It is Sunday and that means we are legally obligated to give you a dose of automotive news that you may not care about, may strongly dislike, or may actually cause to you to angrily curse your computer screen. We think it is therapeutic to drop this unwanted knowledge on you and frankly we revel in your discontent. This week we have bits from around the world and down the street because automotive stupidity, bad decision making, questionable decisions, and failure don’t just exist here at home, they pervade all corners of the Earth. Trust us on this…we know.
Happy Tesla Go-Go Tiger Car!
No matter your feelings about the Tesla Model S, we don’t advocate turning what is a handsome four-door sedan into a hyper-cute anime tiger. This Tesla was wrapped up and modified so that it became Shimajiro, a tiger character from a pre-school education/entertainment cartoon popular in Japan. We warn you about Googling “shimajiro”, however, because the animated tiger cub is better known as an internet meme that involves a singing toilet and dancing parents. Yes, it’s as weird as you think. You’ve been warned.
2. Chevy Trademarks “Badlands” Name, Because …why?
In a move that has more questions than answers, General Motors has trademarked “Badlands”. That’s all that’s known, but the Internet speculation has been in full swing since the discovery. Everything from a trim package (what, fully stripped?) through a Raptor-fighter have been suggested. One of the more plausible suggestions is a renaming of the truck that was shown in preproduction form as the Colorado ZR2, which doesn’t add up, since the ZR2 model was well-known and received as an off-roading upgrade to the S-10 and Blazer lineup. Maybe it’s a replacement for the GMC version, the Highrider. Here’s hoping.
3. No More Bugatti Veyrons…Hope you weren’t saving up.
Sad news for the obscenely rich: the last of the Bugatti Veyrons sold out. And after about ten years, it’s about damn time. The last model, a Grand Sport Vitesse “La Finale”, was sold to a Middle Eastern collector where it will live the life of a rolling paperweight until the day some scientist uncovers the vast garage where these supercars end up wasting away in the desert.
4. Elux, Electrolux, SUX 9000, Fisker, whatever. It’s the same damn Karma.
Yes, the thing we all have known as the Fisker Karma is somehow still gasping for life. With the company having been sold to the Wanxiang Group, the name of the car is rumored to change to the Elux Karma. It’s not known yet if we’re getting the same car or if Wanxiang is going to do a visual refresh, where the car will be built, or why the price got booted up to $135,000 per unit. It’s also not known if that DB named Bieber is going to chrome-wrap a new version either.
5. The Living Dead, Part 27: Saab tries to claw it’s way back to existance
Speaking of some leftovers that should have been thrown out long ago, Saab is, through some kind of dark magic, still clinging to life in the most basic sense. NEVS, the company that purchased the dying remains of the storied brand, has created a proposition that, if approved, would see the majority of the creditors would see full repayment, with a handful of creditors having their claims reduced by up to 50%. While we’re all for NEVS paying off the creditors, we don’t see any form of happy ending occurring without a major intervention and cash injection by a major manufacturer, of which NEVS claims to be in negotiations with two unknown OEMs. We’re just taking a shot in the dark here, but it has to be an absolute bitch to go from speaking Swedish to Chinese…
If you have to transform a Tesla into some sort of yellow anime critter from a children’s show, wouldn’t Pikachu have made more sense with his lightning powers?