Above: The Levdeo (or Letin) i3, not exactly the ideal model with which to commemorate another Autocade milestone.
Autocade will cross the 23 million page view mark today, so weâre keeping fairly consistent with netting a million every three months, a pattern that weâve seen since the end of 2019.
Just to keep my record-keeping straight:
March 2008: launch
April 2011: 1,000,000 (three years for first million)
March 2012: 2,000,000 (11 months for second million)
May 2013: 3,000,000 (14 months for third million)
January 2014: 4,000,000 (eight months for fourth million)
September 2014: 5,000,000 (eight months for fifth million)
May 2015: 6,000,000 (eight months for sixth million)
October 2015: 7,000,000 (five months for seventh million)
March 2016: 8,000,000 (five months for eighth million)
August 2016: 9,000,000 (five months for ninth million)
February 2017: 10,000,000 (six months for 10th million)
June 2017: 11,000,000 (four months for 11th million)
January 2018: 12,000,000 (seven months for 12th million)
May 2018: 13,000,000 (four months for 13th million)
September 2018: 14,000,000 (four months for 14th million)
February 2019: 15,000,000 (five months for 15th million)
June 2019: 16,000,000 (four months for 16th million)
October 2019: 17,000,000 (four months for 17th million)
December 2019: 18,000,000 (just under three months for 18th million)
April 2020: 19,000,000 (just over three months for 19th million)
July 2020: 20,000,000 (just over three-and-a-half months for 20th million)
October 2020: 21,000,000 (three months for 21st million)
January 2021: 22,000,000 (three months for 22nd million)
April 2021: 23,000,000 (three months for 23rd million)
I see on my 22 millionth page view post I mentioned there were 4,379 entries. It hasnât increased that much since: the site is on 4,423. I notice the pace does slow a bit once the year kicks off in earnest: itâs the Christmas break that sees me spending a bit more time on the website.
Who knows? I may spend more on it again as Iâm tiring of the tribalism of Twitter, and, most recently, being tarred with the same brush as someone I follow, even though I follow people I donât always agree withâincluding people with offensive views.
On April 4, I wrote there:
Earlier today @QueenOliviaStR and I were tagged into a lengthy thread, to which I donât think I have the right of response to the writer.
First up, I salute her. Secondly, she may disagree with how I use Twitter but I still support her. Thirdly, she should rightly do what she needs to in order to feel safe.
I donât wish to single out any account but if you go through my following list, there are people on there whose views many Kiwis would disagree with.
Some were good people who fell down rabbit holes, and some Iâve never agreed with from the start. So why do I follow them?
As I Tweeted last week, I object to being in a social media bubble. I think itâs unhealthy, and the cause of a lot of societal angst. Itâs why generally I dislike Big Tech as this is by design.
Secondly, if I shut myself off to opposing views, even abhorrent ones, how do I know what arguments they are using in order to counter them if the opportunity arises?
I would disagree that I am amicable with these accounts but I do agree to interacting with some of them on the bases that we originally found.
Ian, who is long gone from Twitter after falling down the COVID conspiracy rabbit hole, was a known anti-war Tweeter. I didnât unfollow him but I disagreed with where his thoughts were going.
The person who tagged us today didnât want to be exposed to certain views and thatâs fair. But remember, that person she didnât like will also be exposed to her views through me.
Iâll let you into something that might shock you: for a few years, when the debate began, I wasnât supportive of marriage equality, despite having many queer friends. It was more over semantics than their rights, but still, it isnât a view I hold today.
If this happened in social media land, I might have held on those views, but luckily I adopted the policy I do today: see what people are saying. And eventually I was convinced by people who wrote about their situations that my view was misinformed.
And while my following an account is not an endorsement of its views, by and large I follow more people with whom I agreeâwhich means the positive arguments that these people make could be seen by those who disagree with them.
People should do what is right for them but I still hold that bubbling and disengagement are dangerous, and create a group who double-down on their views. Peace!
Maybe itâs a generational thing: that some of us believe in the free flow of information, because that was the internet we joined. One that was more meritorious, and one where we felt we were more united with others.
We see what the contrary does. And those examples are recent and severe: weâve seen it with the US elections, with Myanmar, with COVID-19.
This isnât a dig at the person who took exception to my being connected to someone, and yes, even engaged them (though being ‘amicable’ is simply having good manners to everyone), because if those offensive views targeted me I wouldnât want to see them. And it is a poor design decision of Twitter to still show that person in oneâs Tweets if they have already blocked them, just because a mutual person follows them.
It is a commentary, however, on wider trends where social media and Google have created people who double-down on their views, or opened up the rabbit hole for them to fall intoâand keep them there.
It did use to be called social networking, where we made connections, supposedly for mutual benefit, maybe even the benefit of humanity, but now it’s commonly social media, because we don’t seem to really network with anyone else while we post about ourselves.
Unlike Alice, people donât necessarily return from Wonderland.
