be able to almost quadruple annual sales of Fiat’s ailing Alfa Romeo brand.

Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has refused to sell the brand – “As long as I am CEO of Chrysler and Fiat, Mr. Piech will never have Alfa Romeo”

Didn't think it would work.

Autocar are running the story today.

They talk of Alfa failing to meet sales targets but there will be many reasons for this - not least the current economic climate. I've been looking out for the new 11-Reg cars that were let loose on Tuesday and so far, I've only spotted one - it was a Punto though so Sergio should be pleased.

Another reason could still be Alfa's reputation. Saint Jeremy states that you can't be a proper petrol-head unless you've owned an Alfa. I disagree. I've never even sat in one and have no desire to - it's like smoking or sky-diving - I have no desires in that direction. Mind you, out of those three options, the Alfa is the one I am most likely to attempt. Years of reading about Alfa has, maybe wrongly, prejudiced me against the brand - whether it is the seating position that suits Orang-Utans or the woeful reliability or the abysmal customer care - all issues that could be resolved by now for all I know - but I'm not bothered enough to find out.

A third reason could be the looks of the cars. I'm sorry if my view goes against everyone else here, but I think the Mito is downright ugly. I think it's the headlights that do it - they are the wrong shape and too far apart and there's not enough of them.

Compare it with the gorgeous Brera from a few years back:
They seem to have lost the plot along the way somewhere.





Not as badly, though, as when they got into bed with Datsun. Don't be jealous, Herr Piech, their love-child was an abomination combining Japanese style with Italian reliability instead of the other way around.

I am actually quite surprised that VW would want the Alfa brand, the only way I could see it working would be to stick Alfa badges on the Seat range and shut down a few factories and I don't think anyone would want that.

In fact it would be a tragedy.