Run Snob Run!!!

I am sure that you remember the movie Run Forest Run. I was thirteen or fourteen at those times and I still remember that nice movie :)

When I started to looking around people and what they are driving, I noticed something. People love to buy cars which can make them look snob. Actually, their cover story is; this car has a great design or this car is a status or they make up a story from that brand actually which does not exist and they are saying this car is reflection of this brand. Sorry!!! But car experts do not eat this :) And when someone asks critical questions about your car, don't make up story, you will look very pathetic. Best option accept that you want to show off or change the topic. My recommendation is to change topic for you ;)

I have recently post blog about snobbish cars. The winner is Mini and Audi A3. Mainly in emerging markets, these two cars are line between rich and poor. Hopefully, there is a new one Audi A1. People who could not manage to buy an A3, now  you can buy A1. And it does not look boring like A2, many of snobs don't know that. Search google ;) This very well designed and equipped with high technology of Audi, sorry Volkswagen is a piece of art. And that's main reason you should not buy it. Firstly; like other Audis it is over-priced. Unless you are buying A4, may be A5, A6 or A8, just buy a VW it is cheaper and same quality. In addition; none of the Volkswagen or Audi cars have problem with pedals ;) Second reason not to buy A1 is you have Alfa Romeo MiTo and Fiat 500. Wait couple of months more and MiTo will have double clutch auto. Fiat 500 is the best looking car on planet and MiTo also. I cannot ignore the fact that; Audi A1 has the best interior with best quality on market. Do not expect to see this quality in Mini or MiTo or 500 or Polo. It is really Audi. I didn't like the exterior :(

So, I could not find a reasonable reason to buy an A1 while there are better options are available. Audi I was loving A6 2.8 Quattro in 1998 but then things have changed. Still, Audi is much much much car company than some companies ;)

I really wish that, automotive industry never had the snob effect influence on cars. But nobody can do anything for this. As the snobs stick on one unlucky car, many people stop loving it :(

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Hon.-Prof. Dr. techn. h.c. Dipl.-lng. ETH Ferdinand K. Piëch (VW)

If you never heard of him, please don't say "I know car business". Unfortunately, you don't. It is like, saying who is Bill Gates during an interview in Microsoft! No difference.

Mr.Piëch is grandson of Ferdinan Porsche, so he has the car DNAs in his blood. And his talent to turn VW from peoples' boring car into automotive giant. Bentley and Bugatti missions were Piëch's ideas. And if you love Veyron, you should thank him. Also he is very good at business game, his cousin Wolfgang Porsche started to buy VW bit by bit for quite long time and Piëch made the right movement at the right time and Porsche is a brand of VW. Now VW has these; VW, Audi, Porsche, Bugatti, Bentley, Skoda, Seat, MAN and Scania. VW has only have stakes in MAN and Scania. Also he has shaped the design of Porsche Panamera.

So he is the Bill Gates or Alexander the Great of automotive industry :) With this interesting pictures attached to his jacket. I found this on Top Gear Magazine's December 2009 issue at page 112.

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Cry me a river, Toyota!

Finally Akio Toyoda cried! Toyota is suffering serious problems with gas pedal, brake pedal and steering wheeling. As you can see there are the main basic parts of a car :) And we don't how, Toyota managed to break the down. Actually this is not something very very unusual, Mercedes had problems with electronic brake SBC in 2004. And many more cases happened similar to this.

The interesting point, as I mentioned earlier, Toyota does not have any other attributes rather than been durable. Nobody will dream a Toyota Corolla because of its design or nobody will fall in love with interior design or ergonomics. Just durable. When the durable car became endurable, Toyota is trying to pull the ejecting seat lever to get rid of these problems in a quick way.

As far as I read on newspaper, this is something very common in Japan to cover things up. But it won't work in these parts of the world. Let's remember when Mercedes had the SBC problem did someone come in front of the cameras and started to cry? Of course not. Come on, you did not break up with your wife. You should have predicted this problem before, when you produce more you make more problems.

