A biweekly roundup of automotive news, good, bad and just plain weird:
Dutchwoman drives tractor to South Pole
Massey Ferguson was formed by merger in 1953, with roots stretching back to the 1800s. Originally based out of Brampton, it's an agricultural company known for building durable tractors suitable for tilling fields. And, apparently, driving to the South Pole. Dutchwoman Manson Osservoort is known as "Tractor Girl" to friends and fans, for reasons that will soon become apparent. In 2005, she left her native Holland in her beloved tractor, and drove it all over Europe and Africa over a four-year period. As one does.
This year, having finally secured backing from Massey Ferguson, she drove a bright red beast fitted for cold weather operation all the way to the South Pole, towing trailers of fuel and supplies. The trip took a surprisingly short two weeks, and followed in the footsteps of Sir Edmond Hilary in 1958. Fun fact: when Sir Hilary first sighted the pole, he radioed the code word "rhubarb" back to home base. I realize that seems pointless, trivial, and silly, but we're talking here about driving tractors to the South Pole.
Porsche 918 Spyder sells out
I'm sorry. I was totally going to buy you all one of these for Christmas. So sad. Désolé. Capping off a year that saw surging sales and a profit margin that has their overlords from the Volkswagen Group cackling with slightly Scrooge-like glee, Porsche can now also celebrate having sold out of its hybrid supercar experiment, the 918 Spyder. All 297 of the cars are now spoken for, with roughly a third of deliveries already completed.
The brain reels to think how much money Porsche makes off each one of these million-dollar machines - they'll be decking the halls with boughs of money in Stuttgart. Let me just wrap up by pointing out that next year you'll be able to buy one of these machines in Lego form, and that the plastic brick version will be much less likely to catch on fire.
Next-gen Civic Si to go turbocharged?
Here's something to both excite and dismay Honda fans, depending on how you feel about the purity of the high-revving, naturally aspirated engine. What's that? "Rhubarbrhubarbrhubarb" from the angry mob? Perhaps they've spotted the South Pole.
The Civic Type R coming to European customers is an absolute beast, and while it's not the same machine we'll get here, there is some hope to be had. Honda's last real performance hero is the Civic Si, and while that car is still plenty of fun, line it up against the current crop of turbocharged sport compacts and it falls a little flat.
But what if some of the Euro-Civic's Type-R-ness were to make it over here? That's what the rumour-mill appears to be suggesting, with indications that the Type R's powerplant might be the replacement for the stout 2.4-litre four-cylinder in the current car. That means a 2.0-litre turbocharged engine making somewhere around 280 horsepower, and an even footing with cars like the Focus ST, Golf R, and even the rumoured production version of the Sentra Nismo. Quite frankly, Honda could use the mojo - they'll still sell plenty of CR-Vs and Accords, but a frisson of that old small-but-fast magic could be great.
India's tiny Nano gets boosted
What's small, blue, and the result of a really bad idea? No, not Santa's frost-bitten pinky toe after opting for sandals this year. It's the Super Nano: a 230 h.p. version of an Indian-made, incredibly cheap little car. It has slicks. It has a roll-cage. It has enormous fender-flares and smurf-blue paint. The turbocharged engine (rear-mounted) makes nearly eight times as much power as the standard unit.
It is, in short, both a rapid and slightly embarrassing way to leave this mortal plane. And, at approximately $40,000 - or 20 times more costly than the standard Nano - is also expensively silly.
Jaguar invents see-through A-pillars
If you've ever hopped from an old car into a new car, one of the first things you might have experienced is a sharp drop in visibility. To keep up with modern safety standards, the front pillars surrounding our windshields have gone from toothpick to baseball bat, with the result that you often feel like you're wearing blinders. But here's Jag with a solution: why not use cameras and pillar-mounted display screens to show what's missing from view? Land Rover already did something similar with a "disappearing" front hood for off-road maneuvering, and here that technology finds an even more practical everyday application.
Might it be that someday our entire car becomes a display, making you feel as though you're whizzing along in an invisible box? Wait, that'd also mean a front-row seat to what happens when you run over a squirrel. Ergh. No thanks.
Watch this space for all the best and worst of automotive news, or submit your own auto oddities to [email protected] Follow Brendan on Twitter at @brendan_mcaleer.
