In 1969 a film that would represent the English culture at that time would be unleashed to the public, one that even today has a bigger following than back then. The stars were not Micheal Caine or Noel Coward but in fact 3 mini coopers painter read white and blue. These Minis would take on the might of the Italians, but because most of it was filmed at the Fiat factory in Turin, you will only see a Fiat in a good scene.
The Mini was born in the late 50’s but not seen as popular until the fuel crisis of the 60’s, then when big stars started to be seen in them, the country then followed, making it one of the most popular British cars ever. But with just about all of British made cars, they were either sold off to another foreign manufacturer or just disappeared.
The German connection is that BMW bought Rover who owned Mini and then made the new Mini popular again. Although it looks similar and has similar handling, everything else is different, from size to engine power. It was great to see the Mini back again, but most Brits would have preferred it had been done by a British owned manufacturer.
Of course the new mini inspired a sort of remake of the Italian job, but even with a few English actors it just did not make the grade for use traditionalists. This year sees the 40th anniversary of the original Italian job and many motoring programmes are doing stories an the old min and how it won Rallies etc. For me I wait for the proper remake of the Italian Job or maybe part 2, where we see what happened to the gold.
Of course it is Top Gear that is internationally known and keeps millions of motoring fans glued to the TV set on Sundays during certain times of the year. But often we forget about good old Fifth Gear, which originated from the original Top Gear Team when BBC pulled the plug some years ago.
Although it isn’t known worldwide like Top Gear, probably because channel 5 does not have a worldwide service, it should not be discredited as not worth watching. In fact Fifth Gear seems to bridge the gap between testing cars we can afford to those we just dream about, where Top Gear is firmly in the supercar, let’s dream department. Even so its track tests and humour are well worth the investment of 1 hour of your time, as Tiff Neddell, Jason Plato and team get to grips with fast cars and talk about safety issues, without the Laurel and Hardy comic scenes we see on the BBC.
The new series kicked off with the guest appearance of David Coulthard ex Formula One driver, testing out a racing super van. We were all routing for David but it seems Tiff had more practice. Fifth Gears popularity has been confirmed a few years ago when the broadcast time went from 30 minutes to 60 minutes, proving there is more than one motoring show that can be popular.
Anyway to get you in the mood, here are some behind the scenes stiff from Fifth Gear, something to do with a VW challenge.
The figures for car registration have been released and saw a 24.8% decrease in new registrations over the same month last year. However some see this as a positive thing as private sales only dropped around 13% suggesting the £2000 bonus for scrapping a car over 10 years old may have had some affect. Then we consider we are measuring new registrations not purchases and that the scrappage scheme did not tart until 18th May it is possible to conclude that the real effect of this can not be measured accurately yet.
There are still mixed opinions coming in from the media. You will find customer who has traded her old car and gained money and then another who does believe there is much difference in prices than before the scrappage scheme.
As usual it is difficult to try and guess what the car buyer will do. On one hand high street shops say sales are down, but out of town DIY stores like B&Q are doing well and there was a little rise on house prices. So where the new car buyer fits in with this is anyone’s guess
It is normal to be able to buy cheap gifts every time to fill up with petrol at garages throughout the UK and the Total UK petrol stations are no different. Gifts can vary from cheap maps to solar lights, providing you buy so much fuel. But total we saw something different to the normal offers, 14 days free breakdown cover with the purchase of 30 litres of fuel.
The cover is called Total Assistance offers an astonishing idea. Continue to fill up with 30 litres of fuel every 14 days and you can continue to have free breakdown cover. Apparently you get a unique code which to test with your registration of car to a number, which activates your breakdown cover for another 14 days tremendous.
This could be especially convenient for those who do not feel they need breakdown cover for normal daily driving routines but now find they are going on holiday and taken their car with them. Buy buying fuel they could have their 2 weeks of holiday driving covered with this scheme.
For motorbikes it is only 10 litres of fuel, again a great idea if your local garage is Total UK, not so good if you have to travel to find one each time you need petrol. But Total Assistance workd for us.