Writing about cars calms me. So call me a freak. And maybe Iâve just needed to chill more in this last month as we head into the last few months of the mayoral campaign.
It surprises me that Autocade has reached 1,200 models: 100 in the past month. And since I knew we were about to hit 1,200, then subconsciously I did want something flash to mark that number:
I didnât want a repeat of 1,100 when the Nissan Cherry was the landmark model. (There actually was a miscount, but I wonât go in to that.)
And in the 1,100â1,200 cycle, I managed to find yet another likely error (about a Ford development code) in Wikipediawhich I harped on about over at my Tumblog. As I said in the 1,100-car post, Autocade is not perfect and I find errors in my own work. However, I donât intentionally put wrong information in, and the Wikipedia error with the Ford CE14 code is like saying, in car-nut terms, that Margaret Thatcher was a member of the Labour Party. This error has now propagated all over the internet so that, if Wikipedia editors were to check, they would find plenty of pages to support a mistake of which their site could have been the source.
As news emerges that teenagers have spent less time on Facebook, and there are more profiles getting closed on the social network, Sony has released its newest trailer for The Social Network.
After 9-11, itâs time to tell the âotherâ story of the ânoughties. And if Facebook is the topic of a Hollywood ïŹlm, then this could mean it has jumped the shark.
Whatâs next? A new social network where privacy is respected? Or, something more radical?
Modern kids in the first and second world might want that newfangled âreal lifeâ next, because to them, the internet is ubiquitous, not special. So why not balance what was once a novelty to us with what we once found to be normal? As we once said: try it now, do it more, things youâve never done before. The mainstreaming of extreme sports, if you will, simplified to basic exercise and enjoying the outdoors. It almost seems new.
Simplicity seems to be âinâ in so many facets of life, whether itâs a netbook without bells and whistles, or the old-shape Audi A4 with SEAT Exeo badging. Somewhere along the line, practicality finally found its place ahead of wank. It can happen in some economic recessions.
Real life: more valuable to the teenagers of the 2010s than we thought. Itâs back in vogue.
PS.: Thanks to Stefan Engeseth for inspiring part of this post.âJY
As some of you know, I was at Cape Kidnappers last week, visiting the Napier area for the first time. (I tried getting there last October, but this was as far as I got.)
It was for the Audi A8 launch, and we at the office had a good laugh at this lovely and kind message that the company sent after the event:
The venue found some clothes in one of the rooms so if you are missing a pair of trousers and a jacket, we have them here.
Maybe itâs my warped sense of humour at this place, but the first thing I said to the team was, âIâm pretty sure I was wearing trousers when I got back on the plane, so it wasnât me.â
The conversation descended from there.
This weekâs humour spot: âSince Blogger/Google is USA based, they support the principles of âfree speechâ and of âinnocence until proven guiltyâ. Even genuine spammers are permitted to speak here, until they cross the line and become disruptive.â
As someone who has had legitimate comments deleted from the Google forums, and experienced that the actual stance is âguilty until proven innocence (sic)â, then this was another good laugh via the internet.
Some weeks ago, as we neared this milestone, I planned to write a small blog post on reaching 1,100 cars at the Autocade site. And to show that these milestones are not rigged, we wound up with a fairly ghastly motor at that 1,100 mark.
A leaked GM memo revealed: âWeâd ask that whether youâre talking to a dealer, reviewing dealer advertising, or speaking with friends and family, that you communicate our brand as Chevrolet moving forward.
âWhen you look at the most recognised brands throughout the world, such as Coke or Apple for instance, one of the things they all focus on is the consistency of their branding. Why is this consistency so important? The more consistent a brand becomes, the more prominent and recognizable it is with the consumer.â
The document was signed by Alan Batey, vice president for Chevrolet sales and service, and Jim Campbell, the GM divisionâs vice president for marketing.
Bad example there, Alan and Jim.
Coke is to Chevy as Coca-Cola is to Chevrolet.
And no one ever complains of Coke being inconsistent.
