Buckle up. Hang on. It’s going to be a very bumpy ride this morning as we roar through the weirdest F1 in modern history, Mazdagate, some great road trips, the world’s best motor museum (at the moment) and skim through the pick of the US motor magazines.
It’s bigger than the Academys, the Nobels and the Logies: yes, this week it was The Shonkys, Choice magazine’s annual awards naming and shaming the shonkiest products and companies taking advantage of Australian consumers.
And in the car section, envelope please, drum roll: “Honda, Toyota, Lexus, BMW and our old friends at Mazda in a joint award for their handling of the dodgy Takata airbags, which have been linked to 18 deaths worldwide and a recall affecting 100 million cars”.
In deciding the lucky winners, the judges said that while 14 manufacturers sold 70 models with potentially lethal airbags in Australia, five manufacturers didn’t tell drivers they’d been provided with a temporary fix and failed to let a number of them know they were driving around with lethal “alpha” inflators.
Talking about Mazda, CX-5 drivers will be pleased to know ACCC head Rod (the petrol, diesel, electric, and hybrid petrol heads’ friend) Sims, is on to the problem that causes the car to lose power while rolling along the freeway. Another candidate for a Shonky Award.
Talking of weirdness, Sunday’s F1, possibly the last (but don’t bet on it) race in Malaysia, saw 20-year-old Max Verstappen take line honours from Lew Hamilton in a slow Mercedes. But at least Lew wasn’t as slow as teammate Valtteri Bottas.
Here’s a lesson for all of us: Val went with the factory upgrade to his car and Lew refused to take it. Val was 40 seconds slower. Good old Ferrari installed two new killer engines in their cars before the race. Kimi Raikkonen’s failed and Seb Vettel had to push hard to finish a long way fourth. Then on the warmdown lap after the chequered flag, Lance Stroll in his Williams crashed into Seb’s Fezzer and took the rear wheel off. Seb then had to get a lift back to the pits on the side of Pascall Wehrlein’s Sauber.
After all that, the week got even stranger.
Force India co-owner Vijay Mallya was arrested in London on allegations of money laundering, with some of the washed cash supposedly going to support the team. In the ultimate weirdness, Vijay bought Lew Hamilton’s father’s $20 million Hertfordshire mansion. He immediately installed three fountains and a garage for some of his 260 cars.
This weekend the F1 party resumes in Suzuka, a course so challenging, only the brave survive. Tomorrow we have the Bathurst 1000 where we are backing Scott McLaughlin and Jamie Whincup, with a side punt on Cameron Waters.
Also this week Motor Trend magazine named the best driver’s car of 2017. Twelve cars, 11 judges, a closed-off highway then a day on a racetrack saw Aston Martin and McLaren at the back of the pack with the cheaper Porsche 718 Cayman S beating the expensive 911 Turbo into second with the Ferrari 488 GTB taking the prize. Car and Driver took 19 ferocious pieces of metal to the Virginia International Raceway for the mag’s annual lightning lap test. One lap only. One winner only. The turbo Porker came third, the Chev Camaro second and the Mercedes-AMG GT R came out in front.
Talking of cruising, here’s two suggestions for your next trip to the US. First of all, Las Vegas to the Napa Valley via Death Valley and Yosemite National Park. Son Tom and I did it last week (we left the day before it happened) and it should take you at least two days. As you know we promote safe driving and the roads, particularly up and down the mountains, are serious fun. The scenery is even better. The highest recorded temperature in the valley was 134 degrees fahrenheit, or 56.7C. Luckily there are some great old watering holes much favoured by bikers, like the Badwater Saloon — 86 metres below sea level, with more than 20 beers on tap as well as its own Death Valley brand.
After Death Valley, stay in a cabin ($300 for the one-bedroom cottage) in the verdant luxury of Evergreen Lodge in Yosemite. The restaurant has good food and even better wine, there are raccoons, bears, deers and it’s really scarily quiet. For petrol heads the quiet is a problem but do what we did and put the soundtrack from last year’s Le Mans race on in the background. Finally, it’s only a two-day drive from Napa to the Petersen Auto Museum in LA. What about this for a line-up of cars and bikes? Seeing Red: 70 Years of Ferrari; The art of Bugatti; Harley vs Indian and hundreds of unbelievable of pieces of metal. Cooler than a Coopers at the Badwater Saloon.
Talking of classics, next weekend at Motorclassica, Mossgreen will be selling two great Aussie legends. The ex-Hope Bartlett, ex-Jumbo Goddard 1934 MG Q Type has a 109kW engine: good for a frightening 196km/h around the banked concrete track at Brooklands. Only one of eight built, these were the super racers of their day. Yours for $400,000.
Then for $330,000, there’s the Trans-Continental and Round Australia record-holder, the 1924 Vauxhall 30/98 tourer. In 1938, sponsored by Shell, Dunlop and Repco, Johnny Balmer (whose mum gave him the car) and Richard Kent established a 15,000km circumnavigation record of Australia in 24 days, 11 hours and 58 minutes. This was about the same time it took Tom and I to tour all the saloons in Death Valley.