Let's see what will come next from Desperate Toyota Bosses! And to cheer up Toyota managers a song from Justing Timberlake is coming, Cry Me A River :)

Crying Toyota;

And Justing;

Picture is from;

Toyota Website

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New Porsche Cayenne

A few days ago, we have spotted the Cayenne in Porsche Car Configurator web site. In that picture, it was not that good looking. Interestingly, things have changed! The art of ugliness Cayenne turn into something which looks really nice. I mean both exterior and interior. Current Cayenne's interior is a up rated VW Touareg and they both have boring interior. The perfection of dullness Cayenne turned into a real reflection of Porsche an SUV.

It does not have a low ratio gearbox for off road, like new Touareg it has a very short first gear which is designed for off road driving. It is planning to replace low ratio gearbox and I think, that's a very good solution. Nobody is pushing that hard on off road but a low ratio first gear can help to go around when you get bored on road.

It has a proper diesel (240PS) and hybrid (380PS) models and like in Panamera it has start/stop function with automatic gearbox. And when the engine turns off, none of the electric gadgets disappear also the climate control will supply the preferred heat. If they need energy, focus on this, engine start will create the required energy. I think it will be used for climate control.

It looks much better than a BMW X5 and probably drives better than X5. But Porsche needs to have better diesel engines to cope with competitors who are nearly offering 300 horsepower diesel.

However, new Cayenne is a proper Cayenne ;) Now it has the Porsche design culture!

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How to run ESP?

ESP, DSC, VSC, MSP, CST; they all the do the same. Electronic stability control! These systems help to prevent unintended skids like under steer or overseer. This system has several G sensors and monitors the directions of vehicle, angle of steering wheel, traction levels and if car starts to go somewhere you are not suppose to go, system applied brakes to tyres to prevent any under or overseer.

This is the dictionary definition of this system. Why I am telling this? Nowadays you can find ESP on many cars and in following five years, it will be common like ABS! But most of us don't know how to test the ESP ;) In 2001, when we have the Ford Mondeo with ESP; I had this problem. How this system starts working. And here is the solution.

If you are not living in a place where it snows all the time, you cannot the flashing light of ESP on your screen. ESP system starts to work immediately with erk test. This test became popular from Sweden, as they have many deers walking around; they created a way to test cars' handling ability if they face with a deer. Sudden left turn then right turn then left turn. If you are driving a very tall car without the definition of handling, you can only achieve left turn then right turn and rollover. So, ESP works before you rollover. But never try to the limits of physics ;)

You can watch the video for details. And it was invented by Bosch and first used by Mercedes ;)

Bosch ESP Experience

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Katerina Stikoudi is washing a car :) - Κατερίνα Στικούδη είναι το πλύσιμο αυτοκινήτων

If you are not Cypriot or Greek, you won't probably know who is Katerina Stikoudi. She won the title Miss Hellas in 2005 and she represented Greece in Miss World. She is currently hosting TV programme Mega Star in Mega TV in Greece. And also she has a video clip with Lava called Tora.

Accidently I found a video of her in Mega Star programme. This is something very usual but the interesting thing; she was washing and filling up cars. But the problem is, she is washing a pre-historic, ancient Jaguar XJ. Production team picked up the worst car to wash! And also she was cleaning the wind screen of a Peugeot 206 CC and filling up with petrol. Then a guy comes with a Citroën C2 with plastic wheel covers!

Elaa reee! You found the worst cars to appear on TV! Jaguar XJ is classic but too classic! My opinion; she should be washing up a Maserati GranTurismo, for cleaning the wind-screen Jaguar XF and instead of C2 they should have used a Alfa Romeo MiTo. These cars will complete the sexiness ;)

In Greek;

Αν δεν είναι Κύπριοι της Ελληνικής, δεν θα έχετε ίσως γνωρίζουν ποιος είναι Κατερίνα stikoudi. Κέρδισε τον τίτλο Μις Ελλάς το 2005 και εκπροσώπησε την Ελλάδα στη Μις Κόσμος. Είναι φιλοξενεί σήμερα τηλεοπτικών προγραμμάτων Mega Star στο Mega τηλεόραση στην Ελλάδα. Και επίσης έχει ένα βίντεο κλιπ με Lava ονομάζεται Tora.