My faithâwhich I donât always bring up because one risks being tarred with the evangelical homophobic stereotypes that come with it in mainstream media and elsewhereâtells me that everyone can be redeemed, even those who hold abhorrent views.
Itâs why I didnât have a problem when Bill Clinton planned to see Kim Jong Il or when Donald Trump did see Kim Jong Un, because engagement is better than isolation. Unlike the US media, I donât change a view depending on the occupant of the Oval Office.
Iâve also seen some people who post awful things do incredibly kind things outside of the sphere of social media.
Which then makes you think that social media just arenât worth your timeâsomething I had already concluded with Facebook, and, despite following mostly people I do agree with, including a lot of automotive enthusiasts, I am feeling more and more about Twitter. Instead of the open forum it once was, you are being judged on whom you follow, based on isolated and rare incidents.
I donât know if itâs generational or whether weâve developed through technology people who prefer tribalism over openness.
Sometimes you feel you should just leave them to it and get on with your own stuffâand for every Tweet I once sent, maybe I should get on to some old emails and tidy that inbox instead. Or put up one of the less interesting models on Autocade. Not Instagramming muchâI think I was off it for nearly a month before I decided to post a couple of things on Easter Eveâhas been another step in the right direction, instead of poking around on a tiny keyboard beamed up to you from a 5œ-inch black mirror.
The computer, after all, is a tool for us, and we should never lose sight of that. Letâs see if I can stick with it, and use Mastodon, which still feels more open, as my core social medium for posting.
Here are April 2021âs images. I append to this gallery through the month.
Sources
Tania Dawson promotes SomĂšrfield Hair Care, sourced from Instagram.
Austrian model Katharina Mazepa for Dreamstate Muse magazine, shared on her Instagram. This was an image that was removed from a PG blog at NewTumbl last yearâapparently this was considered ‘nudity’ and rated M.
AMC promotes the Gremlin, the US’s first subcompact car. More on the Gremlin at Autocade; 1970 advertisement via Twitter. Volkswagen 1302S photographed in June 2018, one of the images Iâve submitted to Unsplash for downloading. I did have the owner’s permission to shoot his car.
St Gerard’s Church and Monastery atop Mt Victoria in Wellington, New Zealand, photographed by me and also submitted to Unsplash.
Facebook group bots: someone else was so used to seeing bot activity on Facebook, they made a meme about it.
Holden Commodore Evoke Ute, an example of ‘base model brilliance’. More at Autocade. Morris Marina ad via the Car Factoids on Twitter. Innocenti Mini 90 and 120 via the Car Factoids on Twitter.
All galleries can be seen through the ‘Gallery’ link in the header, or click here (especially if you’re on a mobile device). I append to this entry through the month.
The Dongfeng Aeolus AX7. But just where does Aeolus sit when it comes to indexing in Autocade?
This is something that might have to come out in the wash, and it might take years.
I think we can all agree that Ssangyong is a marque or a make, and Korando is a model. Never mind that thereâs currently a basic Korando, the Korando Sports (a pick-up truck) and a Korando Turismo (a people mover), none of which really have much connection with the other, name aside. We are as comfortable with this as we once were with the Chevrolet Lumina and Lumina APV, the Ford Taurus and Taurus X, and the Toyota Mark X and Mark X Zio. So far so good.
But when do these drift into being sub-brands? BMW calls i a sub-brand, but as far as cataloguing in Autocade goes, it doesnât matter, as the model names are i3 or i8 (or a number of ix models now coming out). Audiâs E-Tron is its parallel at Ingolstadt, and here we do have a problem, with a number of E-Tron models unrelated technically. Itâs not like Quattro, where there was the (ur-) Quattro, then Quattro as a designation, and everyone accepted that.
Similarly, the Chinese situation can be far from clear.
Many years ago, GAC launched a single model based on the Alfa Romeo 166 called the Trumpchi. So far so good: we have a marque and model. But it then decided to launch a whole bunch of other cars also called Trumpchi (the original became the Trumpchi GA5, to distinguish it from at least eight others). Some sources say Trumpchi is a sub-brand, others a brand in its own right, but we continue to reference it as a model, since the cars have a GAC logo on the grille, just as the GAC Aion EVs have a GAC logo on the grille. (The latter is also not helped with Chinese indices tending to separate out EVs into âNew Energy Vehicleâ listings, even when their manufacturers donât.)
I feel that we only need to make the shift into calling a previous model or sub-brand a brand when itâs obvious on the cars themselves. Thatâs the case with Haval, when it was very clear when it departed from Changcheng (Great Wall). Senia is another marque that spun off from FAW: it began life with the FAW symbol on the grille, before Seniaâs own script appeared on the cars.
The one that confounds me is Dongfeng Aeolus, which was make-and-model for a long time, but recently Aeolus has displaced the Dongfeng whirlwind on the grille of several models. We have them currently listed in Autocade with Dongfeng Aeolus as a new marque, since thereâs still a small badge resembling the whirlwind on the bonnet. The Dongfeng Aeolus AX7 retains the whirlwind, but has the Aeolus letters prominently across the back, but to muddle it up, the AX7 Pro has the new Aeolus script up front. These canât be two different marques but the visual cues say they are.
