Radio ga-ga from Barton and Beeb

Radio ga-ga from Barton and Beeb

Jan 3 2010 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

AS yet, other than the continued health and happiness of my family, and the wife getting a boob job, I have just one wish for the new decade.

It’s that Joey Barton has crawled back under the stone from whence he came and is long forgotten by the time 2020 arrives.

Few things these last 10 years have been more pathetic than the repeated sound of Barton depicting himself as some sort of misunderstood anti-hero.

But the dumbing down of the BBC has been one of them.

So it was sadly appropriate that the Beeb’s supposed last bastion of erudition, Radio 4, should offer Barton a platform as the Noughties drew to a close.

First things first, Barton may have struck a chord with many when he told the Today programme: “Most footballers are knobs.”

May have, if he didn’t happen to be one of the biggest knobs in football.

“A lot of them are so detached from reality it’s untrue, and there was a stage when I was like that,” he said of his fellow pros.

“It’s only the fact I’m grounded by the trouble I have been in that’s forced me away from being in the football world.

“Driving round in flash cars and changing them like you change your socks, wearing stupid diamond watches and spending money like it’s going out of fashion in the middle of a recession when some people are struggling to put food on the table for the kids . . . it’s not the way to do it.”

Grounded? That’ll be why he parked his car on a grass verge next to double yellow lines outside a magistrates’ court to answer motoring charges only last month.

“Changing flash cars like socks”? The motor which Barton drove to court was an Aston Martin DB9 Vantage, and those charges related to his Land Rover, barely a year after he was nicked for driving in a bus lane in a Range Rover.

“Recession”? I have another “R” word for a bloke who has earned silly money for next to nothing at Newcastle United . . .

Rich.

“Detached from reality”? Look in the mirror, Joey.

If being grounded is shoving a lit cigar in a team-mate’s eye, knocking a teenage kid about, inflicting ABH (on another team-mate) and scrapping outside a McDonalds at 5.30am, then Barton is as down to earth as they come.

Unfair comment, given that he was talking about the Joey Barton of today rather than the serial offender of yesteryear? No, given the evidence of the last few months.

This is a man who, only in May, got himself sent off in one of the biggest games in Newcastle’s history before hurling obscenities at a manager who has done more for the club than Barton will achieve even in his most deluded fantasies.

This is a man who, three months and a shabby backdoor return to St James’ Park later, did exactly the same to the managerial duo who picked up where Alan Shearer reluctantly left off.

Strangely, Chris Hughton and Colin Calderwood have cultivated an unusual and clearly very valuable spirit of harmony in the Newcastle squad in recent months.

Barton would doubtless claim that is because the type of feckless wasters he referred to on Radio 4 have left the club.

I’d suggest it also has a lot to do with the bloke who reduced United’s final training session before the start of the season to a foul-mouthed slanging match being out with a long-term injury.

I can understand Hughton – ever the diplomat – saying he is looking forward to Barton’s comeback, but I see no reason why Newcastle’s players or fans should count the days until the return of the archetypal bad apple.

No reason, because Barton isn’t even much of a footballer.

And there’s the rub. In his own mind, filled as it is with the mumbo-jumbo of the touchy-feely Sporting Chance clinic, Joey may well be a flawed genius in the mould of a Maradona, Best or Gascoigne.

Sorry lad, but it just ain’t so. Not by a long chalk. Not even though you can string a sentence together better than most in your profession.

“I didn’t want to be famous, I want to play football. For me, it was never about cars, women, money – whatever people perceive comes with it,” he reflected

Funny then, that Barton is reportedly being paid an extra £675,000 a year by Newcastle for his image rights.

Oh, and if we’re sticking to matters on the field, he has started 31 games for the Magpies in two-and-a-half years, scoring two goals, at a total cost of at least £11 million.

It’s not even as if the two months of that time which were spent in prison fell during the season. Neither is it the case that he looked anything remotely special during his first few weeks in Championship football.