Κατά λάθος βρήκα ένα βίντεο από της στο πρόγραμμα Mega Star. Αυτό είναι κάτι πολύ συνηθισμένο, αλλά το ενδιαφέρον πράγμα? Ήταν πλύσιμο και γεμίζει αυτοκίνητα. Αλλά το πρόβλημα είναι, αυτή είναι το πλύσιμο των προ-ιστορικό, αρχαία Jaguar XJ. Παραγωγή αυξήθηκε το χειρότερο αυτοκίνητο να πλένεται! Και επίσης, ήταν η οθόνη καθαρισμού αέρα ενός Peugeot 206 CC και γεμίζουν με βενζίνη. Στη συνέχεια, έρχεται ένας τύπος με ένα C2 Citroën με πλαστικό τιμόνι καλύπτει!

 

ELAA reee! Βρήκατε το χειρότερο αυτοκίνητα για να εμφανιστεί στην τηλεόραση! Jaguar XJ είναι κλασικό αλλά πολύ κλασικό! Η γνώμη μου? Αυτή θα πρέπει να είναι το πλύσιμο μια Maserati GranTurismo, για τον καθαρισμό του ανεμοθώρακα Jaguar XF και αντί του C2 θα πρέπει να έχουν χρησιμοποιήσει Alfa Romeo Mito. Αυτά τα αυτοκίνητα θα ολοκληρώσει την sexiness ;)

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Top Gear Magazine March 2010 with a Tyre

For long years I have been reading Top Gear Magazine, in addition to watching Top Gear. Top Gear Magazine is one of the most entertaining car magazines on earth!

A few minutes ago, Top Gear Magazine's Editor Conor McNicholas tweeted the cover of March issue. However, there was something interesting! The tyre! Yes, that's a proper tyre and as I guessed from the tread of the tyre, that is a four season!?!

And I send tweet to Conor immidiately to find an answer to my very important question. And he told me that "That's an Infiniti alloy (and Bridgestone tyre). We said we liked them a while back so Infinit just sent us one in. Sits by my desk."

This is what I call a proper public relation :)

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Minimalist Ferrari

Buying a Ferrari is a dream of many people. Some people save coins to buy a Ferrari and try to keep their dream alive. Hopefully Ferrari heard their silent cry and started Ferrari Store :) By this way, Ferrari not only making money from cars but also making money from lifestyle. Ferrari Stores are the places where you can find many things with Ferrari logo. All items have Ferrari bit in their design, colour or on their feature. The performance of Ferrari Stores is better. You can find from mobile phone straps to F1 cylinder which was used in real race.

Also there are some interesting stuff :) Like this; a pedal car for kids with ventilated disc brake, 7 gears, lap time recording, leather steering wheel, sport seat and at the price of €1699.

I don't think this is a start for a Ferrari. It has every bit of Ferrari in a minimalist style! I have some friends who are obsessed to buy Ferrari, here it is ;) By the way, the bear is not included in price :)

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French Cars vs. French Fashion

Last one decade French cars' reputation disappeared as the Deutsch Mark disappeared from the economy. Twenty years ago, French cars were both providing exquisite design with high quality. Chanel No.5 was the completing figure of a French car.

As the competition increased on world and French car could not offer new technologies like Germans do it, they started to lose their competition power. People did not wish to buy French cars for that price and they a bit lowered their prices and lowered their quality. However, lowering quality is an addiction! Once you do, you will always do it and they did it. From hydraulic suspensions in Citroën to torsion bar suspensions. Torsion bar suspension is a cheap alternative for conventional suspension system, it does not handle well, does not ride in comfort and sometimes one of your rear tires might be on air. Because, torsion bar suspensions do not let tire to travel and touch the ground. You can see this in many French cars and in some Toyotas. However Germans do not offer any technology like this.