Maybe weâll just have to relegate Aeolus back to model status, and do what Ssangyong does with the Korando (or Changcheng with the Tengyi). These are the things that make life interesting, but also a little confusing when it comes to indexing an encyclopĂŠdia.
All galleries can be seen through the ‘Gallery’ link in the header, or click here (especially if you’re on a mobile device). I append to this entry through the month.
This was an unusual car to have as the 4,400th on Autocade: the Rosengart Ariette.
I did know the 4,400th was coming up since it wasnât that long ago that Autocade passed 22 million page views, and I checked the stats. But I like to think this would still have been the motor that made it up even I was unaware of the number, since I had done plenty of Chinese vehicles of late and wanted a change.
I suspect the DecemberâJanuary period is a big one for Autocade generally since thereâs less news at Lucire coming in, and thereâs a bit more time to work on hobbiesâeven if thereâs also plenty of housework to keep me occupied.
Iâm grateful to Carfolio for checking up the Rosengarts for me, since they were quicker at getting models online, and itâs as trustworthy a source as youâll find anywhere on the motoring web. Unlike Wikipedia in English, which has yet another inaccuracy with regard to these models.
As I begin this blog post, Autocade has just crossed the 22 million page-view barrier, at 22,000,040. I had estimated we would get there on Sunday, and as itâs just ticked over here in New Zealand, I was right.
We have 4,379 models in the database, with the Bestune B70, in its third generation, the most recent model added. Iâm grateful itâs a regular carânot yet another crossover, which has been the usual story of 2020 whenever I added new models to the site.
As crossovers and SUVs were once regarded as niche models, historical ones werenât put up in any great haste, so I canât always escape them just by putting up models from the past. However, there are countless sports and supercars to go up, so maybe Iâll need to add them in amongst the SUVs to maintain my sanity and happiness. These high-riding two-box vehicles are incredibly boring subjects stylistically.
Itâs a stroke of luck, then, to have the B70: Bestuneâs sole saloon offering now in amongst an entire range of crossovers. The saloons are the niche vehicles of 2020â1. Itâs a stylish motor, too: Cadillac looks for a middle-class price. Admittedly, such close inspirations havenât deserted China altogether, but this is, in my mind, no worse than Ford pretending its 1975 US Granada was a Mercedes-Benz for the masses. Itâs not going to get GMâs lawyers upset. And unlike the Granada, the B70 is actually a fairly advanced car, with refinement now on par with a lot of joint-venture models coming out of China.
You know the drill to track Autocadeâs growth:
March 2008: launch
April 2011: 1,000,000 (three years for first million)
March 2012: 2,000,000 (11 months for second million)
May 2013: 3,000,000 (14 months for third million)
January 2014: 4,000,000 (eight months for fourth million)
September 2014: 5,000,000 (eight months for fifth million)
May 2015: 6,000,000 (eight months for sixth million)
October 2015: 7,000,000 (five months for seventh million)
March 2016: 8,000,000 (five months for eighth million)
August 2016: 9,000,000 (five months for ninth million)
February 2017: 10,000,000 (six months for 10th million)
June 2017: 11,000,000 (four months for 11th million)
January 2018: 12,000,000 (seven months for 12th million)
May 2018: 13,000,000 (four months for 13th million)
September 2018: 14,000,000 (four months for 14th million)
February 2019: 15,000,000 (five months for 15th million)
June 2019: 16,000,000 (four months for 16th million)
October 2019: 17,000,000 (four months for 17th million)
December 2019: 18,000,000 (just under three months for 18th million)
April 2020: 19,000,000 (just over three months for 19th million)
July 2020: 20,000,000 (just over three-and-a-half months for 20th million)
October 2020: 21,000,000 (three months for 21st million)
January 2021: 22,000,000 (three months for 22nd million)
Not a huge change in the rate, then: for the past year we can expect roughly a million page views every three months. The database has increased by 96 model entries, versus 40 when I last posted about the million milestones.
In other publishing news, Jody Miller has managed to get an interview with Rachel Hunter. Her story is on Lucire today, and Iâm expecting a more in-depth one will appear in print later in 2021. Itâs taken us 23 years (not that we were actively pursuing): itâs just one of those things where it took that long for our paths to cross. Both Rachel and Lucire are Kiwi names that are arguably more noticed abroad than in our countries of birth, and I suppose itâs like two compatriots who travel to different countries. You donât always bump into one another.
I end this blog post with Autocadeâs views at 22,000,302.
Click here for all months (or hit ‘Gallery’ at the top of the screen, if you’re on the desktop), here for December, and here for November. This post explains why I wound up doing the gallery here.
I append to this entry through the month.
Here are the images that have piqued my interest for December 2020. For November’s gallery, click here (all gallery posts are here). And for why I started this, here’s my earlier post on this blog, and also here and here on NewTumbl.