No, judge Barton on a football level, and you’d throw away the key.

But in terms of lost causes, he may have nothing on the BBC . . .

Keep up to date with the news. Sign up for News Alerts

Have your say on the latest news and sport in our Forums

Editor's column: Who owns your brand?

In Australia, the top 10 car companies all spend upwards of $10 million annually trying to convince consumers that their brand is superior / more desirable than the competition. Yet on paper, many cars in competing categories are very similar. Beneath the skin, some notional competitors are almost identical.

Elsewhere in the corporate structure, car companies are trying to make their cars more similar – not less so. There’s an ongoing marketing challenge. Obvious reason, economics: one of the niftiest ways of improving the bottom line is to use parts from another, existing, car (or cars) in the next one (or ones). It saves them having to design, prototype, test, certify and produce new parts, obviously.

Take this one step further: why not produce the one engine designed to do the job (even with a few minor tweaks) across a range of cars? Makes sense. You can do it with technology, too. Everything you’ve already learned about crash safety or direct injection, or hi-tech manufacturing processes can be incorporated more easily in your next design than if you had to develop it all from scratch.

Then there are economies of scale – the more you produce, the cheaper each individual unit gets. Simple.

Final step: buy another car company and use, say, the engines from one across both, the crash technology from the other, run just one proving ground…

This is fundamentally why car companies own other car companies. Take Ford’s ownership of Volvo, which kicked off back in 1999. Did you ever wonder how it suddenly (this is a relative term) became a walk in the park for the Falcon to achieve a five-star safety rating?

It’s incest, automotive-style. And everyone’s doing it.

Until recently, Ford also owned 33.4 per cent of Mazda. (Today it owns only 13 per cent, thanks very much to the GFC.) The companies co-developed technology and then shared it. Park a Mazda3 next to a Volvo C30 and check them out closely. The reason they’re so similar isn’t a coincidence – they’re built on similar underpinnings and they share some fundamental engineering. This co-development arrangement appears to be on the rocks, however, in the aftermath of Ford’s lesser ownership position.

Volkswagen: The conglomerate has stated it will be the world’s largest automaker by 2018. (You have to admire that German confidence.) The company owns the following brands: Volkswagen (obviously) plus Audi, Skoda, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Lamborghini and … soon … Porsche. (The latter after an epic David V Goliath battle that would have gone the other way had Porsche been able to stump up the cash to exercise the options that would have given it control over Volkswagen.)

There’s a reason the Audi R8 has a 5.2-litre V10 with 386kW and 530Nm. It’s called the Lamborghini Gallardo… And behind the scenes, you’ve got Skoda manufacturing transmissions for Volkswagen, etc.

Volkswagen also just bought a 20 per cent stake in Suzuki for $US2.5 billion … as you do..

Mention ‘Fiat’ to your average punter in the street, and they think of the 500 – often the old one. The reality is quite different – Fiat is a massive, sprawling entity with an enviable garage and a history of dicing with bankruptcy. It owns Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo and truck manufacturer Iveco. Thanks to the recent bail out of Chryser, Fiat also owns Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram – and the cross-pollination there is only just about to kick off (though rumours of the next-gen Viper sporting a Ferrari V12 in the manner of R8/Gallardo have been quashed).

General Motors, the world’s former number one vehicle manufacturer, amassed a stable of brands so heavy and ultimately unstable that they literally drowned the company, which declared itself bankrupt in 2009. Holden, obviously, is a GM brand. It’s joined by Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick and GMC. Saab is still hanging around GM’s post-bankruptcy neck like that pesky albatross (Spyker might buy it; bad luck for the Dutch if that sale goes ahead). But retired, RIP, are Saturn and Pontiac – the latter very bad news for Holden, which did a tidy export line in left-hand-drive Commodores dressed up as Pontiac G8s. And Hummer? It’s Chinese now – owned by a four-year-old manufacturer of cement mixer trucks and tow trucks with just 4300 employees, called the Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. Hummer should fit into the company’s product range nicely.

