How to lose readers: accuse them of something they don’t or wouldn’t do

Here’s a sure-fire way to lose readers and cost you ad revenue.    It seems Haymarket’s Autocar (which I have been reading in print since 1980) wasn’t pleased about people using online ad blockers, so it created a warning.    The trouble is I don’t use ad blockers. In fact, you can see a massive […]

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Bye to the US news app that ranks the Steven Joyce dildo incident above Martin Crowe’s passing

I’ve just switched from Inside, the much vaunted news app from entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, to Wildcard as my principal news app on my phone. I never got to use Circa (which I understand Jason was also behind), which sounded excellent: by the time I downloaded it, they had given up.    But we all need […]

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There can be only one, unless you forget to register your design: the Range Rover Evoque and the copycat Landwind X7

The stunning original: the Range Rover Evoque. There has been a lot of ongoing press about Landwind’s copy of the Range Rover Evoque (a road test of the Evoque comes next week in Lucire, incidentally), one of my favourite Sloane Ranger SUVs. There’s no way Landwind would have come up with the design independently, and, […]

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How can the Yamaha Motiv make it into the top 10 British cars in Autocar?

Anyone notice the anomaly in Autocar’s top British cars? Let’s not debate what is British—let’s simply consider what is and has been on the market. Antony Ingram spotted this: Apparently this is a reader survey but I agree with Antony: how on earth can a car that is not even produced, the Yamaha Motiv, wind […]

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Another MG Rover gaffe: turning down the Fiat Stilo platform

Robin Capper referred this to me, found on Autocar’s blog and penned by Hilton Holloway. I’ve only taken excerpts: [A senior MG Rover insider] claims MG Rover bosses were offered a life raft shortly after they bought MG Rover for a tenner. Realising that Rover’s L-series diesel engine was hopelessly outclassed, they approached Fiat about […]

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Chevrolet doesn’t understand branding

After the chaps at Autocar began following me on Twitter yesterday—after all, I had been reading the magazine since it was part of the Ministry of Magazines, in the post-Iliffe days—I noticed a Tweet about Chevrolet asking its dealers to not refer to the brand as Chevy.    What?    According to Autocar: A leaked […]

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