Overdrive TV

That's the front page of the Beijing News, yesterday.

Beijing will trial an incredible traffic-straddling bus system in 2011. Traffic in Beijing is a nightmare but the roads are clogged with too many busses, rather than private vehicles like many modern western cities. Solution? Design the busses to ride over the traffic. Pretty frikkin ingenious, we reckon. There’s even a video. It must be real.

The Ferrari team-orders semi-scandal that’s currently generating the usual off-circuit F1 drama has all but ended: the team has just been given a date for the FIA hearing concerning the incident. The hearing will fall four days before the Italian Grand Prix at the almost religious Monza circuit, meaning Alonso and Massa could face some sort of penalty before the team’s home race. Or, Ferrari will just get a massive fine. We’re betting on the latter.

Is the Lancia Stratos coming back? In case cars are pretty much toasters with wheels in your world, the Lancia Stratos is one of the most iconic, legendary, bat-shit crazy motor vehicles ever conceived. Providing barely enough space for two adults, the driver sat at an awfully awkward angle, and it was notoriously tricky to drive. But, it weighed less than a dustpan and went like stink so nobody cared and everybody loved it. It also won three World Rally championships in a row. Here’s a picture of an original Stratos going sideways, and here’s the story, including spy-pics of what is presumed to be the reincarnation. See what I did there.

Toyota is pretty desperate to shake off the recent “unintended acceleration” PR nightmare, which to be honest looked like a big scam from day one. Regardless, in a bid to become a manufacturer that is seen as a little bit more exciting, they’ve been working on a small, fun, rear-wheel drive car, something which they used to be really good at producing. It’s called the FT-86 in car-nerd circles, but will probably get a racier name come launch time. Which might be next year, or 2013. Get on with it lads. We’re waiting.

Ciro De Siena

Webber: surprisingly shit at celebrating.

As a general rule I’m not a huge fan of the Daily Mail; the tabloid that thinks it isn’t one. But they do have fairly exclusive pics of Manchester United’s midfielder Anderson’s destroyed R8. He was apparently pulled from the wreckage moments before it exploded. Reports say he and two friends were travelling home from a nightclub (trust us, getting three people into an R8 is difficult to say the least) when his friend launched the car into a field. Even though he was pulled unconscious from the car, everyone’s okay.

Schumacher has apologised for his astonishingly dangerous block on Barichello at this past weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix. Barely 4 laps from the end of the race, a decent duel between the former teammates almost ended in a funeral when Schumacher squeezed Barichello off the main straight and up against the concrete pit wall (frightening pic included). Barichello immediately screamed “black flag!” over team radio. Schumacher has been penalised 10 grid places for the next Grand Prix in Belgium. Our favourite commentator Martin Brundle offered his comments as well: “If they had collided it would have been an aeroplane accident.” Too right, Sir.

Adding to a line up which quantum-physicists are battling to keep track of, Audi launched the A7 late last week, on the internet of all places. Fancy that. The A7 is like a big A5, which is a four door version of the A5 Coupe, which is like a two door version of the A4, which doesn’t have a two door in the line up. Goodness.

The Autobahn is a place where, on certain lengthy stretches, you can drive as fast as you damn well please. It’s like a small piece of Nirvana in a world obsessed with curbing motoring joy. But it’s not without it’s perils, as the owner of a smurf-blue Mclaren F1 found out recently. Swerving to avoid some plonker, the multi-million dollar rarity smashed into two cars. It looks like a bit of a front fender smash, but it’s probably about $130 000 worth of damage.

Finnish rally legend Juha Kankkunen finished an impressive eighth on a one-off outing for Ford at this past weekend’s Rally Finland, while former Formula One world champion Kimi Raikkonen was down in 25th after a crash. And Jari-Matti Latvala won in a Ford.

Ciro De Siena

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