Daimler owns Mercedes-Benz, Maybach, smart, and the Freightliner and Sterling truck businesses. Renault and Nissan are joined at the hip.

Indian industro-conglomerate, Tata, progenitor of the world’s cheapest car, the two-cylinder Nano, also owns Land Rover and Jaguar – a fact often overlooked in Jaguar’s and Land Rover’s marketing communications. Fact is, Tata picked Jag and Land Rover up for a song ($1.7 billion Aussie dollars) when it bought both brands from Ford in 2008. Ford paid $US2.5 billion for Jaguar in 1989 and $US2.75 billion for Land Rover  (which it bought from BMW) in 2000. Despite the apparent discount, ongoing Brit-brand operational issues have placed Tata under immense financial pressure.

Hyundai owns Kia, which explains, for example, why the powertrains of the Santa Fe R 2.2 and the Sorento are so apparently … identical.

Toyota owns Lexus (which explains why the Camry is so quiet and refined – couldn’t have a rough-around-edges platform under the Lexus GS). It also owns Daihatsu and truck maker Hino … as well as a 16.5 per cent stake in a company called Fuji Heavy Industries, which owns another brand you may have heard of – Subaru.

China, is just coming to the auto-incest party. In addition to the Hummer scenario above, Geely Automotive acquired Albury-based DSI (Drivetrain Systems International) when Aussie company, which is one of the world’s few remaining bespoke and independent auto trans manufacturers, foundered financially earlier this year. Geely also looks like being the frontrunner to purchase Volvo from Ford.

Volvo is the last remaining brand in Ford’s Premier Automotive Group quartet. (Jag and Land Rover went to Tata as noted, and Aston Martin went to UK race car engineering specialist, Prodrive.)

The reason Geely wants Volvo? Simple – Geely has six factories in China with a combined production capacity of about 300,000 units annually. What it really needs is the technology to underpin a rapid improvement in its product. It’s a lot cheaper – not to mention faster – to buy a company with all that technology in-house than it is to develop it in some new laboratory just outside Shanghai.

Volvo is both knee-deep in revolutionary technology, and an absolute bargain right now. In fact, Ford paid $US6.5 billion for Volvo back in 1999 (when the Premier Automotive Group still seemed like a good idea). Geely looks like buying it for ‘just’ a smidge over $US2 billion.

Incestuous global business, isn’t it?

2010 Toyota Yaris: An Idiosyncratic Toyota?!

Newsletter | Mobile | français Motorcycle ATV Tests and Features - Test drive 2010 Toyota Yaris: An Idiosyncratic Toyota?!

January 2, 2010

By Dan Fritter

When Toyota builds a car, they generally do it right. As in, by the book; every button in its place, every part appropriately robust. Be it the lowly Corolla or the extremely luxurious LS600hL, Toyota’s built their reputation on ensuring that every facet of every vehicle is sufficiently well designed so as to keep any criticism at bay.

But (and there always is a “but,” is there not?), as is always the case, time erodes everything, excellent engineering included. And while my first meeting with the then-new Toyota Yaris left me impressed, the passage of three years’ time has brought about a few changes in perspective. The debut of the second-generation Honda Fit and Ford’s incredible Fiesta has instilled slightly higher standards amongst the car-buying public, and my second round aboard Toyota’s Yaris revealed precisely where it fits amongst its rivals.

First, there’s the look. In two door hatchback form, it’s a pretty cute little vehicle; of that there’s no denying. But, as tested in four door sedan mode... well... suffice it to say that its beauty escaped the eye of this beholder. No one expects the graceful lines of an Aston Martin, but the Yaris it simply too good at blending in. Perhaps a colour palette with a big more pigment might cure that issue, but in the same granite-inspired dark hue that seemingly every other Yaris sedan wears, my tester made parking lots a vehicular version of Where’s Waldo.