Renault, Peugeot, Citroën went down and down in 2000s, except Peugeot 206 they could not offer any eye catching or exciting car. Also their production quality serious went down, many French cars are became a synonym for bad quality. I don't think that they deserve this but they did not show any effort to clear this image.

Actually there is one more French car brand, Bugatti. But it has a complicated history. When the Bugatti was first found in in Molsheim, it was a part of Germany after WWI, it became a part of France. Now Bugatti is owned by VW and it has the most powerful car ever produced. So, French cars brands still have chance.

Hopefully, French fashion industry is not as bad as their car industry. Every year, French fashion brands introduce better designs and never face a decline like car brands. I am not a fashion expert but French car companies can learn from fashion brands.

Pictures are from;

Renault Website

Vouge Website Paris Fashion Show

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1937, A new technology !

How the differential works? Actually many of you does not care what a differential is or they don't want to learn how it works :) That's the thing which helps to move tyres which are transferring power to move freely :) Unless, we cannot even park our cars ;)

But you should watch the movie produced in 1937 to educate people about how a differential works. However, movie has more interesting story than the differential ;) By General Motors

By the way, this is the best video to understand this how this complicated machine is working!

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New advertisement campaign song for Toyota!

Nowadays Toyota is suffering the worst times of its history. The very basic parts of a car started to broke down in Toyota. Steering wheel, brake pedal and gas pedal. These three parts are on produciton for many many many years. I already discussed about this but now I found something for Toyota :)

Actually this blog would be more understandable if you know Turkish. The song for Toyota's advertisement campaign should play Turkish singer Ismail YK's Bas Gaza. For those of you, who don't him. Germany borned Turkish song writer, his songs are similar to Fifty Cent. Believe you won't listen most of them. However one of his "interesting" songs "Press the Gas" is fitting very well with Toyota's current condition :)

Here is the video clip;

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Bentley Bentley Bentley, Money Money Money

I am sure that when you can afford to buy a Bentley, your snobbish instincts will not stop there! You want to show off you Bentley in every detail and pour money to things which have Bentley logo. I really like Bentley but the things with Bentley logo are not that attractive. However, for people who are looking for Bentley life style, here is the chance :)

If you saved enough money and worked like crazy for a Bentley, probably you did not have time to do anything else rather than working. And now you have to chance to break you leg in very luxury way :) Our first Bentley item is coming from Zai; Swiss ski maker. The priviledge to break your leg in with a limited edition ski is €6800.

Probably, before you made this fortune you were wearing Rayban of something like that! Now you can throw away your Rayban and buy Estede for Bentley gun glass for €11500 (platinum model). Honestly, it looks very similar to Rayban, so don't waste your money and go buy a Prada :)

I am pretty sure that, while saving your money to a buy a Bentley, you have played lotto and any kind of game which can give you millions easily. During that time, you were using the rubbish Bic pencil! And now you have the chance to fill your lotto with something classier :) Tibaldi for Bentley at the price of €4500. Also this pencil has "the proportion between the pen’s cap and the visible portion of the barrel when the pen is closed equals the phi ratio, 1.618". I don't how this will affect your writing or luck or creativity.

And lastly we have Breitling for Bentley but this is not something new. But if you want to have that watch and if you are slim, start doing sports. Unless, watch in your arm will look the one in train stations :)

The best looking thing from Bentley does not have any information from the press release. Ettinger leather goods! This is best of the things Bentley is offering :)

Honestly, Bentley Continental GT Speed is one of my favourite car. It has luxury, comfort, powerful engine, 12 cylinders, four-wheel drive. Anything you would expect to see in a car.

