December 15: Automotive oddities

When someone and in this case it's me, lives and breathes cars, new, old, luxury, performance, economy, street or racing, one comes across some things that seem a little unusual or in my mind are worth blogging about (it obviously doesn't take much). Shall we begin?

How about this new car...........

What we have here in descending order is the new Opel, the new Vauxhall, the new Buick and finally the new Holden. Oops, that's wrong, the second car is the Holden and the last car is the Vauxhall. Who knew? As you can see (take my word for it), they are exactly the same car, just sold in different areas with one significant difference......the badge in the centre of the front grille. Sure, you might see some other front fascia variations, but that's only because I'm showing different models in each range. I can understand the same car under a different name being used in North America or down under, in Australia (Holden), but less understandable in Europe, where the Vauxhall and Opel run across one another on a regular basis. Marketing? Automotive Oddity?

I build model cars, have hundreds of them. Some dustier than others. Wouldn't a tiny car wash be a great idea?

Of course, it would and I'm not the only one with this idea. Nissan uses theirs on a regular basis to test the longevity of different paint colours. Hundreds, thousands of swipes by those whirling brushes will in short order separate the durables from the pretenders. I gotta get me one of those. Calling Nissan this morning.

Beautiful limousine. Used by potentates, oligarchs, tin pot dictators, Elvis Presley and even popes, this Mercedes 600 Pullman exemplifies what a luxury limousine should be. Much better than all those ubiquitous stretches. Nothing odd about this is there?

Try to name a vehicle that hasn't been stretched. Now name a purpose built limo that has been made into a coupe. I could be waiting here until next Christmas and you'd still not have an answer, unless of course, you knew about this Automotive Oddity..........

Looks great and what creative genius would have thought about going the other way with this limo?

And finally, when it comes to electric cars it seems that anything goes. Make it and hope the world will embrace your strangeness. Why the hell not, it's worked many times before. And now a Ugandan firm hopes to bring mass automobile production to their African country with the Kiira EV.........

Quirky? Of course. Saleable? Not so sure. An Automotive Oddity? Absolutely.

Any Automotive Oddities on your radar? Think about it over the holidays and get back to me in January.

Until next time........