Archive for 'Motor Cars'
Car Sharing coming to Cork
Posted on December 13, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Cork, Motor Cars.
Michael Newham just left a comment on my post about car-sharing. It looks like this is going to happen next year. It’s a great idea.
Our company ‘Mendes - GoCar’ will be providing the car-sharing service in Cork City Centre. We hope to have it operational by May the 1st 2008.
Please see the Wikipedia article for a good overview of what Car-Sharing is about.
All our ‘GoCars’ will have dedicated parking spaces ‘GoBases’ near high residential and business nodes of population.
Research has shown that in a successful car-sharing business each car added to a car sharing fleet replaces 8 to 12 private vehicles; thus reducing Co2 emmissions and congestion.
Another benefit to joining a car-sharing service is the increased use of public transport as well as walking and cycling.
We hope to have our website www.gocar.ie live by mid January. It will just be a brochure based site to begin with where ye can leave contact details to find out about membership and so forth.
4 Comments
Car Sharing in Cork City
Posted on March 22, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Cork, Motor Cars.
Got an email from Cork GreenMap telling me about a new feasibility study that Cork City Council are doing in the area of Car Sharing.
Cork City Council is considering the feasibility of the setting up of a car-sharing service – also called “car club” in the UK – in Cork City:
http://www.corkcorp.ie/ourservices/roads/carsharing.shtml
What is car-sharing?
Car-sharing in urban areas is a cost-effective alternative to owning your own car. It allows people access to a car when they need it, from a place near their home or workplace. The car can be used for short trips lasting as little as an hour or booked for a few days. You only pay for the hours you keep the car and the distance you drive. NB: the term “car-sharing” is also used to designate the sharing of a ride.Who can be members of a car-sharing club?
Members of a car club can be both individuals who don’t need a car on a daily basis and companies/organisations looking for mobility solutions to tackle parking, traffic or car-pooling issues on their site in Cork City.What are the advantages of car-sharing?
The advantages of car-sharing are numerous:
- Affordable: just pay for the time the car is in use and the distance driven
- Reserved parking: cars are conveniently located in reserved places close to where you live or work
- Flexible: book a car for as little as an hour, on-line or calling a booking centre
- Easy to use: after registration you just book it, jump in the car and drive away
- Planet-friendly: car-sharing globally reduces parking pressure and car use, helping to combat pollution and climate change
Tell us what you think!
A feasibility study is being carried out on behalf of Cork City Council and a public consultation stage is now on track to assess the potential market of such a service as well as to define the best locations of a car club in the city centre.
If a car-sharing scheme is of any interest for you please take part in our on-line survey:
http://www.zoomerang.com/recipient/survey-intro.zgi?p=WEB2267Q9ECZ6EClick on the following link for leaflets about the car-sharing project as well as a tool to calculate your car costs:
http://www.corkcorp.ie/ourservices/roads/carsharing.shtml
Also don’t hesitate to get in touch with Traffic Division to get more information or to give your opinion:
Noel Tummon, Traffic Division, Cork City Council
VHI Buildings, 70 South Mall, Cork
Tel: 021 492 4452
E-mail: traffic@corkcity.ie
Looks like Cork is turning into the San Fran of Ireland in more ways than one! I hope this idea takes off.
9 Comments
What next? Burberry buys the Corsa division of Opel?
Posted on February 2, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Motor Cars.
I don’t know whether this is good or bad news, and either way it has no impact on my life, but Lous Vuitton is buying Aston Martin. Sure they are both luxury brands but mixing handbags and camshafts - I’m just not sure. It smacks of one of those “synergy” horrors which used to be so common. Maybe Daniel Craig will sport a man-purse in the next Bond movie.
Hopefully they’ll do something about the rear-end of all recent Astons which to my eye are identical to a mid-1990’s Mazda.
Technorati Tags: Aston+Martin, Ford, Louis+Vuitton
3 Comments
Who do they think they are fooling?
Posted on October 29, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Commentary, Ireland, Motor Cars.
Cork->Rosslare, Rosslare->Cork on a Bank Holiday Weekend. Number of cops encountered? Big fat zero. Number of hard-of-thinking suicidal cretins encountered? 4.
Oh but they did arrest over 100 drunk drivers today. Keep that up for 365 days a year and maybe it’ll be something other than a reflection of their day-to-day incompetence as they waste taxpayers money snaring people doing 45 in 40 zones on bypasses across the country.