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An Education: Bristol

Many people never heard of Bristol as a car brand. Actually, most of us know Bristol as a city in UK. Probably a city with historical places to visit, some pubs and not very crowded. I don’t know enough about Bristol but I do know a bit about Bristol cars. My first encounter occurred in London two years ago. My friend Jon Bentley told a bit about Bristol and a few minutes later, we saw the Bristol car dealer in London. Actually, the time stopped in dealer! The furniture, interior was totally a flashback from 1980s. I cannot ignore the fact that, the cars are also flashback.

There is one interesting fact about Bristol which I learned from Jon Bentley and later I heard in BBC Top Gear. If you want to buy a Bristol, the owner of Bristol cars should like you and lets you own one! This is not a rubbish story like Ferrari’s. If you want to buy one, make a good impression with the owner and you might have one. Something similar to job interview! Honestly, it is quite annoying. You are paying a large of amount money and you will be interviewed for owning one!?! (Bristol is offering 1012 horsepower model.)

And it is not very hard to see this from their sales figure and the condition of their London dealer. As a matter of fact, Pink Panther owned one Bristol.

A couple of days a new movie started roll on cinemas. An Education, story was taken place in 1960s London. It is very relaxing movie and gives opportunity to see British cultures in fifty years ago. There is an interesting fact about the movie also :) David (Peter Sarsgaard)  was driving a four-door Bristol! Neither a Bentley nor Aston Martin. A proper Bristol which was bought after an interview. Of course, we don’t see any seen like that in movie but it is very clear that, David had an interview with the owner of Bristol to own one.

Another interesting fact about the movie :)

Pictures are from;

An Education Website

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Smaller Engines, Higher Heels

Ten years ago, we had relatively different world! Google was not in our lives, we were using mobile phone just for talking, Subaru Impreza was looking very cool, turbo was something you could find in Impreza also, Adidas was not selling Porsche Design shoes in every shop, high definition TV was nothing, Wikipedia was not around us.

Year 2000 sounds very close but ten years passed just blink of an eye. We did not realize but our life dramatically changed with technology. Now we are searching everything from Google, we try to save our relationships with Google search, we communicate with Skype, we are shopping in huge malls, marketing turned into something very vital.

How I come to here? Again I will connect cars with fashion :) Ten years ago BMW 520i was producing 150 horsepower. Today VW announced the Polo GTi, which is producing 180 horsepower from 1,4lt turbo engine. Peugeot 308RCZ will have 1,6lt turbo engine with 220 horsepower. Ten years ago, Mercedes S320 was producing 220 horsepower from 3,2lt petrol engine.

Last summer; while my Cypriot friend was shopping. She was looking for high heeled shoes and she told me that ten years ago these shoes were not that high! I realized during last decade not only engine powers are raised, also heels' of shoes are raised. Very interesting relation :) However shoes sizes did not downsized like engine! This is also another fact! Now engines are producing more power in small space :) So, ten years ago Yves Saint Laurent shoes had only ten centimetres of heels, now it has fifteen centimetres :)

By this interesting relation; I can definitely say, cars and fashion has influence on each other ;) But please do not try to attach turbo on cloths :)

Pictures are from;
VW Website
Net-A-Porter Website

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Expensive and Useless

When you say these two words; expensive and useless, I remember one thing in automotive industry! BMW's iDrive technology. In 2001, BMW invented a minimalist design of controlling menus with one knob. Look great, sounds great and totally useless in reality unless you are twelve. Hopefully, BMW made some revision and iDrive became more usable but still useless :)

Recently, I saw a watch from Bell&Ross. 18 years old French watch manufacturer which loves to introduce bigger and bigger watches every season. Now they have introduced a net watch called "Radar". Time is shown like a radar screeen, sound innovative but totally useless! In order to understand the time, you have to spent five minutes and read the user manual several times.

Bell&Ross and BMW share one thing in common; they are very innovative but their products time-to-time useless!

