The Final Car
On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic novel by Nevil Shute. In it, Shute charts the final days of folk living in Melbourne, Australia – one of the last places on earth to remain free of radiation poisoning. Life in the northern hemisphere has been all but obliterated and it’s only a matter of time before the entire southern hemisphere suffers the same fate. It’s an immensely terrifying and heartbreaking book to read as Shute delves deep into the personal lives of the last few people on earth who witness the end of civilisation. Read more 
PetrolBlog looks at: The German Car Industry
On the face of it, a book by James Ruppert on the subject of German cars from the 1980s is always going to be of interest to PetrolBlog. The Bangernomics Bible has already inspired me to purchase the PetrolBlog Shed and I’ve got a long standing love affair with cars from the 1980s, particularly those from Germany, France and Italy. So you would hopefully excuse the mild excitement when I got my hands on a copy and clapped eyes on the cover, resplendent in the colours of the German flag and featuring an E30 BMW convertible. Read more
PetrolBlog meets…@Petrolthreads
Automotive attire falls strictly in to two categories. On the one hand there’s the frankly dreadful manufacturer-led or cheesy high-street clobber. Then there’s the infinitely cooler rags you’ll find on the internet or advertised in the back of car magazines. Petrolthreads is a company which falls firmly into the latter and is a purveyor of some of the finest automotive t-shirts on the net. Indeed, regular viewers of Fifth Gear may have spotted Jonny Smith and Tom Ford wearing some of Petrolthread’s finest attire. Read more
Audi: Distress signals
When I was growing up, I considered Audi to be superheroes. I wanted my Dad to buy a ur quattro, but to my untrained eye, the standard Coupe would have been fine. For me, 8.30pm on a Thursday night meant tuning in to BBC2 to watch Tony Mason introduce another lesson in world rallying. The teacher was Audi and the pupils were the rest of the field. Forget A3 and A4, in those days Audi simply dealt in A+. Read more
Supporting the Badger cull
There’s been a lot of talk recently about badgers and the need to carry out a mass cull to protect the nation’s cattle. Well, I’m very much an animal lover with only Bill Oddy, Kate Humble and Michaela Strachan appearing higher than me in the list of the world’s most animal friendly people. But when it comes to badgers, I’m with the farmers; let’s get shot of them. Allow me to explain. Read more
Car ad land – Petrolblog’s top 10 car ads
The majority of car advertisements portray a world of perfect motoring. In car ad land, there are no speed cameras, no potholes, no queues, no middle lane hoggers with their fog light permanently on. You won’t find a white F-reg Ford Orion leaving behind a trail of blue smoke. There is no Vauxhall Agila sticking religiously to a speed of 28mph as it navigates along one of your favourite B-roads. Indeed, all the roads in car ad land are gloriously empty, snaking invitingly onto the horizon, with perfect tarmac and maximum visibility. The people are beautiful and the skies are always blue. Read more
The car’s the star (of the song)
Cars in popular culture? We all know about Prince’s Little Red Corvette and Wilson Pickett’s Mustang Sally, but what about cars that are contained within the lyrics?
Here’s Petrolblog’s rundown of the top tunes with cars within the lyrics. In true chart show style, we start with number 10. Read more
