Is This a New Service?

April 7, 2021 Longrider Civil Liberties, General News, Political, Science and Technology, sophistry 30

I’ve had RAC cover for decades. On the few occasions that I’ve needed it, I’ve had no complaints. However…

Drivers in crowded cities should think twice before buying a big SUV, says the head of a motoring organisation.

Steve Gooding, from the RAC Foundation, said: “We should all choose the right vehicle for the right trip to cut the size of our carbon footprint.

“It is right to question if suburban drivers need a car capable of ploughing over rivers, across fields and up steep hills just to pop to the shops.”

His comments come as research confirms most SUVs are bought by urban drivers.

Although such a vehicle has never appealed to me, I don’t expect a breakdown service to lecture me on my choice of vehicle. After all, I don’t need one of these, but I’ve ordered one anyway because it will make me smile. It is not their place to tell me or anyone else what is an appropriate vehicle to own. If they are to lobby at all, it should be for the benefit of road users, not to tell them what to buy in order to affect some mythical carbon footprint.

If I should decide to buy an SUV (okay, very, very unlikely – to never) then I will do so and ignore any advice from the RAC, which, frankly, needs to shut up and concentrate on what it is supposed to be doing – roadside repairs and recovery.

The Soviet Union and its satellite states used to decide what was best for their citizens, which was why they drove Trabants and Wartburgs. Actually, the Wartburg (two stroke triple) was quite a bit of fun to drive, but that’s another story.

H/T Julia.

30 Comments

  1. The problem is with the houses that have been built. Most only have parking or garage for one vehicle.
    Now perhaps Mr.Gooding has room for a vehicle for every purpose on his estate
    Nipping into town, take the oh so eco- friendly subsidised battery tiny car.
    Of to play golf take the compact saloon, big enough to take his clubs and caddy.
    Taking whole family on holiday (eh?) take the large estate car.
    And of course, for that nasty winter weather and trips to countryside the 4×4.
    Result – a great feeling of smug self satisfzction because each time he is using the perfect vehicle for the journey.
    For the rest of us, it is a one vehicle compromise.
    Tosser.

  2. Do I need a pickup truck?
    Well, yes actually.
    But I bought it before I actually needed it, because I like pickup trucks and just bloody well wanted one. So the point still stands.
    Did I need the 3.2 litre in-line 5?
    No, the 2.2 litre would also be sufficient. But it’s what I wanted. Mr. RAC can just bloody well do one.

    If he wanted to discourage people from driving large vehicles, he’d be better cherry picking statistics about how they’re less fuel efficient (possibly) and more likely to roll in a high speed whoopsie, (higher centre of gravity etc.) Or point out their EuroNCAP scores aren’t always better than a smaller car.
    But then, I’d have to point people towards this video of a Fiat 500 Vs Q7 crash test…
    https://youtu.be/6pVF1Wr7GLQ
    Which would you rather be in?

    If we go by what we need rather than what we want, then the economy comes to a grinding halt. Oh wait. It kind of already did.

    • Good video. Reminds me of one on Rover 800 sandwiched between two arctics in M’way crash – all in Rover uninjured. Rover 800 was my car then, great car and better than equiv Audi, BMW, Merc etc

  3. Absolutely love my SUV. I don’t always need masses of space but when I do it’s the absolute business. Its fuel economy is pretty impressive especially considering the size of it. I also don’t give a toss about what an RAC mouthpiece has to say about it.

  4. If I lived in London, an armoured vehicle would probably be appropriate.

    Who am I kidding though, I live in Merseyside, the UK’s gun capital (and it appears the UK’s sex offender capital).

    I don’t recognise this country anymore.

  5. I didn’t know Indian motorcycles had been revived (again- is a close contest between them and Norton as to which has gone to the wall the most times!). I wonder how long before their name is denounced as ‘problematic’ and the cancel culture hit mob targets them?

    • Funnily enough, that and the war bonnet emblem has left me thinking the same. I don’t know how they managed to slip under the radar. As for going to the wall, I think that like Triumph, they are in a good position this time as the parent company Polaris, is pretty strong.

        • Magic! If only the indigenous White English population would be able to rise up in a vaguely similar manner without being beaten into submission by woodentops!

      • RE the AMB-001-nice, shame they’re being built in France though!

        Yes, there are a few surviving names from the heyday of the British motorcycle industry (another casualty of the 70’s trade unions), the only major player is Triumph though. My original point was the like Norton, Indian has had its fair share of revivals that didn’t last. Glad they seem to have achieved some stability under their current owners.

        • Triumphs are built in Thailand so, as far as I’m concerned, you are paying a premium price for a bike built in a 3rd world country. They may be designed in the UK but that’s it.

          The “I’ve bought the name so it’s the same” with Royal Enfield (I actually like the new 650) but it is Indian, not British since it wasn’t designed in the UK or manufactured here. If Broughs are manufactured in France, then the same argument applies. It makes as much sense as me changing my name to Windsor and calling my kids Prince and Princess. I have the name so they are the same? I think not.

          The Indians have bought the BSA name/brand so it will be interesting to see what they do with it but if they simply bought Hondas and rebadged them, would that make them “British”?.

          I’ll stick to the old British bikes or Japanese, thanks.

          • “Triumphs are built in Thailand so, as far as I’m concerned, you are paying a premium price for a bike built in a 3rd world country. They may be designed in the UK but that’s it.”

            Not quite, the Bonneville variants are built in Thailand, but the Rocket, Speed/Street Triple, Thunderbird and Trident are built at the Jacknell Road facility in Hinckley.