Of course, those same short overhangs that hide behind minivans and SUVs outside the local Home Hardware also keep it small and manoeuvrable in tight confines. Flitting through traffic with ease, its compact dimensions inspire confidence. Sadly, the exercise of driving would be infinitely more enjoyable if the Yaris was imbued with a seating position that could be considered even close to comfortable. With an incredibly upright seat that sits too high and a steering wheel that would make most bus drivers feel at home, the sensation is something akin to that of driving a car equipped with a driver’s stool. Sure, the seats are soft and yet supportive, they’re just mounted in all the wrong ways.

Not unlike the cupholders. Yeah, yeah, scoff away, but when it comes to commuter cars, they’re somewhat important. And why Toyota decided to mount theirs right in front of the heater vents, I’ll never know. Toss some water in there on your way back from the gym on a cold winter’s day and you’ll be ready to make a nice steaming cup of coffee ala water bottle when you get back home. And since all your hot air’s been busy heating up your Dasani, you’ll want it. Trust me.

But it’s not all automotive idiosyncrasies. The 1.5L four cylinder is a real gem, for example. A motor that provides a modest 106 horsepower, it won’t set any acceleration records, but does is fantastically flexible. Saddled with just four gear ratios when equipped with the automatic, it still provides enough thrust for most passing manoeuvres, and is never caught flat-footed. Eager to please, it runs rings around the tachometer with ease and exuberance, but is just as happy to chuff along in stop-and-go traffic.

Likewise, the handling is equally broad in its bandwidth. Intended to appeal to a wide range of drivers, the Yaris’ steering is predictably light, being of the electronically boosted variety. Subsequently, there’s not a lot of feel to be found, but there doesn’t need to be: with just 185 millimetres of tread width at all four corners, the limits of adhesion are easily overcome with delightful results. Already a light car, the sedan’s body places just enough weight over the back tires that a quick stab of left-foot braking can overcome the available grip. And given the importance in maintaining as much momentum as possible, it’s nice to be able to correct for overly exuberant entry speeds.

Dial it back from the almost-too-attainable max attack level that’s a bit too fun, and the Yaris’ suspension still performs admirably. It soaks up most irregularities, but does make quite a bit of noise while doing so. Likewise, crosswinds and buffeting move the Yaris around a bit more than expected, and while the tires don’t provide a ton of grip, they have an interesting knack for falling into grooves and irregularities. Subsequently, longer highway-borne treks can get tiresome, requiring more focus than would be necessary in other vehicles. Furthermore, with just four ratios to choose from when equipped with the automatic, the 1.5L proves itself somewhat short-legged; spinning at a frenetic pace to keep up with highway traffic.

So, to answer the initial question I posed, the passage of time has seen the Yaris slide out of the compact car throne it occupied three years ago. While one wouldn’t expect a vehicle like the Yaris to excel in anything other than its native urban environment, the Ford Fiesta has significantly changed the automotive landscape as buyers demand more from their post-recession vehicles than ever before. And although the Yaris is an efficient and probably reliable automobile that offers excellent value for its bargain basement price, but it’s few foibles stand in the way of true excellence.  

Test Drive Report:

Test drive vehicle: 2010 Toyota Yaris Trim level: Sedan Price range: $14,990-15,750 Price as tested: $17,350 Options: Automatic Transmission Convenience Package Observed fuel economy: 7.1L/100km Warranty (basic): 36 months / 60000 km Warranty (powertrain): 36 months / 100000 km Competitors: Nissan Versa Honda Fit Ford Fiesta Suzuki Swift Chevrolet Aveo Strong points: Weak points:

Aston Martin releases promo video showcasing the Cygnet

Aston Martin stunned the world last June by revealing the Cygnet supermini concept that is based on the Toyota iQ. Then the British sports car maker that is fondly associated with mouth watering sports cars announced that the Cygnet will go into production and that the development of the supermini will continue into 2010. Slated for a market launch late this year or by early 2011, the Cygnet is expected to be sold to owners of Aston Martin’s full-sized sports cars and only 2,000 units are planned.

