The Good, The Bad and The Ugly...and The Beautiful and the Blobby

All, and when I say "All", I Mean "ALL" of the car press today are going on about the 2013 Geneva Motor Show.  The show opens on Thursday in, of all places, Geneva.

But they've let the press in already.

Very much as I'd love to be there with them, I cannot be for various reasons including work commitments, family commitments, finances, logistics and the fact that I'm not a real journalist.

So I have to pick apart what they are all reporting.

Let's start with the good. That would be The Mitsubishi CE-MiEV.

This is the much-better follow-up to the i-MiEV.  Autocar cover it here.  It is an electric car with better range and recharging times than the i-MiEV but still not as good as the Silex Power Chreos.

 

Most importantly, though, it doesn't look stupid like the i-MiEV - actually, I think it looks a lot like a Prius.  But not as good looking as Mitsubishi's other offering at the show, the GR-HEV:

A futuristic- looking  hybrid pick-up with a one-tonne payload.

 

OK, so that's the "good", evironmentally friendly and all that, now for the "bad".  I don't mean "bad" as in "not good", I mean "bad" in the Michael Jackson way.

 

Now, I don't mean "Michael Jackson way" as in the dodgy allegations that saw him in Court, I mean the "Michael Jackson way" as in the 1987 album he called "Bad".

 

Now that's clarified, I expected the "baddest" car at Geneva to be the McLaren P1 but it seems to have had the headlines taken off it by the Rolls-Royce Wraith. 

Here's one of Autoguide's stories on it. It is described as the most powerful Rolls ever. I'd say it would be a bit of a Bentley-worrier. They claim it's in a different price-bracket but I think it's a lot more attractive and should appeal to the Cheshire set - it's only the suicide-doors that I don't like. It also has a neat headlining inside which looks like a starry sky at night. It has been done before but will give that "out in a cabriolet on a warm Summer's evening" feeling that everyone loves so much.

 

Don't they?

 

Oh well, even so, it does look appealing.

 

Which brings me neatly round to...

 

...THE UGLY!

Not sure what the man in the photo is doing.  That thing is a Toyota i-Road.  It's an electric three-wheeler, two-seater much in the vein of the Renault Twizy.  And the glass doors means it shares a problem with the Twizy in that people will be able to see you driving it.  I've read a few reviews of the Twizy being tested in the UK and each time the reviewer has commented about derogatory remarks being shouted at him.  Now I can't possibly condone such action. 

 

But I can well understand it.

 

Now to "the beautiful".  When I read this article in caradvice.com.au about the ItalDesign Giugiaro Parcour concept, I immediately thought of  the Silex Power Chreos in as much as it is a pretty, computer-generated car:

However, if this is vapour-ware, it is very solid because here are some people having a good, close look at it...

I think it is gorgeous and very reminiscent of the supercars of my childhood in the '70s.

 

That was a time when ItalDesign were doing their only other work that I am aware of - ie, the squaring off of the Morris Marina to produce the Morris Ital:

Also, the peak time for Ford to be producing the Escort.  I keep thinking they've started again because I keep seeing stories about this car at Geneva:

It's the Ford EcoSport - which looks like "Escort" when you're flicking through car stories.  This car looks nothing like an Escort, though. It looks like a tall Ford Kuga - the Ford Kuga it will be replacing as opposed to the bigger "World Car" Ford Kuga that seems to have replaced the outgoing Ford Kuga here in The UK.  Confusing eh?

 

So, in summary, that's the 2013 Geneva Motor Show.  You don't need to go now.

Car-Loss Tevez

Am I missing something here?

This BBC story today reports on Manchester City's Argentinian striker being banned from driving for ignoring two speeding tickets. His Hummer was clocked doing 39mph in a 30mph zone in March and clocked again doing 66mph in a 50mph zone in May.

He claims he wasn't driving.

He may well not have been. He has been photographed with a driver. Good job since he doesn't appear to have a valid UK Driving Licence. If he was driving, he wouldn't have been insured.

He also claims that he did not respond to the letters because he didn't understand what they were - he didn't know the English word "constabulary". Also possible - I'm sure he would have been taught stuff like "offside" and "man on!" first.

Only thing is, he has had some dealings with the constabulary before.

The BBC tells us that his Porsche Panamera was impounded in Manchester in November as he could not produce a full UK driving licence. Three years ago, his Bentley Continental GT Speed was impounded in similar circumstances.

The BBC go on to inform us that "As an Argentinian driving licence holder, Tevez is permitted to drive in Britain for the first 12 months of his stay in the country, but is then required to apply for a provisional licence and pass the UK driving theory and practical test." His lawyer informs us that "the theory test will be problematic for Tevez as it is normally conducted in English." Since Tevez joined West Ham in 2006 and he's played in Britain ever since, his 12 months is well and truly over - or does it get reset every time he visits Argentina? I don't think so somehow.

Surely they allow interpreters into driving tests and surely, since 2006, he has picked up enough English to answer some driving questions.

But that isn't what I'm missing here.

What I'm missing goes back to 2011 and this story. Then, he admitted driving at 38mph in a 30mph zone in his Bentley.

So what happened about his driving licence? Supposedly it had three penalty points added.

But what to?

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...

The new Bentley Mulsanne goes on sale next Summer.

Unfortunately, it will cost about a quarter of a million pounds and it looks like the existing Arnage but with an uglified front...

For that sort of money, if you like ugly cars, you could get 15 Fiat Multiplas or 34 Perodua Kenaris.