Posts Tagged ‘TV’

IS-F Lexus for Humberside Police

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

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Let’s face it. Every one of the nation’s finest joined the police force so he or she can speed along on the blue light, breaking as many laws as the neenarr will allow. Come on, you know it’s true.

But until now, the Range Rover and the Volvo estate was probably the best the aspiring British cop could hope for. But now, Humberside Police have gone and taken delivery of a Lexus IS-​​F, thereby making the rest of the nation’s rozzers supremely jealous, and setting a new gener­ation of Humberside’s joyriders to quake in their classic Reebox.

According to press releases “specially trained” officers spent 12 months evalu­ating a number of high performance vehicles in a bid to find the perfect speedster to replace the existing Subarus that the force employs.

Tough work, but someone had to do it.

The Lexus IS-​​F surely outdoes Regan & Carter’s Ford Granada, and even Bodie and Doyle’s RS 2000. It has, after all, a performance tuned 5.0-litre V8 engine capable of reaching 62mph in 4.8 seconds and a top speed electron­ically limited to 168 mph.

The question remains: What would you rather be staring at in the rear-​​view mirror – the lexus or inter­ceptor from Mad Max?

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Cars & Girls

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

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From the very beginning of motoring the female form has been used time and time again to sell, promote and market all things automotive. From the brolly dollies who parade on the starting grids of motor­sport to the heel-​​clad promo girls who stalk the car shows, cars and (objec­tified) girls go together like Katie Price and pink ponies.

Strange, really, because in a world where women are pretty much as passionate and enthu­si­astic as men about their motors, there is a lag between the media reality of the car obsession and the actuality out on the streets. You never see car show ‘boys’ and when is the last time you saw a ripped male torso selling anything other than hair product or after-​​shave?

General sports punditry, once the sheepskin-​​clad preserve of the male gender, has with Gaby Logan, Suzie Perry and Helen Chamberlain etc infused a healthy dose of womanhood into the testosterone-​​tainted aether of sports TV. But will we ever get to enjoy a genuine counter­point to the stonewash-​​hitching maleness of Clarkson, May & co? And no, Vicki Butler-​​Henderson just doesn’t count.

Does the fact that there is something funda­mentally bloke-​​ish about the urge to list, opine, analyse, muse, ponti­ficate and generally blather about motors, mean that the day that we see a proper female motoring anchor is still a long way off?