Pictures are from;

BMW Website

Bell&Ross Website

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Unbelieveable news from Ford Fiesta

Ford Fiesta is one of the best looking small car on market, sorry VW! Despite the attractive and timeless design of Ford Fiesta there is a serious problem with Fiesta. It is using the worst automatic transmission on earth. Four-speed automatic! For people who has no idea of what is wrong with four-speed auto, let me explain it easier. This automatic transmission was used by Alexander The Great, and Ford could not manage to leave it!

Ford's financial problem forced to use this transmission even in this new Fiesta. Hopefully, Ford is going to offer the new technology PowerShift (double clucth) automatic transmission. What will happen? This new transmission will be offering very quick, actually seamlessly gear changes and this will provide lower emissions level and more efficient consumption. This new gearbox will make Fiesta is the best small car on market. Reasonable priced, extremely good designed, and high technology :) There is only one thing left, a small turbo charged engine.

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Ferrari Phone case with exhausts

Last week during my trip in Athens, I found a Ferrari Store. Like Porsche Design store everything is overpriced! However, I have managed to find something with relatively reasonably priced. Leather phone case with six exhaust pipes :)

Yes, it has exhaust pipes for a phone holder! The quality of the product is way better than I expected. Ferrari is not a brand which is promising very high quality in details like Porsche. But they did a very good job on this. Actually, their cars are becoming better and better in last one decade.

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New Porsche Cayenne just for a moment

You did not read wrong, it is the new Porsche Cayenne and it is on Porsche Website. Our dearest website Worldcarfans.com spotted the New Porsche Cayenne in Porsche's Configurator Website picture. However, now the current picture does not have the new Cayenne but someone managed to capture it ;)

Unfortuntely, Porsche managed to design something worse than current Cayenne, as you can see! I don't understand why the Porsche is insisting on an ugly SUV. While they have chance to design something much better. How? They have many designers in Porsche Design. And Porsche should have used their experience to create the new Cayenne.

Picture is from;
Worldcarfans.com

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Four-wheel drive Dacia Duster

I know that you were waiting for this, four-wheel drive Dacia :) And it is not available with 3,0lt V6 Nissan engine :) Yes, Nissan! Because, Dacia is owned by Renault and Renault is working with Nissan and here it is. Dacia powered by Nissan.

Actually, this model probably will not be on sale. This is an extreme version of Dacia's upcoming SUV model. You know that, everyone wants to introduce an SUV to market.

As you can see from the picture, it will be driven by legendary F1 pilot Alain Prost!

And as a reminder, Infiniti and Dacia are cousins ;)

Pictures is from;
Dacia Website

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Porsche Panamera V6 in China

Couple of years ago, car manufacturers were revealing their new cars in Geneva or Frankfurt Motor Shows. However world has changed and car companies also changed! European market turned into a place where nobody wants to buy car or they are taking so much time for purchase decision, the car is being replaced :)

On the other hand; emerging markets like China is looking for new cars and they are ready to buy without asking too much questions :) Therefore, car companies started to produce cars which are targeted for Asian markets. Porsche Panamera, Aston Martin Rapide are very good examples.

Let's go back to Porsche. As I told in earlier articles, Porsche loves to introduce Turbo S in the end of product life-cycle and loves to introduce V6 model after couple of months in new vehicles. This only happened with Cayenne! And now Porsche Panamera, my second best Porsche after 911, is not offered with V6 engine. Unlike Cayenne's insufficient engine, this one produced 300 horsepower from 3,6lt V6 engine.

Unfortunately, this engine is not my favourite but it is good chance to own Panamera with better price ;)

Pictures are from;
Porsche Website
Wikipedia

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Taxi Free traffic space

Last week, during my trip in Athens something very unusual has happened. Taxi drviers disappeared from the traffic! No, they were not sent to somewhere by molecular transportation. They went on strike!

To protest working condition and taxes, they did not work one day last week. I think many drivers were happy even for one day :) However, not all of them were not unhappy with the conditions; some of them took out their taxi sign on top and worked while other taxi drivers were on strike.

The only thing I was missing, I should have picked up the Mercedes S350 taxi ;) The Mercedes in the picture is E Class, S is even bigger!

