The French automaking industry has long had a reputation for turning out vehicles that appear to be built completely from scratch, as though there was not a single other car in the world from which to turn for inspiration.
Renault upholds that tradition with a couple of its prototype electric cars: the Twizy, shown above, and the Zoe, which not only have ridiculous names but are among the ugliest vehicles ever produced anywhere. Renault unveiled the concept cars last week at the Frankfurt Autoshow.
The Twizy, which looks like it has square wheels, is expected to go into production in the second half of 2011 and the Zoe in mid 2012.
As The Coyote Blog puts it: “Combine 40% French design and engineering, 40% political correctness, 10% Hello Kitty and 10% of WTF to get this new electric concept car from Renault with square wheels called the Twizy.”
Indeed, the Twizy looks like it would come out on the short end of a battle with a Big Wheel.
Of course, there’s no accounting for European tastes in general when it comes to vehicles – it’s apparently either all (Mercedes, BMW or high-performance expensive sports cars) or nothing (Yugo, Citroen or pretty much anything built behind the Iron Curtain).
More on: http://southcarolina1670.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/renault-upholds-french-auto-tradition/
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Title: Women drivers 'more likely to suffer parking stress'
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:09:08 +0000
Author: lucyhamshare
Its official, women are hopeless at driving. I know this will anger all those feminists out there, but unfortunately a survey of 4,200 drivers (men and women!) by insurance company elephant.co.uk has proved it. The survey found that female motorists are much more likely to suffer parking stress than men, particularly when someone else is watching them.
I’m afraid I have to agree with this survey. I am hideous at parking – I hardly ever reverse into a space, and if my boyfriend is in the car with me, I usually get him to park the car if it’s a particularly tight spot. And apparently I’m not alone, the survey found that women are twice as likely to ask someone else to park their car for them, and three-quarters admit that backing into a space is at times too tricky even when there is sufficient room. This compares to just 9% of men who admit they are useless at parallel parking and half who admit that reverse parking can be tricky.
Interestingly, earlier this year, the AA revealed that 34 per cent of drivers would fail on parallel parking if forced to retake their driving test.
Fortunately, many car makers, including Ford, Volkswagen and Mercedes, have wizened on to the fact that us girlies are useless at parking and have invented parking assist gadgets to help us out. Ford’s Parking Assist, for example, uses four ultrasonic sensors located in the rear bumper which are activated when the ignition is switched on and the reverse gear is selected. As the car is reversed the sensors detecte any obstacles behind the car and will alert a warning sound when the car gets too close. So if you own a Ford and you find yourself panicking at the thought of having to park your car, pop down to your local Ford dealer to find out more, and let those panic-stricken moments be a thing of the past and let’s beat those boys at parking!
More on: http://carsforgirls.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/women-drivers-more-likely-to-suffer-parking-stress/
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