By all accounts, Russian roads are a nightmare. The rich and powerful can buy flashing lights for any of their cars, meaning they have right of way at intersections. The roads frequently ice over and potholes are a nightmare, as evidenced by this hilarious video. It’s utter chaos out there. It seems like they should be playing stereotypical circus music over a loudspeaker.
Ciro De Siena
This picture, captured during podium celebrations after the British Grand Prix, was actually printed in a real newspaper. How did they miss that unfortunately placed flaming logo? We’ll leave the Vindaloo jokes up to you.
Ciro De Siena
Waking up at 4am after barely two hours of sleep for a 06:30 Monday morning flight is, um, challenging. I arrived at the newly completed King Shaka airport in Durbs feeling rather bleary and contorted, to say the least, having sat between two former rugby props for what felt like 17 years. I was then immediately bundled into a Kombi, driven 15 metres to a parking lot where my one open eye was greeted by six brand new convertible and coupe BMWs. That sort of sight has the ability to improve your mood by some margin.
After what was probably the briefest press briefing in history, we were asked to pick a car for the first leg of the drive. The first vehicle of the day would be a maroon 335i convertible with flappy paddles. It takes about 5 seconds in this car to realise it is a brilliant machine. It’s athletic, comfortable, well stuck together and damn sexy. It’s by far and away the sportiest 4-seat convertible in it’s segment, barring the special performance models from various marques. But it is also R750 000, which is a lot. Even so, I prefer the coupe.
Following the successful hosting of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, the nation is chasing other major sport events with renewed vigour, and Formula One is no exception.
Over the weekend, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone reaffirmed his belief that Formula One will come to the African continent this decade, and the leading city is Cape Town. Eccelstone told BBC radio that “We’ve been talking to the people in Cape Town…We’re talking about building a circuit. It’s probably about three years away. That’s what I would like to see. I would hope so. I’ve been hoping that for five years.”
South Africa enjoyed a healthy dose of Formula One from the inception of the sport. Cape Town was the first city to host an international Formula One Grand Prix in 1960 at the Killarney Race Circuit. The following year the saw the likes of Sterling Moss compete at the same facility but poor financial planning by the promoters lost the event for the venue.
The last time a Formula One race was held in South Africa was in 1993, at the Kyalami circuit in Midrand, north of Johannesburg. Kyalami also held a race in 1992, and from 1967 through to 1985. Prior to that, the Prince George Circuit in East London held events in 1962, ’63 and ’65.
The financial benefits are seemingly obvious; Formula One is the single most expensive sporting code per event on Earth, and returns to each track year after year. Mega-events like the Olympics come along once every few decades and place considerable strain on a city’s finances. It has been suggested that Athens 2004 played a considerable role in the Greek financial crisis which struck only this year.
The news spread rapidly and inevitably Dave Gant, CEO of the South African Grand Prix Corporation, was asked to clarify or even ratify the statements.
I have an unusual habit of picking up test cars using public transport. I once took a Golden Arrow bus to Century City Mercedes Benz to pick up R2.2m worth of S65 AMG Limo Spec, which is almost exactly the opposite of public transport. It has a two TVs and a fridge for goodness’ sake.
The morning I was due to collect the TT RS I surprisingly had few lift options and so made use of the highly efficient and well-mannered minibus taxi service offered in Cape Town central. Sitting in the taxi waiting for it to fill up, so we could leave, I suddenly remembered all the advice about getting into an empty taxi. You literally wait. Until. It fills up. And then you leave. When the taxi driver has finished his lunch.
This gave my current vehicle a 0 – 100km/h sprint time of 24 minutes. Which is exactly 23 minutes and 55.4 seconds slower than the Audi TTRS I was about to be driving for a week.
Gavin, my co-editor, is quite an observationalist. He spots things that most wouldn’t, and then relays the information in an often hilarious manner. Once he’s made me notice something, I can very rarely ignore it. Like the way Vic Maharaj, a panellist on SuperSport’s Formula 1 show, begins every sentence with ‘basically’. I’ve probably ruined that for you now.
Another astute observation that has stayed with me concerns Jazz musicians. They’re the only musicians on earth who seem to make a habit of having more fun than the audience. Watch the next jazz band you see carefully; they’ll constantly smile at each other, simultaneously nodding in approval of each other’s astonishing musical ability. It’s nauseating. We bought the tickets, we’ve paid for your awful checkered pants and we’re over here, you wallies.
Luckily, the Honda Jazz is exactly the opposite of the genre. Like most Hondas, it gets on with the job of being a great little car with absolutely no fuss or pointless posturing, allowing you, the driver, who paid for thing, to enjoy it. A saxophonist’s vehicle this isn’t.
Argentina. Dangerous at corners. And pretty much everywhere else.
Fired up by firepower and not a lot of brains. Argentina is the Ferrari F40.
