Lots of Fun

Car lots of fun? This amusing article on the Car&Driver site highlights the secret language used by salesmen working on America's car Lots.

Now Arthur Daley here also had his own patois used on his car lot:

But that was just Cockney - Corblimey Mate! Luvaduck. Beales - Don't talk to me about Beales!

I've been meeting a few car salesmen lately.  Never a car saleswoman - do they exist?

My wife is after a new (or newer) car - it all follows on from the little yellow light that appears in a photo in my earlier post about the MOT test.  So far we've visited (in order of appearance) our local Toyota, Mazda, Hyundai and Ford dealers for test drives.

At the moment, my wife is being "up" while I am being "Third Baseman".  However, I'm not very good at this.  When she has finalised her choice, I will switch to being "Paperboy" - a role I recently played while purchasing our new family computer.  I wasn't very good at that either.

I have seen a couple of "Lot lizards" and would wish them well with "de-horsing" given the condition of my wife's current car - but that doesn't tend to happen in Britain anyway - if they want to keep you in the place, they make you a hot coffee and you are supposed to feel guilty if you don't finish it.

If you want to understand the past two paragraphs, and this clever illustration...

...you will need to read the article.

However, if you want to understand Arthur Daley, and maybe spend some sausage and mash on a new jam-jar, then this site may be more useful.

Airmiles

Next time you're on one of these...

...you might be able to buy one of these...

This short story from Bloomberg states that a Chinese Airline, Spring Airlines, plans to start selling Chinese cars as early as next month.

“We wanted to start in-flight sales a few years ago, and decided cars are suitable for our passengers,” said spokesman Zhang Wu’An. “Car sales are very popular in Shanghai and our passengers can have time during their flight to study details of the models available.

Car sales on flights will initially be available on flights from Shanghai and could be introduced to other flights", Zhang said. "Flight attendants will be trained on the car details, while passengers may be eligible for discounts", he said.

They would need to be - in my experience, anything bought on a plane costs a lot more than anything bought on the ground. Here's a Thomson in-flight menu. £3.80 (approx €4.30 or $5.70) for a SMALL can of Bud!

They don't claim to know which cars they would be selling but they have stated that they will be a Chinese brand, hence my picture of a Chery QQ but now that MG and Volvo are both owned by the Chinese, who knows?


Maybe the idea will spread.


Ryanair could do it.


But you'd have to pay extra for the wheels and engine.


And the car you bought would always take you miles away from your destination.