I haven’t written much recently because I’ve sort of been struggling for ideas. I did try scraping the bottom of the barrel but didn’t find anything there. However underneath the barrel I found this idea! Here are 5 car stories I’ve found in the last month or so that I find either quite funny, quite interesting (ok perhaps interesting is a strong word) or both,

Lancia’s Production line stupidity

The Lancia Beta Spider had one of the stupidest production lines in history. Each car started as a normal beta coupe rolling shell at Lancia’s factory in Turin. Those selected to be a spider were then sent 70 miles down the road to the spider factory in Milan. Here the roof would get lobbed off, new rear panels were fitted and the body was strengthened. These were then sent the 70 miles back to Turin again to get rust proofed. They were then sent back to Milan again for the interior trim to be fitted before getting sent back to Turin again to fit the engine and powertrain. As a result the production line for one of these cars came in at around 280 miles long.

Perfectly sensible if you’re an Italian production engineer in the 70s. Or on acid…

Citroen’s sticker request

The Bond film For Your Eyes only features Roger Moore in a Citroen 2CV running away from some baddies in a Peugeot 504. To coincide with the film’s release Citroen announced a 500-off bond special edition of the 2CV. It featured the same yellow paint as the car in the film but was also given some 007 graphics and some bullet hole stickers. As Bond is British, Citroen UK was interested in getting their hands on some. They therefore trusted a young marketing person who definitely spoke French to send a memo to Citroen head office in Paris to request some. 

The message that was received translated bullet holes literally as “trous de balle” which unfortunately is French slang for something else. As a result Citroen head office received a message from Citroen UK enthusing about the 007 limited edition covered in ‘stickers of arseholes.’

Mind you, that would probably still work for that era of bond…

Vauxhall vs doves

If you’re eating while reading this, perhaps um, don’t…

In 1964, Vauxhall opened their new vehicle development centre in Luton. No expense was spared particularly in the design facility. It had 6 shiny new studios to test the looks of upcoming models, a fabrication shop and a large rooftop viewing area so the styling models could be viewed under natural light. To get the designers creative juices flowing the space was furnished with stained glass windows, an aquarium and a dovecote. 

Unfortunately for Vauxhall this final feature’s life didn’t pan out as they expected. The specially sourced doves Vauxhall had introduced started breeding with the local pigeon population and the entire viewing area started getting covered in bird crap. The final straw for the dovecote came when the design director found the private door from his office to the viewing deck got jammed due to the amount of faecal matter trapped in the hinges. The dovecote was removed shortly after.

Jaguar F-type: “attempt 2”

The jaguar F-type launched in 2015 was actually jaguar’s 3rd attempt to bring an F-type to market. The first attempt came in the 80s and was intended to be a successor to the highly famous and highly acclaimed E-type. But a lukewarm management kept pushing the project further and further back on Jag’s agenda until it eventually got cancelled in 1990.

The second attempt came around 2000, a concept car was taken to a few motor shows, plans to base it on their S-type saloon were drawn up and Jag’s engineers bought a Honda S2000 to benchmark the car’s performance against. But the Honda didn’t last very long before the jag engineers crashed it.

No matter! These things happen. Jag therefore bought another one, and crashed that one as well. They then bought yet another, and crashed that one as well…

While it’s not clear how many Hondas were sent to the great drivers road in the sky, enough money was spent for Jag’s management to decide they’d be better off spending the money making diesel engines instead.

Third time’s the charm though and the F type that eventually went on sale lasted until last year.

Renault’s drastic industrial action

This story starts in the mid 70s when Renault started toying with the idea of building a small city car that would be cheap to make and buy, and could therefore replace the pretty ancient Renault 4. Designs were drawn up and the project was coming along quite nicely.

However in 1985 Renault was privatised and started making a massive loss. As a result the project got cancelled.

Renault’s union kept working on the project and made a full design and production plan of their own. But unfortunately when the project was pitched to the Renault board it was met with a flat “non.” This was because Renault CEO at the time, Georges Besse, was a ruthless cost cutter. Axing the project gave him an excuse to close a factory and lay off about 21,000 staff.

The layoff scheme caught the attention of the anarchist Militia group Action Directe. A few days later, Besse ‘left’ Renault as he became the only car company boss in history to leave his position on account of being assassinated…

The remaining Renault board took this as a sign they should probably keep the factory open and a small city car was just the thing to populate it!

While you would thing the logical next step from here would be to use the union’s design. The Renault board decided a better idea would be to start the project from scratch again and fiddle with the project code numbers so the union wouldn’t find out. After a few more years of development, Renault finally put their small city car on sale. That car was the original Renault Twingo.

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