Long Time, No Post...

Sorry, it's been quiet around here for the best part of a decade... time to start writing about driving some more. New posts on their way, I promise.

LFA Marks Toyota's Failed F1 Venture

The Lexus LFA has been a long time in the making - nine years in fact. I suspect that Toyota have been ready to launch it for more than a few of those years.

Why? Because this is the car that Toyota designed to celebrate its first F1 victory. And that was probably a scaling back of its original goal to celebrate a championship of some description.

With Toyota's team now consigned to history I guess there was no reason to hold back on the LFA.

Mind you at £340k it would have been cheaper to pick up a remaindered F1 car in Toyota's end of season sell-off.

Is It Just Me...

Or is the decision to absolve councils of responsibility for gritting roads looking pretty short-sighted and remarkably stupid? I'd say that this was a benefit of perfect hindsight, however a number of people pointed this out at the time, myself included...

Wonderful that our integrated transport system has coped with the strain... oh, or perhaps not.

End Of The Road For 4Car

Channel 4 has announced that a fall-off in advertising revenue is going to mean that its 4Car website is going to close at the end of the year. That's a sign of how the credit crunch has hit the motoring industry and the knock-on effect its now having.

Yet another thing that we have to thank our scumbag banking community for. (Hi to any scumbag bankers reading this!)

Eking Out That Last Gallon

Want to know the secret of getting the absolute best economy out of your car in these times of unfeasibly high petrol prices? Cornering quickly.

Now I don't mean the sort of cornering quickly that you'll see at a race track on a Sunday (or outside your local Mcdonalds drive-thru on a Saturday night) which combines late hard braking with vicious acceleration because that isn't really going to boost your mileage one bit.

The sort of cornering I'm talking about involves carrying as much as speed as possible all the way through the corner - whether it be a roundabout or road deviation - to minimise braking and acceleration either side of the said corner.

The trick is to come off the gas at a point approaching the corner where the impact of friction and drag will cause the car to slow gently to the fastest possible speed that is safe to negotiate the corner. The more speed you carry through the corner, the less you have to accelerate out of it, the better your mileage. In an ideal world you'd be cornering right on the limit of the adhesion of your tyres, but in the real world safety considerations will temper your entry speed - especially on a blind corner.

Nevertheless turning in a 5-10% improvement in your mileage should be relatively easy to do if you use this technique ruthlessly.

The Sad State Of Car Magazine

Its many years since I last bought a copy of Car Magazine, even so I was shocked to see how the once mighty tome has fallen from its once loft perch. The magazine that hosted such automotive journalism as LJK Setright, George Bishop, Phil Llewellyn and Russell Bulgin now hosts a weak selection with little of interest to say.

The magazine as a genre is dying, along with other print media - although the death throes will take at least another generation. Car Magazine, however, appears to have died many years ago.

Original Golf Finally Dies

Yes, you're probably thinking that the original Golf has been dead for a quarter of a century. Not so. This is the South African built Citi Golf, a Mark 1 Golf that wouldn't die.

Now VWSA has to terminate production to make room for newer, more profitable lines to be exported for valuable currency. The Mark 1 Golf will finally have to die.

It will go out with a bang however, with a 1600cc, 99bhp version (called the Mk1) which will sport part leather interior alloy wheels and near Mk1 GTI performance.

The car that invented the hot hatch we salute you.