This is the sort of daft thinking that makes any of us brand professional shudder: total amateurs talking about brandingâout of their rear ends.
Itâs this lack of awareness of what branding is, inter alia, that started GM down its slippery pathâwith only a brief reprieve when Bob Lutz, aware of what GMâs brands stood for, was around.
By demanding that Chevrolet people not refer to the brand as Chevy does the exact opposite to what brand experts and marketers recommend today: to be one with the consumer.
I can understand if Chevy was a very negative word, but it isnât. Itâs an endearing word and it does not create inconsistency with the full Chevrolet word. It complements it, connects the brand to the audience, and, perhaps most importantly for GM, builds on the brandâs heritage.
After all, Chevrolet itself has encouraged the use of the Chevy name for decades in its own advertisingâincluding during its heyday. Omitting the use of Chevy instantly cuts many Chevrolet connections to its stronger past. And thatâs a past that can be used for internal brand-building and loyalty.
There was even, formally, a Chevy model in the 1960sâthe line that later became the Nova. The Chevy II nameplate even continued in GM in Argentina in the 1970s.
The Chevy diminutive is used in many countries where the brand is sold, including South Africa, where it was once as local as braaivleis, rugby and sunny skies.
Maybe GM canât afford the same branding advice it used toâin which case it might be better to shut up than issue memoranda that can be ridiculed so easily. Or get Bob Lutz back again. One month after retirement, and the natives have lost direction again, Bob.
PS.:From Robin Capper on Twitter, who sums this blog post up in 140 characters or fewer: âPoor Don McLean: âDrove my Chevrolet to the levee, but the levee was dryâ just doesn’t workâ.âJY
Semir and Ben are chilling out / driving / at a roadside shop / getting petrol / getting food
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Semir and Ben witness a murder / are overtaken by crooks / receive an emergency call / see something unusual
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Semir and Ben give chase
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Crooks kill someone / destroy an innocent partyâs car
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Semir and Ben have to stop due to crashed cars / crashing their own car / rendering assistance to motorists / someone having been injured or killed
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Crooks get away
Opening titles: Ihr Revier ist die Autobahn, etc.
Squad investigates clue left behind / murder victim / number plate
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Kim briefs Semir and Ben / Susanne perves at Ben (or, in earlier episodes, Andrea is concerned about Semir)
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Semir and Ben follow the clue / get a call and get to the crooksâ first hideout / location of registered car / murder victimâs home
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Crooks are there, covering up / hiding / stealing stuff
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Semir and Ben / Dieter and Hotte give chase in town / on the Autobahn
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Semir and Ben / Dieter and Hotte lose the crooks in a funny way / in a serious way / in a way that involves someone flipping the bird
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At the scene, Semir and Ben / Dieter and Hotte find more clues from the crooks / from the victim
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Hartmut analyses the clues
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At the station, Kim, Semir and Ben figure out what the crooks / the victim were / was planning
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Susanne figures out where the crooks / the victim were / was planning their / his / her robbery / conspiracy / releasing a bomb / releasing chemicals / kidnapping / other crime
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Crooks are carrying out their plan
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Semir and Ben rush there
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Crooks get in to their vehicle(s) and head to the Autobahn / country lane / forest
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Semir and Ben give chase by car together / are separated and one takes a car and the other takes a helicopter / motorcycle / jeep / truck / horse / jumps on to the crooksâ remaining vehicle to have a fight
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Semir and Ben catch the crooks
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Kim / Dieter and Hotte are / are not there and Ben gets / does not get a snog
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Semir and Ben make some funny comments regardless of who is there
End credits
To those friends in Germany who have seen more episodes than I have, is this about right?
I havenât missed the sale of Volvo to Geely, but it wasnât as momentous as the rebirth of Saab. We knew the deal was coming and the rest were formalities.
The company has said there will be no Geelys badged as Volvos and vice versa. It recognizes the Volvo brand is too valuable to tinker withâsomething Ford did, too, even if it starved the company of smaller models that could have helped kept its market share strong in Sweden.