Technorati Tags: roadsafetyblog, efficiency, resources, resource+managment, competence, quotas, lip+service
5 Comments
New Car Blog
Posted on October 6, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Entertainment, Motor Cars.
Two of my favourite automotive blogs used to be Autoblog and Jalopnik. I had to unsubscribe from both due to the huge number of posts they were doing daily which I just could not keep up with (same reason I only lasted a few weeks with Blogorrah).
Alex Algard mailed me last week to tell me about a new car blog that he has launched called CarDomain Blog. I have to say it is the dogs for over-aged car nuts like me. Yeah yeah, I know I drive a Mondeo, but just wait until I have a mid-life crisis and then it’s Mustang all the way baby.
Check it out - great pictures (not just car pr0n) and huge enthusiasm. He has a winner on his hands.
Technorati Tags: Autoblog, Jalopnik, CarDomain, Blogorrah
2 Comments
Ah dammit
Posted on September 20, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Motor Cars.
You can say what you like about Top Gear but I can’t stop myself loving it. It is silly, childish and predictable but it is one of the few programmes I look forward to in the week.
Sadly, I just heard that Richard Hammond was critically injured in a crash in a jet car doing upwards of 280 MPH! Fingers crossed that he recovers.
tags: Top+Gear, Richard+Hammond
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The new Noddy and Big Ears Wheels
Posted on June 2, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Motor Cars.
Budget Car Rentals gave us Noddy’s own vehicle from the live action movie.
The Chevy HHR, the answer to a question no-one was asking.
All we need is a few tommy guns and fedoras and we’ll be sorted the next time we want to smuggle hooch.
[tags]Chevy HHR[/tags]
2 Comments
Knight Industries Two Thousand is back
Posted on May 13, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Entertainment, Motor Cars.
It had to happen - they are making a new Knight Rider movie. I’m gutted to read that neither Hasselhoff nor the TransAm will feature. There are some fantastic suggestions over at Jalopnik for their replacements. My two faves are:
[1 ] Jeremy Clarkson and a Ford GT40
[2] Brokeback Knightrider with Jake Gyllenhaal as Michael Knight and Heath Ledger as the voice of the car.
[tags]Knight Rider, Jalopnik[/tags]
9 Comments
New Honda Civic ad on Channel 4
Posted on April 13, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Entertainment, Motor Cars, Uncategorized.
One of the best TV ads I have ever seen for a motor car. Must be a couple of minutes long and surely costs a fortune to broadcast. But worth it for them if they are ever to change the UK demographic from 55-85 to 25-35. They rightly have much younger buyers in Ireland. Just checked and they have some of the sound effects from the ad on their UK site too.
I had a look at the car in Kevin O’Leary’s the other day (whilst on my bike, strangely). Fabulous looking and much bigger than it appears in pictures. Not that I’ll ever get one (some day I want to test drive a Type-R), our next car is a VW Caravelle.
Finbarr Galvin up the road is selling a 1979 Roller. No price tag. Now that’s what you need for sitting in traffic jams. Could you imagine arriving into work driving one? Would I have to wear a suit and smoke a pipe before they’ll give me a drive in it? Or would the Civic be more comfortable?
[tags] Honda Civic, Rolls Royce, VW Caravelle[/tags]
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I will never slag off Audi again
Posted on March 19, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Entertainment, Motor Cars.
Jalopnik is one of the two best sites on the web for petrol heads (the other being Autoblog).
Earlier this week they had a link to a wonderful video of Ayrton Senna taking a Honda NSX for a blast around a race track. Just watch his right foot blipping the throttle. Is that what you call toe-tip control? The world really is a more boring place with him gone.
But Jalopnik went one better yesterday. They link over to a story and actual footage of an Audi TT being flattened by an out-of-control articulated lorry. Somehow (and no-one really knows how), the driver escaped with scratches and bruises. You have to check this out.
[tags]Audi, TT, Crash, Jalopnik[/tags]
No Comments
I shouldn’t really be excited about a kids movie but….
Posted on March 16, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Entertainment, Motor Cars.
This trailer for CARS is just AWESOME!
Roll on June, I cannot bloody wait.
[tags]Cars, Cars The Movie, Toy Story, The Incredibles[/tags]
2 Comments
This week we’ll be mostly driving the AssKicker 40000
Posted on January 17, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Motor Cars.
Last time in Texas I was in a compact car. I was nearly crushed to death several times each day. This time, it was going to be fire with fire.
You lookin’ at me? I said are you lookin at me?
