MOTOR-BLOG from Coventry

I really thought I was going mad, but now I have photographic evidence to prove that I’m not. For the last few days or so, I’ve been seeing mysterious soft roaders tooling around the streets of Coventry.

Well I say mysterious, but they’re not at all really. They are Nissan Qashqai’s but the mysterious thing about them are, all of the badges are covered by black tape. Why?

I really thought I was going barmy until I managed to snap one at the lights the other morning. Then I thought maybe I had simply seen the same bizarre car a few times - but I saw another one this morning - a Black one, so a different colur to the other. What is going on?

The only badge that wasn’t taped was the DCi badge, and I’ve DVLA checked the numberplates and it lists them as Nissans. Strange.

Plus Helen saw the disguised 4×4 yesterday that has been on test around Coventry for the last year or so. It was still heavily covered by all of the black stuff that the manufacturers like to use to disguise prototypes. What is it? It was travelling up the A46 coming from the direction of Jaguar’s Engineering centre and heading out in the direction of the M40 - and Gaydon.

I have to ask the question yet again - is this a Jaguar SUV? I’ll try to snap it next time it passes me by.

Strange a-happenings indeed…

Yep we was there, if you’ll excuse the poor english. The Auto Italia Magazine Italian car shows are always a great affair, but this one really was tops. Why? Well because unlike last time, we actually went in an Italian car. I say we, I mean myself and Jim, our Italian car corespondent.

The show is also good as it is at Stanford Hall - a great venue, and not far from the greatest city in all of Britain. Well Coventry, but you get the idea. So with this show on the doorstep, Jim fired up the Monte and piloted it to his first show in his dream car. I followed on in his everyday car, an Alfa GT JTD. Yes it may be modern, but I actually like it a lot, it’s very stylish and it’s true what they say - driving an Alfa really is a special experience.

The attendence was cracking too - perhaps because the public were show starved last year with all the poor weather we had? Perhaps. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Top Gear were doing one of their adventure pieces and driving three Alfas to enter in the concours. Shock horror - some broke down and they kept bashing into each other…

I’m sure when they edit it all together it’ll be very amusing, but it did make kind of a mockery of the concours - and people were quite disrespectful to the ‘proper’ cars entered - some of them sitting on very rare top condition motors to watch the filming. Were these people really car fans? I suspect not - a real petrol head wouldn’t sit on and risk damaging a car at a show. No, a lot of these people were celebrity chasers…      

Still, it brought the punters in, and the car selection were great. The many Ferrari’s in attendence left me cold (as they always do) and why do the owners all insist on wearing red Ferrari branded T Shirts to match their cars? I’ll keep my opinions to myself on THAT one I can tell you, but an ISO Griffo? Yes please. Maserati Khamsin? Yup, I’ll have one. Alfa Romeo Montreal? Well, if you insist…

Also present was the Lea Francis club with a fine display of fine Coventry built cars to round the day off. Oh, and Jim was interviewed by Jeremy Clarkson and James May about his Lancia Monte Carlo, so a good day was had by all, and Clarkson was quite nice about Jims car, so that won’t make it into the show then…