Important for Geely is the innovative technology that Volvo possesses that could make the younger company a world-class player. Itâs common knowledge that Volvo provided Ford with some of its better present platforms, and that as a centre of excellence, it worked on safety systems for all Ford units.
Geely gets access to the lot, which improves its own productâwhile arguably helping Volvo realize economies of scale in the Red Chinese market. It only sells a seventh of what Audi does in the growing market, and Geely could instantly help improve that.
The deal makes sense. One only needs to take a look at how quickly Geely has grown in Chinaâwithout pirating othersâ designsâto know that itâs not in the business of asset-stripping or ripping off its Swedish unit. Of the Chinese firms, itâs operated far more ethically than, say, BYD, with its too-close-to-Toyota designs.
And will we see Geely outside China? You bet we willâbut only when the cars are up to snuff. If Ford can build a Taurus on a Volvo S80 platform, then look out for world-class small- to mid-sized Geelys hitting international markets on future Volvo ones.
Sam Flemming in Advertising Age mentioned the scandal that Toyota has been embroiled in inside China, before a lot of the bad press it received in the occident over âunintended accelerationâ.
This involved a netizen, an owner of a Toyota Highlander Sport, filming that his SUV was unable to get up a 30-degree incline, something which âlesserâ models such as the Korean-built Renault Koleos, and even the subcompact Chery QQâone of the cheapest cars around in Chinaâcould manage. The following news item reveals more. Itâs in Mandarin and dates from December 22, 2009.
The news investigators show that even a Daewoo Lacetti (Buick Excelle in China) and a Chery van could manage the same slope, and confirm that the Highlander could not do it.
They are not alone. Jitendra Patel filmed this with his 2009 Highlander earlier last year:
As Sam says, this issue has brewed thanks to the Chinese internet which, while not as free as it is in most countries, still seems to create active consumersâ groups. People will rally as individuals if the cause is rightâand consumers seem to be rediscovering their power, online.
As of today, I am back with the reliable Firefox 3·0 on my desktop machine as well. Firefox 3.5 would generally crash daily, though I remember there was once a three-day period in January when it did not crash at all. (There were other days when it would crash two or three times, just to make up for it and keep its daily record.) In 2010, Firefox 3·0, on my Asus laptop running Vista, might have crashed once, if ever. (I kept things on 3·0 there, and was right to.)
I liken 3·5 to the Nissan Sunny B210 or Datsun 120Y: a car which offered no improvement over its predecessor and, in some cases, was even worse.
I waited till 3·5 had been out for some time before I even considered it, thinking that Firefox had ironed out the bugs. I think it must have been around November when I âupgradedâ. What a big mistake that was.
I noticed no speed difference and had to put up with the regular crashes. And, judging by feedback, I was not alone.
One helpful netizen suggested Flash could have been responsible and she may be right. However, rather than change to another type of browser, I decided the best course was to âdowngradeâ to 3·0. which worked with Flash, Java, or whatever else could be thrown at it in the course of daily browsing.
Another asked if the crash occurred at the same time each day and, if so, could it be the Firefox automatic updates? After a weekâs study, since I got into the habit of Tweeting each time Firefox crashed at one period, I had to conclude that it was around the same time (evening NZDT), but not the same hour. It varied by around four hours.
Thankfully, Mozilla keeps a copy of it on its website, probably because it realizes that 3·5 is buggy as heck. I only found the link by accident last month and vowed to put restore 3·0 on this machine. Mozilla even continues to upgrade itâthis is 3·0·18, which is a few sub-versions newer than what had been on this machine last year.
I canât tell you how bored I am of seeing the Firefox quality control agent come up every day asking me if I could explain what I was doing at the time of the crash. Well, chaps, I was browsing. And, after today, I hope to only see that window very rarely.
Iâm not even going to try 3·6 at least till August or September 2010. But I think thatâs just the next type of Nissan Sunny, right? It stays with rear-wheel drive but has more modern colours?
