Michelin Tyre Takeaway

I was fortunate enough to be one of the winners of the Michelin winter tyre testing day at Silverstone, offered up on PetrolBlog last year. The idea being that Michelin were going to show me just how important winter tyres were, however learning anything about tyres was going to be a challenge with delightful Porsches to be distracted by. I’ll save writing about the cars ‘till later, and MajorGav has already gone into detail about Porsche’s experience centre here.

Extended Play: A week with the Hyundai i10 Active 1.2

 Hello world, it’s been a while.  Various other commitments have distracted me from writing for some time now but I will now mark my return to posting things here with the first new car review to be featured on this website. However anyone eagerly expecting a car as interesting as some featured in Trader Dreamer’s will be disappointed I’m afraid.

Why Theory? Around the web: Rover 45 TD

Having put a sizeable dent in the side of my Rover 200 Coupé, the hunt was on for a new car. The first car I looked at was a Mk3 Golf GTI 8v, but despite it having comparable performance to my 200 coupe, insurance said no  - ‘we don’t insure under 21s on any GTI’. With that out of the window speed was of the essence, I needed a car for work and I started looking at everything. Except not everything, liking my cars as I do it had to be something reasonably interesting. As luck would have it a bargain priced Rover 45 TD caught my eye and warranted a look. 

Read on?

Trader Dreamer: Vauxhall Vectra Special

This week a one owner, high mileage Vauxhall Vectra has grabbed my attention. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this is an ex-minicab, but fortunately this Vectra is much cooler than that. This Vauxhall barge is in-fact ex police, and it’s called a Special because it is. Beneath that un-impressive exterior lies a turbocharged 2.8 V6.

A Vectra V6 Special in Service - Photo from Trojan631

Can Ford build an Audi?

The September 5^th issue of Autocar contains a very interesting interview with Ford CEO Allan Mulally - a man who managed to turn the fortunes of both Boeing and Ford for the better. He must now face the same challenge that all automakers are sweating over – a contracting market dominated by Volkswagen with their easily scaled, high profit, MQB platform. Autocar’s Steve Cropley asks the difficult question; ‘How come Volkswagen is doing so well in Europe’. Mulally points out that they do exceedingly well in their home market as well as China going on to say, ‘the VW Group is mostly VW and Audi. The Volume is VW, but most of the profits come from Audi’.

‘The Volume is VW, but most of the profits come from Audi’

Trader Dreamer: A2 and Laguna, now in brown!

Brown, I keep going on about it and I don't intend to stop anytime soon. In a world which looked very much in danger of being taken over by white cars, we need a new fashionable colour. The car manufacturers seem to agree with me (nothing to do with the fact that it's hard to charge extra for white I'm sure) and cars just keep on launching in this fetching colour. The CLS Shooting Brake is just one recent example.