The company has just released a 1 minute 32 second-long promo video of the Cygnet and unfortunately slightly more than a minute of it is used to showcase parkour, a French sport. I really believe Aston Martin could have come up with a better a promotional material, anyway you decide. Catch the video after the jump.

Related Stories:

DES KELLY: The age old debate. Can they cut it?

More from Des Kelly...  

Whatever happens, their attempted resurrections will be among the most eagerly anticipated events in sport.

Funny that. Spin the clock back seven or eight years and you might recall how the two were being accused of being ‘boring’ and killing the spirit of competition with the unerring monotony of their successes. They were said to have made golf and Formula One as predictable as a Status Quo chord change.

Schumacher would qualify in pole position, drive away from the lights and pass the chequered flag nearly two hours later without ever being troubled. He was brilliant. He won. We yawned.

Woods had a similar stranglehold on golf’s Majors. In that golden period from 1999 to 2003, simply handing him the green jacket or engraved trophy on the first tee could have saved a significant amount of time.

But now, they are heroes threatened by hubris. Will they succeed or fail? It’s going to be compulsive viewing either way.

Sport has certainly begun to cherish age and experience again. Sir Alex Ferguson celebrated his 68th birthday on New Year’s Eve and shows no signs of slowing up. Of his rivals in the top four, Arsene Wenger is 60, Carlo Ancelotti a mere pup at 50 while Harry Redknapp weighs in at 62.

England’s World Cup hopes, meanwhile, rest in the hands of Fabio Capello, another sexagenarian (and no, that is not a condition afflicting Woods). The 63-year-old Italian coach is essentially using the same under-achieving crop from recent tournaments,but has the knowledge and presence to coax more from them.

So England have a chance in South Africa, although we are prepared for the usual script; quarter or semi-final heartbreak.

Then there is the imminent return of Jose Mourinho in 2010. His time at Inter seems to be nearing an end and it’s just a question of where he pitches up; Manchester City? Liverpool? Wherever it is, again, we know what to expect.

We’ve seen it before. But we enjoy dressing up the past and pretending it’s new, be it in music, film or everyday life.

Our TV is nothing but a rehash of past formats and ideas, interspersed with an infuriating habit of telling us what’s ‘coming up’ or ‘after the break’. On and on it goes, to and fro, in a constant and confusing loop.

But ‘coming up next - a look back’ is what we’re going to get throughout 2010. We might as well enjoy it for the present.

  Dick Barton...not so special agent

It takes one to know one, part one.

‘Most footballers are knobs,’ says Joey Barton, a brash statement that would cost him the respect of his peers, had they ever respected him in the first place.

It did, however, confirm many of the public’s preconceptions about footballers; a reputation earned thanks in no small part to the disgraceful antics of a certain ex-con called Joseph Anthony Barton.

‘Footballers are so detached from real life it’s untrue,’ he says, before trotting out the stuck record avowals about being ‘a changed man, I’ve grown up’ etc. blah,blah.

Barton concluded his Radio 4 interview by condemning fellow pros for their ostentation and blatant insensitivity to the public mood.

‘It was never about the flash cars for me, the money, or whatever people perceive to come with football,’ he said.

