5 Dec 2016 – Driven To Write

Today’s Random Nugget

Idly I wanted to know what John Simister is up to…

He wrote for the Independent and is a freelancer now. I remember him from his days writing for Car magazine (1995-1998). This review turned up, of the MG3. Since I don’t live in the UK, I never see these cars and had forgotten about them. This part of the review is a surprise: “Despite this, there is a precision, a deftness, a transparency to the MG3’s responses that are rare in a new, mass-market model. It steers beautifully, it rides smoothly over bumps, it flows in a way which just makes you feel good. You do have to work the engine hard, but it’s not too noisy and a tidy gear-change action helps get the best from it.” Simister is known for his fondness for French cars so I read this as meaning the car drives like a Peugeot 205.

Far From the Mainstream – Fisker Karma

It’s Monday so all I can present to you is a four-year old fossil from what must be one of the shortest-lived car companies of recent years.

2012-fisker-karma-grey — Death has a revolving door. 2012 Fisker Karma.

While the main theme of this series is an excursion through the obscure brands on sale, this is also a case of the dead rising again. No sooner had the lawyers finished off the outstanding ‘issues’ related to Fisker’s defunct firm than someone else dusted off the corpse, slapped on the make-up and lo, Karma Revero is born. Continue reading “Far From the Mainstream – Fisker Karma”

Theme: Places – Scene of the Accident

There are some places you simply don’t want to go.

In his transgressive 1973 novel, ‘Crash’, novelist JG Ballard explored a netherworld where a group of symphorophiliasts play out their fetishes of eroticism and death amid the carnage of motor accidents. But while most of us might find ourselves staring luridly against our better instincts at some roadside crumplezone, we recoil in dread from the blood and the bone. It could after all so easily be ourselves trapped and lifeless inside some shattered hatchback. Continue reading “Theme: Places – Scene of the Accident”