UPDATE: Goddammit, Baz was right. It is a poxing mini-van not an SUV (the sliding door is what gives it away). The locals were gentle with me and said it was kinda a minivan-SUV hybrid until one of em goes, “yeah, for soccer moms”. The shame, the shame. I may as well be driving a prius.
[tags] Texas, SUV [/tags]
2 Comments
Dammit they were out of Lincoln Navigators
Posted on January 16, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Business, Food, Motor Cars, Technology.
Yer, I want dat wun:
So we only got a massive SUV instead of a planet-sized one on our arrival in Texas. We’re here for the week and I hope I keep my wits about me and take plenty of Nokia Crap-cam pictures. The first one will be of our town runabout with three rows of seats and what sounds like a V6 under the bonnet. I spun the tyres when taking off gently from some traffic lights and squealed them every time I turned a corner.
Nice coincidence too - today is Martin Luther King day and last night we drove past MLK Jr Boulevard. So am I the only one who thought the U2 song was called “Milk”?
It’s gonna be a hard week of work here - not getting back until Sunday but we are less than four miles from Frys for all those critical technology purchases (of course we need a 50″ Plasma Flatscreen that only plays NTSC DVDs honey. Yes, fitting it in the Samsonite will be a challenge) and I also got me a hankering after some Texas BBQ. All you can eat Brisket, Smoked Turkey and Sausage at The Salt Lick. Mmm, mm, mmm.
Pictures as they happen.
[tags] Texas, SUV, BBQ, The Salt Lick, Frys, MLK [/tags]
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LJK Passes Away
Posted on December 7, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Motor Cars, Personal.
I was gutted to read in CAR that LJK Setright passed away recently. I started reading CAR when I was 14 years old and continue to do so despite his absence for the past few years.
As a kid, I checked out most of the motoring magazines and CAR was the only one I read where I felt I was learning something, rather than just reading pseudo-ads. For a short while in the late 80’s I tried Performance Car but to be honest that was only because of Clarkson. I can happily claim to have spotted his future greatness whilst still in my teens. The letters page every month were filled with missives from indignant middle-Englanders who were scandalised by his digs at everything they held dear.
But Clarkson was just naughty and after a while I returned to the more thoughtful bosom of CAR, and more importantly, to LJK’s monthly column. Each month I worked my way through it and understood about half of it. His breadth and depth of knowledge was extraordinary, with many literary references and tons of Latin (all of which went straight over my head due to giving up Latin for Classical Studies in 2nd Year in Kierans!). I learned more about cars from his one page each month than from the rest of the magazine.
LJK was arrogant, pompous and usually right. This is a man who argued engine cylinder design with Honda’s Nobuhiko Kawamoto, who argued that there were distinct advantages to smoking, and who, most of all, argued that speed does not, in fact, kill. And for that, I loved every word the man wrote.
Last year I bought the last book he wrote: “Drive On! A Social History of the Motor Car”. As I am averaging two book completions a year right now, I have only read a few chapters. But this is a masterpiece of erudition, history, opinion, insight and humour. To many people, a car is simply an appliance whose main contribution to the world is pollution. This book shows how so much of who we are and how we live our lives comes from the motor car. And the critical thing is that most of its effect are to our benefit. It’s a heavy read (as were all his CAR articles) but you’ll feel that you understand the world just a little bit better as you go through it.
I felt that the obituary in CAR was a sad reflection of what has happened to that magazine. In the past, they would have articles running to twenty pages or more. Phil Llewellin (who sadly also died recently) specialised in articles like that. As a young-fella, I did find many of them overly wordy but now I see what the alternative is - every article stripped to 2 pages for the ADD-addled Max Power generation. No depth, no analysis, barely time for the specs. They gave two pages to Setright, one of which was a picture (and what a unique style the man had!). He deserved half the entire issue.
Here are a few links to obituaries:
The Telegraph. The Independent. Pacific Motorsport.
I’ll finish with two quotes from the great man:
On the Citroën GS in 1971:
“According to Voltaire, ‘the secret of art is to improve on nature’. It is a peculiarly French attitude, one that is manifested as much in their engineering as in their graphic, plastic or musical artefacts. In their automotive engineering it is especially apparent…”
And most famously, Setright on speed limits:
“Apart from tax evasion, there should logically be one and only one motoring offence: dangerous driving… If what one does (even if one does 150mph) is not actually dangerous, then it does not matter what it is, nor what other people think. It is then no business of other people - not if this is, as we used to think, a free country.”
I’m going to miss that man.
[tags] LJK, LJK Setright, CAR, CAR magazine, obituary[/tags]
18 Comments