A little Karma in downtown Orlando

Downtown Orlando will soon get a car dealership for a brand-new brand, but in a familiar location. The Fields Group, which owns BMW dealerships in Winter Park, Orlando, Lakeland and Daytona Beach — as well as North Carolina, Canada and near Fields headquarters in Illinios — launched the Mini brand locally from a refurbished building on Orange Avenue in 2002. But Mini outgrew the downtown space, so Fields bought the vacated Infiniti dealership just off Interstate 4 near Lee Road and renamed it Mini of Orlando. Which left the space downtown vacant. Fields was prepared to let it go, but the company's management thought: Hey, that would be a great place for Fisker. For what? Fisker Automotive is a new car company led by Henrik Fisker, 46, a Danish designer who spent much of his career at BMW before moving to Aston-Martin. After leaving Aston, Fisker teamed with Bernhard Koehler, a German businessman who also worked for BMW. Together, they formed Fisker Automotive. Earlier this year, they got a $528.7 million federal loan to help launch the company. Their first product: the Fisker Karma, a sporty, powerful car that also happens to be a plug-in hybrid. The Karma is supposed to be able to travel up to 50 miles on battery power alone before a gasoline-powered engine kicks in. The Karma will be built by Valmet, a Finnish company that has built vehicles for multiple companies, including Saab and Porsche. (It builds the Porsche Boxster and Cayman.) So why did the U.S. government fund a company that is building cars in Finland? Because Fisker is buying a closed-down General Motors plant in Delaware that last built Saturns, so it can build a smaller, less-expensive version of the Karma called the Nina. The Karma will sell for $87,900, the Nina for about $40,000. It will also be a plug-in hybrid. It will likely be at least two years, perhaps three, before production starts in Delaware, but the Fisker Karma is supposed to go on sale by September 2010. And that's what Fields is gearing up for. "With Mini, we have a good track record of launching a new car from the downtown Orlando location," said John Mantione, who oversees Fields' Orlando-area dealerships. "We're hoping lightning strikes twice." Mantione said current plans call for the Fisker store to open this summer, but it obviously depends on when he'll get Fiskers to sell, or at least one to show potential customers. Fisker debuted an operating version of the Karma at the Monterey Historic races in California last summer, where Bernhard Koehler drove it at speeds approaching 100 mph. The Karma has a pair of electric motors, totaling 403 horsepower, that are powered by a lithium-ion battery pack; when they run low, a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder gas engine helps out. It's the same principal used by the upcoming Chevrolet Volt, though the Karma will appeal to a different audience. There are critics who say they will believe Fisker's success when they see it. After all, the history of one visionary successfully starting a car company is not promising, starting with Preston Tucker and his car in the late 1940s, then the Bricklin, the Delorean, and several other examples of cars and men who tried, and failed, to have an impact on the industry. Peter De Lorenzo, who operates a Detroit-based Web site called Autoextremist.com, has been one of Fisker's most vociferous critics: "There is nothing — not one single thing — about Fisker's business model that suggests to me anything but a slowly unfolding train wreck that will haunt the auto biz for months, if not years, to come," De Lorenzo wrote in early 2009. Still, Fisker has impressed enough people to have assembled a strong, 45-dealer network in North America. Fields has signed up to carry the franchise not only in Orlando but in Chicago and British Columbia. Other dealers have Florida franchises in Tampa, Miami and Palm Beach. This time next year, we'll know who was right.

Top 10 SuperCars of 2009

A massive leap forward from the Prancing Horse’s previous mid-rear engined super cars, the new Ferrari 458 Italia model is a synthesis of creative flair, style, passion and cutting-edge technology, all characteristics for which the Italians are known. And, it is to reflect the conjoining of character with practice (or pragmatism) that Ferrari decided to add the name of their homeland to their latest super car. The 458 Italia is an entirely new car from every point of view: design, aerodynamics, engine, handling, ergonomics and instrumentation. The new 4499 cc V8 engine is the first mid-rear mounted, direct-injection engine from Ferrari. Equipped with a traditional flat-plane crankshaft, the V8 engine delivers an impressive 570 bhp at 9000 rpm. With a power output of 127 bhp/litre it sets a new benchmark not only for the entire Ferrari range, but also for the whole market segment. A maximum torque of 540 Nm is achieved at 6000 rpm, and about 80 percent of it is available from 3250 rpm onwards. However, the truly extraordinary feature of the 458 is the amount of torque available at low revolutions, while maintaining high levels of power. A dual-clutch 7-speed transmission is just one of the several key features the 458 introduces into the model range. The 458 Italia has a top speed in excess of 203 mph (325 km/h) and accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in a mere 3.3 seconds.

Price: $255,000

Mercedes Benz SLS AMG