            There is no difference at all between the bikes built here or abroad. The factories are the same, owned by the same owners, the tools and machines are the same, assembly lines are the same. The raw steel is usually supplied by Tata in India as it is here in the UK. All Triumph engines were designed by Lotus Engineering and are bullet proof. The earlier triples and fours of the 90’s were designed by Cosworth Engineering.

            I work for a very British digger manufacturer and we have plants in India, the USA, China, Russia and Brazil. Not only is the design the same in these plants as the UK, but there are standardised SOP’s (Standard Operational Procedures) across all factories which ensures that the end product is identical, no matter where its made. Sub assemblies need to be shipped back to the UK and assembled here, so must pass quality/safety controls. Triumph work exactly the same way. I know this because some years ago representatives from Triumph visited our factory to look at our production methods abroad.

            Royal Enfield is Indian owned now, but the basic model, the Bullet, is still manufactured exactly as it was in the UK. The only differences being additions to meet EU emission regulations such as electronic fuel injection.

            BSA tried to get back up and running with a model based on the Yamaha SR. It failed so I don’t know what happened to BSA after that. They didn’t even manage resurrection.

            Back to Triumph, a year or so ago they were in talks with Honda to rebadge smaller commuter machines primarily for the Asian market, and I think they were contemplating bringing back the Tiger Cub and Terrier as small commuter machines. I don’t know how that went.

          • I agree with Ripper, Triumph is still British-owned and that’s the main thing.

            I always used to find it a bizarre argument that British firms should only have UK manufacturing sites, unlike other countries’ firms that operate in multiple locations.

            IMO one of the big factors in the downfall of British Leyland was them shutting and selling off all their overseas locations, forcing them to reply on the UK sites at the height of the 70’s industrial troubles (whereas Ford and GM could bring in vehicles manufactured elsewhere).

          • I think that Norton has been bought by an Indian company that is investing quite a lot of money in it. Royal Enfield have an R&D facility in Leicestershire and the new 650 was designed there.

    • Woke can moan, bikers don’t care

      @Chernyy
      Do a YT search on ‘bikers for trump’ – plenty of woke/dems running away as soon as bikers appear

    • My father had one. It was cheap transport for a family at the time and remarkably reliable compared with, say British Leyland products at the time. I learned to drive in it. Because of the two stroke engine it had a zippy performance. If I recall correctly it was a 20:1 mix, which you did at the pump. For an Eastern Bloc car, it wasn’t all that bad. The motoring press hated them, but people who bought them tended to think differently. Hurtling around Welsh roads at the wheel of this beast was where I cut my teeth driving. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

    • I owned a Skoda (rear engine) when 17. On-road handling was vague, off-road was great. Reliable and easy to tune

      Interior was spartan, but front and rear seats converted into two lie flat single beds – wink

      Confession: it was an offload from mate’s father’s garage – MOT fail with one year MOT, 9 months tax and ‘fix the brakes’ £V-cheap

      • “Off-road was great”

        Which is why they won their class in the RAC rally for something like 17 years on the trot! The engine lived on in the all new FWD Felica after the rear engined cars went out of production. I saw one at a local car show recently, and couldn’t get over how simple the under-bonnet layout was – nothing superfluous, and easy access for roadside maintenance. That might seem irrelevant now, but when you consider the target markets 30 odd years ago, an essential asset…

      • @microdave
        I guess many USSR roads were unpaved and car designed for that. Vague on-road was it wandered a bit, but if you’re used to off-road you know to ignore that as long as vehicle still going in desired direction – same on snow & ice

        Fighting wandering often results in crash, as does braking rather than nothing or accelerating

        My first mods were trip to breakers for an electric screenwash, a Nissan provided a pump & water bag setup, and a pair of H4 bulbs. Skoda had a foot pump bulb to left of clutch which was crap

        Next was ditch enormous heavy metal airbox and replace with a bike K&N and rejet carb. Made engine access easier and car faster than a 10 year newer Astra with same size engine

        If anyone thinks fold down rear seat backs in saloons were a 90s invention – the 70s Skoda had them with a space behind easily big enough to hide a man & his dog

  7. I remember the Wartburg. Back when I was at school in the seventies one of our teachers had one. It was an estate, it appeared to be well made and well designed to my uninitiated fourteen year old eyes. It sounded funny. My parents actually considered buying one as they were as cheap to buy new as an old banger.

    • See my comment above. That funny sound was the two stroke triple and they were cheap and reliable – as you say, you could buy a new one for the same as an old Ford or Leyland offering. Which was why my father bought one.

      • The two stroke engine had deflector topped pistons like a Scott. Interesting that the East German MZ motorcycle company had some of the world’s most modern two stroke designs, although by the seventies the Japanese had copied them and caught up.

        • “By the seventies the Japanese had copied them and caught up”

          And this is why:

          “In the 1950s, MZ was the world leader in two-stroke engines. Especially through the work of their racing engineer and department leader Walter Kaaden their engines became nearly unbeatable. The factory rider Ernst Degner fled from East Germany and brought all their knowledge to Suzuki. Walter Kaaden’s secret was stolen”

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MZ_Motorrad-_und_Zweiradwerk

        • MZs like CZs & Jawas were very underrated. My fist bike, when 14, was a CZ 175 Trail as it was cheapest bike in local classifieds and all I could afford. Good learner bike as tank etc so strong falls never dented and the Barum tyres shrugged of everything

          If MZ had dropped ‘metal box’ tank and cylinder in favour of some curves they’d have sold more

  9. Mr Gooding needs a large footprint…

    On the back of his head…

    Put there by an elephant.

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