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Ohh Panayamu, Saab with V8

I was in Greece, Athens for couple of days. It was a nice holiday with interesting experience :)

One of the most shocking thing was Saab 9-7X. Yes, this car is existing! And with 5,3lt engine. I saw this car next to historical place Acropolis.

Saab was owned by GM and everyone heard what happened to Saab nowadays. When Saab manufactured this pointless, weird looking, ridiculous SUV, they used the infrastructure of Chevrolet Trailblazer. Yes, this car is half American and half Swedish. However the idiotic situation does not end up here and it was offering 5,3lt American V8. Petrol eater, inefficient, seriously stupid 5,3lt V8 is starring in Swedish movie!

Actually when saw the 5,3i (it is injection) I was really shocked! A Saab with V8, who did this thing? I thought the owner stick this label but as soon as I checked the internet, I saw the unbelievable truth!

Eventually this car's production stopped in 2009. One of the best decision ever made by GM and Saab. And I understood from this car, Saab was produced in Sweden and managed in USA. So the result is catastrophic. Neither the product was satisfying customers' demand nor offering a competitive product.

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Athens in diesel ? Impossible !

Today I visited MAN Hellas in Athens. And found out something really unbelievable!!!

If you ever visited Athens you will notice something, everyone is rich!?! Why? Because, you don't hear any diesel engine noise. Exactly, in Athens there is no diesel car except commercial cars and taxis. Every SUV is powered by petrol. No, they did not explored petrol next to Syntagma Square.

Don't think that, every Greek won the lottery. Actually driving a diesel is verboten (forbidden) by government. Yes; the best tree hugger, the most environmental engine is forbid by the law. As I found out, nearly forty years ago, Greek government does not allow the diesel powered passenger cars in Athens to sustain the quality of air. However; world has changed, even the world has changed but the law did not change! Even if you want to buy a super ultra efficient German car with diesel engine, it is not allowed!

So, if you wish to see any kind of petrol powered SUVs in Europe, just go around Athens ;) Actually north of Athens is the best place to spot superb cars.

Pictures are from;

Mercedes Website

Wikipedia Website

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Greek Mercedes GL

Today I am in Greece. As we all read from the newspapers, Greece is suffering from economic crisis.

Interestingly, I saw the first Mercedes GL 500 in my life in Athens and ten minutes later, Bentley Continental GT. It was not GT Speed, sorry :( These two vehicles are designed to burn petrol without any hesitation :)

Driving a GL 500; that's the easiest way to say "ohh there was an economic crisis around, I did not know that" :)

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Better than Botox; 911 Turbo S

As we expected, Porsche announced the 911 Turbo S model. There is an interesting coincident for Turbo S! Whenever the product life cycle starts to go down, Porsche is introducing Turbo S model. This happened for Cayenne also! When the life cycle comes to end, Porsche immediately boost the Turbo :)

From one side, this is very nice. More powerful Turbo! New 911 Turbo S is achieving 100km/h in just 3,3 seconds! This is an unbelievable performance. Let me describe this differently; when you floor the gas pedal (hopefully does not stuck like Toyota) you won’t need to do a Botox. Because of the G force, your face will look younger ;) This performance level cannot be compared with anything else, because Bugatti Veyron is wasting 2,7 seconds to rich 100km/h. 911 Turbo S is also a bargain :)

Let me summarize it, if you wish to look younger buy a 911 Turbo S.

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Greece

I will in Athens, Greece until Saturday!

I will try to update it from Athens ;)

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Jaguar's and Bentley's common part!

Jaguar and Bentley are the most sophisticated brands of British automotive industry. These two brands are reflection of social status, welfare and wealth. Especially driving a Bentley is reflecting your social status in crystal clear quality. Jaguar is not sharing the same segmentation with Bentley but it is also an icon of social status.

