2015 Turkey Award: Volkswagen AG

Why hesitate? Without a doubt, Volkswagen AG more than deserves CelloMom's Turkey award this year, for installing devious software in huge numbers of its cars to pretend that they pass the NOx emissions limits while really they don't in real-life, on-the-road use. In the US, VW owners are now offered $1000 to bring in their - our - NOx spewing machines into the dealer for the fix. Of that, $500 is in cash, and $500 is in credit for parts of work done by the dealerships.

The toxic cloud around the issue is still spreading, eveloping an ever growing number of cars, brand and locations, and casting a finally crticial public eye also on the inadequacies of the European test cycle in general, and especially where it overstates fuel efficiency, in some cases up to an egregious 40%. This last bit has been a public secret for quite some time, but now people are calling it out for what it is: scandalous.

Adding to the smog, Volkswagen has denied that its sales have been negatively affected by the "Dieselgate" scandal. But who is going to believe them now?

Happy Thanksgiving! And remember what your mom said: don't lie. Afterward, people won't trust you, ever again.

 

 

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Turkey Dealer

I'm on the road and see a VW dealer. There's snow in the forecast. I'm feeling generous toward my conveyance, so I decide to replace a wiper that has a loose patch of blade with a genuine VW part, from the VW dealer. So I pull into the dealership.

Photo by Ilya Plekhanov

I ask the way to the parts window - this is not the dealership near by me where I usually get my dealer business done - and wait a while. They have to page the clerk twice before he appears. I apologise for cutting into his lunch (it's 1.30pm) and he's gracious about it.

"What can I do for you, ma'am?"

"I just need a replacement wiper blade for my Golf."

"OK. Can I have your name and phone number?"

I blink.

2013 Turkey Award: Cadillac Escalade Hybrid

This is the time of year when thoughts turn to birds of the kind that's loaded with tryptophan and side dishes. But earlier this week there was exciting news about the direct predecessor of birds: the dinosaurs. Fossilised remains have been found in Utah of a gigantic dinosaur which lived about 100 million years ago, in the Cretaceous period just preceding the era of Tyrannosaurus rex.

This dinosaur, named Siats meekerorum, was one ugly brother, if you believe the reconstructions. A giant carnivore, it looked much meaner than T. rex; in fact, it probably terrorised T. rex for millions of years. The specimen found in Utah was an impressive 30 feet long and weighed about 9,000 pounds - and that was a juvenile.

It wasn't until after Siats became extinct that T. rex developed into the late-Cretaceous giant we know today, one of the largest land carnivores of all time. An adult T. rex could reach a total length of about 40 feet, and weigh a massive 14,000 pounds. No wonder it was always hungry.

2012 Turkey Award: MonsterMini

Remember The Italian Job? The heist movie in which the booty was so large they needed three getaway cars to carry it all away? Of course, the gold might have fitted in one car if it had been larger. As it was, three Morris Minis made the getaway in one of the most exhilirating chase sequences in cinema: through the narrow streets of Turin, over staircases, and even through a segment of underground sewer.

Photo Jim from London
via Wikimedia Commons

To tell the truth: even a 1969 Mini couldn't fit in a Turn sewer, so that part of the chase was filmed in Coventry (UK).

Those 1969 Mini Coopers had the same sweet design as the original Morris Mini-Minor launched in 1959 by BMC, the British Motor Corporation. The latter was a bare-bones kind of car. Its instrument panel had a speedometer, gasoline and oil gauges, temperature gauge, warning lights for ignition and main beam. That's it. It cost £ 497. The Deluxe model had a clock.

Ten years later, the 1969 Mini Cooper came with a 1.3L engine (up from 848 cc). Its top speed was just shy of 100 mph, but you don't need that when you're bypassing snarled traffic in Turin, Italy.

The American remake of the Italian Job (2003) featured three Mini Cooper S, made by Rover. It's questionable that the 2003 Mini Cooper would have fit in that Coventry sewer: it's a lot bigger than the 1969 Mini Cooper. Instead, the movie makers opted for sending them down a Los Angeles subway tunnel.

The 2012 Bollywood remake, Players, features the suave Abhishek Bachchan and - you guessed it - three Mini Coopers (now under BMW). The original 1969 movie is still the best by far, but the Indian remake has a twist on the Minis that, like everything Bollywood, is way over the top.

Here's what's way over the top: one of the Cooper's current brethren.

One day this summer, CelloPlayer and CelloDad came storming in, back from a bike ride, wind-blown and wide-eyed. They looked like they had been chased by a monster.

"A Monster Mini! You won't believe it!"

Photo M93 via Wikimedia

It took a while to calm them down, but eventually it transpired that they had sighted a Mini that was so improbably large that it qualified for the "monster" classification. A bit of research pointed to the Countryman, Mini's bid for the SUV market. As the Cygnet is the ugly duckling at Aston Martin, so the Countryman is the cuckoo in the Mini nest: it is 35% longer than the original Morris Mini-Minor, 43% wider and 16% taller. It is monstrous.

