Welcome to the bumper Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Las Posadas and Clog beating Soap Dodger edition of Weekend Australian Motoring in the business section.
First up the worst car name of all time up until December 2021. The contenders are: the Great Wall Wingle, Mitsubishi Minica Lettuce, Mitsubishi Toppo Big Joy Guppy, Ford Probe, FSO Polonez and Lamborghini Urus.
However, as Sir Lou knows, there can only be one winner and it's the Lambo Urus Pearl Capsule. I bet there's three words you thought you never hear in the same sentence. Despite what you think, the extinct Urus was a shaggy long-horned wild ox, much like many of its drivers. A pearl is a smooth, rounded bead composed of the mineral aragonite or calcite in a matrix, deposited in concentric layers as a protective coating around an irritating foreign object such as a clog in an F1 car. A capsule is a tough sheath or membrane that encloses an organ or other structure in the body such as the Urus.
Second up: what is the most unreliable car you can buy (in the UK)? London's Telegraph teamed up with warranty provider MotorEasy to tell us the top seven contenders are: the Volvo S80, Mercedes SL, BMWi8, Nissan Pathfinder, Kia Sorento, Hyundai i40, and Range Rover. And it's a three-way tie for gold with the Volvo, Merc and Beemer all on the top spot on the podium. Ironically the same three top the list of most expensive cars to fix.
You're going to have to wait till next month for the real Xmas (or whatever you celebrate). Yup, January 22-30 is Scottsdale Auction week. Six auction houses, thousands of keen millionaires and hundreds of the kind of cars that wake you up at night murmuring "drive me".
Let me describe a few of the supper sellers over the years to rub in just what a disappointment today really is and why the new bottle of Old Spice, set of Shapewear, Sweat-Absorbing Armpit Pads and a Nose and Ear Hair Trimmer is never going to make up for the white Jaguar XKE Lightweight Competition car, the 10th of only 12 ever built with Australian history you could have had for $10m. You could have had the 1964 Ferrari 250LM. Red of course and built for racing with the V12 sitting just ahead of the rear axle and delivered new to Swiss racing team Scuderia Filipinetti. Santa could have built it at the North Pole near Monza for $13m.