Their common part is the aerial radio antenna! Yes, very ridiculous but they share antenna from 1980s. When the Jaguar XK first introduced, they did not use a modern antenna for radio. The antenna which they used was rising when the radio is switched on and lowered when the radio is switched off, 1980s technology. After a couple years later, they have replaced with a modern one which does not go up and down. However, Bentley stuck on this antenna and it is still offering it on Azure and Brooklands models. I have no idea why the Bentley is doing something like this! Jaguar was suffering financial problems and this antenna was one of the cost saving options. But Bentley? It is owned by Volkswagen and they have lots of money. I really wonder why they used this kind of prehistoric antenna?

Pictures are from;

Bentley Website

My collection

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Rely on me

Thanks you my Dell XPS M1330 which tends to break down every five months! Using this kind of laptop forced me to find alternatives to replace my Dell XPS! And I found Samsung for a replacement. However the interesting thing about Samsung was not its size or weight. It was the advertisement :)

9 hours battery life was mentioned by travelling from Paris to Barcelona. Three minutes of advertisement is mainly taken inside Jaguar XK but not the new, the old one! During this trip, Samsung X420 provides 9 hours of battery power and the girl did not get bored. And the advertisement gives the message, "you can rely on me". The interesting thing in the advertisement was not the battery life of the laptop, it was the reliability of Jaguar. Unfortunately, Jaguar's are not considered as very reliable cars but it did not show any trace of problem :) Actually, a Maserati GranTurismo or new Jaguar XK would fit better than the old Jaguar!

Here is the video of this advertisement;

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Today, Tomorrow, Emotions, Toyota

Empire of robustness started to fall into parts. Toyota constructed its brand identity based on high quality production techniques, problem free cars and reliability and ignoring status value, a design philosophy, increasing interior material quality. Until last couple of weeks, being problem free was enough to sell millions of cars every year. However, a tiny problem with gas pedal was adequate to prepare a huge domino effect on Toyota.

In any aspect of life, you need to divide your assets into different places to reduce the risks. They are doing this in stock exchange; investors buy different shares and in case of emergency their loss is minimized. If they invest everything on one paper, they might have huge return but any fluctuations will destroy everything.

Toyota did something similar to investing all your wealth into one share, and they avoided reducing the risk by separating them. When you think about Toyota, you will probably think about Japanese good prices, good quality and dull looking car. Toyota never focused on design, status icon, product image as much as they focused on problem free. What they have done is a very good thing but they should have focused on other aspects to strength their brand image.

Let's think about Alfa Romeo and Mercedes. Alfa Rome has a very bad reputation for breaking down, nowadays break down issues reduced but that's a part of Alfa Romeo. However, this does not prevent people to buy Alfa Romeo. I would definitely buy a MiTo instead of idiotic looking Toyota Yaris. MiTo has the passion, design and Italian style, with potential problems. But those other assets of Alfa Romeo's brand image motivating people to purchase an Alfa Romeo and ignoring the failing fact! And people still buying Alfa Romeo and they could emerge emotional relationship with their car but with Toyota it is impossible. The only relationship which you can make is the green digital clock! Toyota ignored the emotional part of marketing!

Mercedes suffered a worse problem in 2004 with electronic braking system SBC. It was an innovative electronic braking pedal which works totally electronic. And it broke down! Suddenly, in some cars it did not wish to slow down the car. Mercedes faced huge profit loss and recalled many cars. But did this destroy Mercedes totally? Of course not, because Mercedes had other attributes associated to brand. Like; status value, smooth riding quality, high quality interior, eye catching design. All these assets helped Mercedes to recover more easily and people never forgot the SBC problem totally.

So, Toyota does not have any strong assets to sustain its brand image and recover easily. They could invest on advertisements and PR campaigns heavily to recover all these. But they should revise their policy about manufacturing cars! As I can see from their green digital clock, they treat car as a calculator and they ignore the fact that people might associate different attributes to a car and those attributes can save the brand in case of emergency.

Pictures are from;
EuroNCAP Website
Alfa Romeo Website
Mercedes Website

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