This thing would have got hopelessly stuck in a city sewer.

I can see how it caused a cognitive disconnect to see the Mini logo on something that large, like seeing a tricycle the size of a pickup truck. The Countryman is not large as SUVs go, but among the Dutch traffic it must have stuck out like a sore thumb. At over 4 meters length (161.7" = 4.11m) and with an SUV-like height (61.5" = 1.56m) it's imposing enough. There's not much left of the adorable from the Mini-Minor. And Countryman is so big and heavy that even with its modern engine it still manages to have worse fuel efficiency than its dainty forebears from the 1960s.

Guess what? If you must drive an SUV, drive a real SUV. Don't drive something that's supposed to be very large, made by a company that got its fame by making diminutive cars. Even its name is small. Its logo looks wrong on a monster.

Monster Mini gets CelloMom's 2012 Turkey Award.

The sad thing is, it doesn't stop there. 2013 will see the launch of the Mini Paceman, perhaps so named after the pair of gorillas that have been vigorously pacing its roof all night (after they were done doing the Range Rover Evoque). The Paceman is basically a Countryman of which the roof has been mercilessly squashed down. Needless to say, the unfortunates on the back seat will have a side window half the size of those on a Mini-Minor. Is that progress?

 

Mini, then and now

	Morris	Austin	Rover	BMW
Type	Mini-Minor	Cooper	Cooper S	Countryman
Year	1959	1969	2003	2013
MSRP	£ 497	£ 849	$ 19,900	$ 22,450
Fuel Economy:
City/Hwy quoted			22 / 31	27 / 35
Avg. quoted	33 mpg	32 mpg	25	30
Avg. actual
Engine	0.848L	1.3L, 4-cyl	1.6L 4-cyl	1.6L 4-cyl
Power	33 HP	78 HP	163	121
Torque	44 lb-ft	80 lb-ft	155	118
Transmission	4-spd man	4-spd man	6-spd man	6-spd man
Fuel		unleaded	premium	unleaded
Length, mm(in)	120.2"	120.2"	143.9"	161.7"
Width, mm(in)	55.0"	55.0"	66.5"	78.6"
Height, mm(in)	53.0"	53.0"	55.8"	61.5"
Weight, kg(lbs)	1380	1539	2513 lbs	2954
Cargo, liters(cuft)		5.4	5.5 / 25 cuft
Turning radius, m(ft)	32 ft		17.5 ft
Top speed, kph(mph)	75	98 mph	138 mph	116

VW Bulli is a turkey

You know CelloMom loves Volkswagens. But it was with dismay that she first greeted the new VW concept microbus, nicknamed the Bulli. Allright, it was actually a viscreal reaction: "Eeuw!". The Bulli gets CelloMom's 2011 Turkey Award.

The new 2012 Beetle was actually a runner-up, but someone has already stomped on that one so it now looks like a squashed bug, saving CelloMom the trouble. But the more she heard about this Bulli thing, the more it started to look like a Christmas tree festooned with glittering gimmicks.

First gimmick: it was designed, and even painted, to remind of the very successful VW Type 2, variously known as the VW bus, the camper, the hippiemobile, etc. Tug the heartstrings, cue the violins - I mean the Grateful Dead.

You might argue that the T1 was ugly; but it was ugly with character. It invariably invokes an "AawwWW!" from CelloMom's chidren whenever we spot one on the road. Besides, you learned to love its homeliness for all the good times you had travelling in it. Even when it did break down you could repair it in the comfort of its shelter. CelloMom is not tall and appreciated the T2 because she could swing the kitchen out of the way, remove the engine cover, sit over the engine and really reach in, even using leg strength for tightening the fan belt. Try that with a front-engine model.

If the Type 2 was called a microbus, the Bulli should be classified a nanobus. It is not long, about the length of a Honda Fit. It is said to carry six, because its body is quite wide. But still, behind that protruding engine in the stubby nose, and two rows of seats, there is barely room in the very back for one cello. Perhaps a guitar and a small amp. Forget about camping gear.

So it's wide, short and boxy on the back. Only a piece of plywood with the same frontal area has more air resistance. Even a turkey (with its tail down) has better aerodynamic design.

The model rolled out at the various auto shows this year was fitted with an electric engine: another gimmick playing to the current infatuation with EVs.

And that iPad installed on the dashboard! CelloMom has nothing against iPads - except when they live on car consoles. Can you just see the roadside scene, police cruiser's lights flashing: "OK, driver's license. Right. Say, officer, can you hang on one minute? I'm on this online game and I just need 5 more points to get to the next level."

Let's hope the Bulli will never see the production line. What's wrong with the VW Sharan? Except for its utter unavailability in the US.