The Good Oil: Giant Stig heads for Warsaw gig

NZ Herald

30 Jan, 2015 10:00 PM6 mins to read

A Giant statueof Top Gear's Stig is on its way to Warsaw. Photo / Supplied

While Top Gear already has the biggest ego in the world in the form of Jeremy Clarkson, it seems it now also has the biggest racing driver in the world in the form of a 9m tall statue of The Stig, heading across Europe on the back of a flatbed truck!

The giant Stig will eventually be deposited in Warsaw, near the city's Palace of Science and Culture, to celebrate the launch of the new BBC Brit TV channel (that will show Top Gear, obviously) in Poland. Cue off-the-cuff (yet oddly tightly scripted) inappropriate joke from Clarkson about "invading Poland", etc.

We are the world

• A Spanish woman was surprised to receive a speeding ticket in the mail - because her car was in the shop being fixed at the time. But it got stranger, because when she requested the speed camera photo, it showed her car, but it was on top of a breakdown truck taking it to the garage! Apparently the fine was sent to her because the truck was from Andorra and her car was the only one in the photo with Spanish number plates ...

• Staff at a Chinese car dealership were somewhat surprised when a man decided to pay the deposit on his car in cash. Not because of the cash, more because of the denomination - he paid the 20,000 yuan ($4310) deposit in 0.1 yuan, 0.5 yuan and 1 yuan coins (2¢, 10¢ and 20¢ in NZ currency).

End of road for AMG V8

The 5.5-litre twin-turbo V8 produces 430kW.

The Good Oil dearly loves AMG's 5.5-litre twin-turbo V8. This is no surprise.

Pumping out up to 430kW of power and 800Nm of torque, depending on what vehicle it is wedged into, and producing a noise that makes babies and grown men cry (but for very different reasons) it is simply one of the greatest engines in the world today.

But get ready to let loose a Darth Vader-style "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" of epic proportions, because that wonderful engine is due to die ...

According to Autocar in the UK, AMG will release the last two cars to pack the remarkable V8 beast within the next two years - the GLE 63 and the S 63 convertible.

And after that, it will be the end of the road for the amazing engine that was released in 2011.

The 5.5 is being phased out in favour of the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 that sits in the Mercedes-AMG GT (and will soon appear in the C 63) where it produces 375kW and 650Nm, but can no doubt be wound up to produce much more ...

While we will miss the 5.5-litre, we felt the same way when AMG dropped the 6.2-litre naturally aspirated V8 in favour of the 5.5. And that turned out all right in the end ...

Lawsuit over parking

This Ford pickup truck isn't approved for parking.

More proof that the US is fast becoming the most mental place on the planet - a homeowners' association in New York is suing two of its residents for parking their pickup in their own driveway.

David and Arna Orlando face a lawsuit from the Kimry Moor Homeowners' Association for parking their 2014 Ford F-150 pickup outside their own home.

It seems that the association limits what vehicles can be parked outside of garages.
These are limited to "private, passenger-type, pleasure automobiles" (an odd description which actually brings all sorts of different vehicles to The Good Oil's mind ... ) and according to whatever petty, small-minded desk-chewer that decides these things, a privately registered, black, non-sign written F-150 doesn't fit that description ...

While this seems insane, it is not as bad as another incident last year when the police were called to a New York neighbourhood because two men were seen washing a brand new Volkswagen in public view. Which violated a local ordinance.

Those terrorist blokes are doing it all wrong, really. Just imagine disruption if they started parking pickup trucks everywhere and wantonly began washing them in public. The chaos!

GM asked to explain after rush of awards

Mary Barra, GM's chief executive.

That messy ignition recall thing keeps hanging around General Motors like a bad smell, and it seems their efforts to make people forget about it have gone a bit wrong as well ...

The president of the National Legal Policy Centre (a non-profit organisation that "promotes ethics in public life") has written a letter to GM asking it to disclose records that detail the company's charitable contributions after it noticed that CEO Mary Barra seemed to be getting a lot of awards from charities and organisations that GM had recently donated money to.

According to US website Autoblog, Peter Flaherty, the president of the NLPC, said in his letter that "The company has vigorously publicised these awards, apparently as part of a campaign to promote and rehabilitate Ms Barra's image in the wake of the ignition switch recall delay, for which the death toll continues to rise."

GM did not respond to Autoblog's request for a comment.

While this is all very awkward and uncomfortable for General Motors, The Good Oil is left mulling over one very important unanswered question - who the hell actually writes letters any more? Has this Flaherty bloke never heard of email?

BMW goes mini Mini

Are you one of these people who can't let go of the past and still loudly complain about how the BMW Mini "isn't a REAL Mini" because it isn't tiny, cramped, and virtually guaranteed to kill or cripple you in a crash?

Well, if so, BMW has heard you and seems to be responding by apparently teaming up with Toyota to create a tiny city car that will be named the Mini Minor.

Planned for beyond 2018, the Minor won't share the Aygo platform (that Toyota shares with Peugeot and Citroen) but will sit on an all-new platform developed by Toyota for BMW. And expect its styling to be reminiscent of the Rocketman concept (pictured) that appeared a few years back.