Football is essentially a very simple game. Retain the ball, keep moving and do some damage. Cars are the same. Their beauty lies in their unpredictabilty and National teams/car makers that insist on adhering to a certain style add to this heady cocktail of randomness. Not many car manufacturers have the sheer cajones to make something so undeniably theirs, so viscerally bold as the side Diego Maradona chose for the 2010 World Cup. But Ferrari did it with the spartanesque projectile they called the F40.
For Maradona, full-backs were a luxury he couldn’t afford. In the same way the F40 eschewed commonly held truths about how expensively assembled cars should be. It was gloriously stripped down and ready to attack. Ferrari -like Argentina- believe more in their ability to be frighteningly visceral and entertaining above any accepted norms. ”We have 3 of the best strikers in the world and one on the bench, let’s unleash them all at the same time”. The F40 was as daftly exciting as Maradona’s Argentina this World Cup. But as the Albiceleste found out, it didn’t take long for a good team from Germany to figure them out and surpass them. Red blooded passion and unpredictabilty only get you so far. But God how we loved them.
Handball. Red card.
Australia is a Kia Sportage.
When Fabio Grosso took a dive in the last 16 at the 2006 World Cup, Aussies worldwide cried cheat. Italy had earned a late penalty against the Socceroos. ”Cheating” is rewarded in football, Australia. It may not have the nobility of men in vests and spraypainted-on shorts bounce dribbling an oval ball around a cricket oval, but it is the game of billions. If you want to lunge into a daft attempt at a tackle on a seasoned Italian conman in the last minute of a knockout game, you pay the price.
All of that has nothing to do with the Kia Sportage which represents Australia’s efforts at this FIFA World Cup, I just wanted to get it off my chest. Lucas Neill is shit. The Sportage was presumably as ambitious as the Australian national team when it was created by a committee in a design studio filled with white noise. The Sportage doesn’t really fit in anywhere. One of it’s centre backs is 37 years old and doesn’t even have a professional club to play for anymore (Craig Moore). It tries to habitate a gap on the world stage that simply doesn’t exist and no-one wanted in the first place.
The Sportage was taken apart by teenage German engineers, and once the laughter died down they scored another 3.
My dad had one of these. It broke down in Durban on the way to a funeral.
In this first installment of which car is which country at the World Cup, Algeria is the Peugeot 504. The 504 to this day is a common sight amongst the bustling North and West African taxi scene. It’s reliable. Predictable. Dull. And immensely stubborn. It promises little and delivers less. If your destination was the goal, it would take you via the Suez canal to your hotel 4 kms from the airport in Cairo. If you’re a foreigner. It is a car that is capable of combining the Gallic shrug and flick of a cigarette with the African penchant for taking the long way round, without ever getting there. The 504 left the World Cup without troubling the scorers and yet returned to a hero’s welcome in Algiers. Via Rwanda.
Like the cabbys who drive them, it will take side streets and odd decisions instead of having a direct crack at the destination (the destination being the back of the net in this extended metaphor). And not for the first time it frustrated and infuriated English tourists in South Africa.
Gavin Williams
English Football. Yesterday.
Between the beery-eyed madness of the FIFA World Cup and our day jobs things have unfortunately been a little slow here on overdrivetv. But I think it’s the same for every business around the world as football fever grips the planet. Natural disasters stop happening, people don’t go into labour during match times and shopkeepers have to pretend there’s no-one inside watching the game on the floor under a duvet with the TV on mute. It’s just what the World Cup does and God how we love it.
However, screaming ourselves hoarse at TV screens around the peninsula and organising pitchforks and lanterns for a Uruguayan witch hunt have not been the only contributing factors to our beloved site going quiet. Overdrive has also been involved in negotiations to partner with someone very important (who mercifully is not Sepp Blatter) to take us to the next level and provide you with as much top notch stuff as possible. Due to a few details still being ironed out, we can’t divulge too much more information just yet. Sorry to be all Capello on you lot, but that’s all we can say right now.
Cheers
Gavin Williams
The definitive press release template for aspiring British supercar builders. You're using which engine? Stop it.
[caption id="attachment_289" align="aligncenter" width="512" caption="Keep on trucking mate, it's nearly the weekend."][/caption] Spotted at the Caltex garage in the Waterfront this morning: this poor bugger. You know your Thursday is going...
Right, I’ve been deliberating for some time now about a witty and willfully obscure reference to some sort of movie (possibly Pedro Almovodar), band or anecdote to relate to the...
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Great article Ciro!
@Megan MacDonald, Thank you! I presumed it was the nippy little engine from the Swift.
Hi guys Quick correction, the Jimny runs on a 1.3l engine, not a 1.5. It is, nonetheless, a giant killing beast of a machine. Thanks for the story. Megan
that's it, i'm going to watch ladyhawke!
I never had a Gotcha jacket but I was once the proud owner of a reversible Instinct jacket in turquoise and orange that was the tits. It didn't get me...
Nice line "petrol burning version of Bold and Beautiful." LOL