What???

These pictures of a 2005-2008 model Honda Civic are being circulated via email forwards. The car appears to have been cut in half. Noice in the image of the front section of the car, you can see the rear section of the car resting about 20-30 metres away.

Even with this super cool airbag to protect my neck, I'd still be too chicken to ride a motorbike. Four wheels are good for me.

You might not remember the name Kanpithak Patchimsawat. You might not know his other title "Mu Ham" either. But if you have been following Thai news in the last year you will remember the story of a crazy kid who had a fight with a bus driver, hit him in the face with a brick, and then got back into his Mercedes and drove it into the people who had just got out of the bus he was involved in an accident with.

He killed one and injured several other people in that incident. He deliberately drove his car into a group of people and killed one of them!

Ford have a surprise in store for visitors to the Bangkok International Motor Show, kicking off on 28 March at Bitec. Ford's website has a little button suggesting that there is going to be a surprise at the motor show, and offers free tickets.

Following the link brings you to a page which seems to give away everything. Surprised?

What Thai motor show would be complete without a suitably unmemorable theme, and a piece of badly translated text to try to explain it. This year the theme is "The Environmental Auto Globalization."

What does that mean? I suppose it means that we have yet another environmentally theme to the show. This is from the 29th BAngkok International Motor Show webiste:

Mazda have completed their BT-50 bio-diesel B2 and B5 test and have posted a press release which declares the success of the test. I have included the full press release below, but I would like to point out a few things that had me wondering.

Test drive reports are really not all that useful. I would never buy a car simply because I read a review from someone who thought the car was great. Yet sometimes it is useful to read other opinions to help us form our own thoughts more completely, and make well rounded decisions.

In the past I'd avoided testing cars, but since I'm currently looking around for a car myself, I might as well present some of my opinions here, as they might be of some help. But to make this one a little more interesting (or even less useful) I would like to present it in the form of a poem.

This has to be one of the craziest articles I've seen in The Nation in some time. What I am surprised at is that there isn't even a single hint throughout the piece that there is anything wrong with this Thai actor's idea of priorities.

Usually, I try not to post up articles that don't have anything to do with Thailand, but this one is just too interesting to pass up. This story on CarScoop about a line of cars that have been stitched together, and even into the road, is very weird. Although it's hard to imagine how this was done, the question I would ask is: What is the point of this?

If you read my recent post about Chevrolet servicing pricing being all over the place, with a difference of THB 7,000 quoted between two dealers within 5 km of each other, you might be interested in this follow-up.

Chevrolet owners in Bangkok: Shop around for your servicing!! Today we took our Chevrolet Optra to the Chevrolet Dealership on Ram Intra road, the one next to Foodland. The car was up for its 60,000 km service and since the Optra needs a new timing belt at this interval the quote for the service was approximately THB 10,000. This didn't surprise me, although it is an insane amount of money for servicing on a car of this class, because the dealer had given me a heads up at 50,000 km that it would be around THB 10,000 at 60k.

Although the money didn't put me off, the time did. They needed all day with the car, and I wasn't prepared to be without it that long, so we decided to check out some other Chevrolet Service Centres. First my wife called the dealer on Nawamin Rd. They quoted approximately THB 8,000 for the service. Surprised at the THB 2,000 difference we checked out one other Service Center, the one on Ladprao Soi 101. This time, I was even more surprised at the figure quoted: THB 15,000!!

CarScoop have done some homework and produced a price list by country for the Nissan 350Z, highlighting some ridiculous extremes.

The Nissan 350Z can be yours for just US$19,070 in the US. That's around THB 600,000! In Thailand the 350Z starts at THB 4,950,000 or US$157,300. Would you feel comfortable paying eight-times more than you should really have to?

This clipping is from the Siam Nissan website:

Eco Cars are on the way to Thailand, and if you had never been exposed to any news outside of Thailand you'd almost think that it was a new concept.

But, as this video will demonstrate, even today's "small cars" are actually big! And inefficient!

The world's smallest production car:

Hyundai recently launched three models in Thailand, the Sonata being one of them. Now, it seems that the Thai Sonata is already an "old model" as a 2009 facelift is already being unleashed in Korea. It seems a little odd that Hyundai would choose to launch in Thailand with a car that was so close to being updated.

Yes, there is an event called the 'Ford Mega Exciting Day', an official Ford Thailand event to mark the 11th year in Thailand for the company. And despite the name making it seem that it is a one-day event, it is actually a weekend deal.

There is just so much in this story that is unbelievable, but paradoxically nothing in the story is surprising.

I'm not going to comment further, here is the link to the article.

"Drive thru the nature." What is the first thing that enters your head as you read this? For me, and most others that I asked, it conjured up imagery of 4x4 vehicles careering through a forest with total disregard for the flora and fauna being displaced and destroyed. But insects splatted against a windshield, and small animals fleeing in terror, is not the intended direction this years Bangkok International Motor Show slogan is designed to take you.

While I was writing the last story about the brand new Toyota Vios, I hit upon this ad for the outgoing model and thought I'd share it. Enjoy:

This bus is outrageous, and the first time you see one like it blasting past you on a busy Thai highway you might be forgiven for thinking that someone had slipped something into one of your drink. But soon you will realize that it is necessary if you own a bus in Thailand to make it look at least as crazy as this.

If you haven't seen one of these buses before this article and attached photos should give you some idea.

In my opinion Nissan Thailand have one of the best websites of any of the auto makers. It's clearly laid out, has a very comprehensive English version, and you have access to all the specifications that tend to be missing from other sites.

But on the specification listing for the Nissan Teana, it would appear that a few details have been lost in translation.