...and not a flux capacitor in sight (apparently)

This week around Belfast those of us who are car freaks, or even just sci-fi fans are having a great time spotting a certain icon of Belfast past.

It seems to be a week that Belfast is actually getting to grips with some of the disasters from its past. But a certain gull-wing, stainless steel car is starting to appear everywhere we look. Not have so many been seen in one place in the city since they stood in the lot at the factory in Dunmurry. The event is Eurofest 2011 in which over 80 of the iconic DMC-12 cars are in town. We even spotted a couple of them taking the Dunmurry turn off of the M1 yesterday as we were heading to Dublin.

There have been convoys of the Delorean sports car through the city, a Delorean car autotest to test the driving skills of the owner (one wonders if getting out to fill the car at a petrol pump c. 1981 was included), drive on the original factory test track and other events to mark the 30th year of the first car rolling off the production line.

But they have also been doing the tourist trail hitting Carrickfergus Castle, the Titanic Quarter, Royal Court Hotel, Dunluce Castle, Giants Causeway, and Old Bushmills Distillery. They even turned up at the the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum were test car #514 and a wooden mock up reside.

Thankfully the PSNI have not been reporting any of the cars disappearing at speeds of 88mph on the provinces roads.  So either they were not equipped with a certain optional extra or they didn't have the nuclear fuel required to generate 1.21 gigawatts of energy that are required to operate one.

Anyway it has been a case of Deloreans, Deloreans everywhere and not a flux capacitor in sight here this weekend.

It seems only fitting the play a video of the only song to pay allusions to the cars starring role as the time machine in the Back to the Future film franchise. Well I don't know of any other song that uses flux capacitor in the lyrics.

Fisking the Car Scrappage Extension

Cars and vans like all consumer products have built in obsolescence, in other words there is a time frame at which they are expected to run down. I don't know about many of the rest of you but I have successfully driven, looked after and nurtured cars that are over 10 years old.

The fact that Peter Mandelson announced government plans to extend the car scrappage scheme to an additional 100,000 cars and vans, may be good news to the car manufacturers, but not to environmentalists or young, poor, first-time motorists. The thing is seen as a greening up of the economy, but cars at 10 years old are only slightly more polluting than new vehicles, and the carbon cost of scrapping them offsets any advantage of taking them off the road.

The shortage of second hand cars as a result of the initial scheme has pushed second hand car prices up due to the scarcity of the remaining cars of a certain age. Its simple supply/demand economics. What the car scrappage scheme is doing is in essence pricing the lowest paid out of car ownership. They cannot afford to pay the price of a new car even with the scrappage payment and cannot afford the inflated price for the second hand market.

As for the environment by placing an arbitrary lifespan on vehicles of 10 years (and the motor industry actually wanted this lowered) the government is going contrary to the British culture of make do and mend. Young men who used to buy older cars to do them up, keep them running are no longer able to do so. Are finding newer cars which need less maintenance are all that is available.

So the only net gainers are the manufacturers and retailers of cars. The Government is paying out with our money, yet we and the environment are suffering. Of course Lord Mandelvort of Hartlepool and Foy's reputation is enhanced as a result, do his dark arts know no bounds.

Cub Reporter Unmasks The Stig

***Spoiler Alert Do Not Press on the Click if you want to remain innocent***

Some say he was born on another planet?

Some say his nerves are made or tungsten wire?

But some say that is actually just an ordinary Joe.

Yes a previous Stig identified himself as Perry McCarthy in an autobiography. Before being fired of an aircraft carrier never to be seen again. But the current incarnation of the Top Gear stunt driver has been outed by the press. The BBC are not happy. One show insider said:

"It’s bloody annoying. You wouldn't write a piece saying that Santa didn't
exist."*

Precisely we all know that The Stig is as much a creature of reality as Santa. We do not want to have our beliefs shattered.

Rumour has it that gentlemen of the press knew the identity of the The Stig. But they knew how to keep mum.

Rumour has it that there is clause in The Stig's contract that if his identity is revealed he will be sacked. Poor man.

Rumour has is that some cub reporter from a provincial title couldn't wait to get his big scoop.

Rumour has is that same cub reporter is now the most hated journalist in petrol head circles.

*To be honest I keep reading that in Jeremy Clarkson's voice and it does seem to fit.

Top Gear Sink to the Bottom in Latest BBC Mislead

I have to say following Robert Llewllyn on Twitter is that as befits the man who has fronted scrapheap challenge he does appear to be greeny technophile. Hence I followed his link to this about the last Top Gear of 2008.

The gang were testing the Tesla Roadster the electric sport's car on Sunday night's show and claimed it had run out of power for them on the track, not once but twice. Well as you can read the scenes at the end with Jeremy Clarkson walking along an empty, quiet track claiming that while he expected the electric car to be quieter but actually moving, and the scene of one of the car being pushed back into the garage may have been fabricated.

Now as is well know the gang Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May tend to mock every green initiative in motoring. They are such out and out petrol heads that hybrid and electric heads must at times want to hide their heads in shame. The other week when Kevin McCloud the environmentally aware host of Grand Designs came second in the stars in a reasonably priced car board behind Jay Kay they seemed almost incredulous and mocking of his green credentials.

However, if they have deliberately misrepresented a car, on what is primarily a car show after the various other misdemeanours of this season the BBC may well end up in even more hot water: possibly that produced as emissions from the Teslas in question.