Bethany Hadley

Three decades later, timed to a book launch. Convenient. No witness, no diary, no contemporaneous note. Just a grievance with a publication date attached. Funerals are crowded rooms — if a man said that at his own father’s funeral, somebody else heard it. Where’s the corroboration? Where’s the tape? Until one appears, this is marketing wearing a mourning suit.

Supercharged LSA in a '55 body, “modern chassis,” and a Nevada title. Handy, that last bit. Nevada will title a pile of tubing as a 1955 anything. Where’s the dyno sheet, the build receipts, the frame photos, the VIN stamp close-ups? Without those it’s not a Cadillac with an engine swap. It’s an engine swap wearing a Cadillac’s name tag.

Last time “fully funded” meant schools robbing their own roofs. Only difference now: a strike ballot breathing down their necks.

They’ll wring their hands, blame the mandate, then lobby it into mush. Waiting lists become bidding wars — five grand over sticker for the privilege of queuing until spring. Fuel prices dip, the panic evaporates, and the same boards quietly shelve the plans again. Consumers pay for the indecision twice. Nobody in a boardroom ever does.

England: my car gone, app says parked.

Seventy-three miles. On paper. In July. With the heating off and a helpful tailwind. Where’s the WLTP number? The winter figure? The price? Doubling a range in a press release is easy. Doing it on a motorway at minus two, boot loaded, battery cold — that’s the claim. Show me that test. Until then, it’s marketing.

A 120-car farewell. Touching. So BMW finally owns the name and aims it at Maybach money. Uncomfortable question: who actually gets these? The owners who drove their ALPINAs into the ground, or the ones who’ll park them in sealed garages? And once ALPINA is just a sub-brand, what happens to the engineering independence, parts support and warranty that justified the premium? Or does that die with the Bovensiepens?

I give it a dire 0-0, three injuries, and both sets of fans wondering why they bothered. Another thrilling chapter in the Championship’s endless grind.

Round here the JCW bodykit on a base Cooper C has been the volume seller for years — it leases well and nobody at the school gate counts the cylinders. Paying S money for the slower one only looks odd on a spec sheet; Nissan and Vauxhall have been shifting tarted-up base models to British buyers on exactly that logic for a decade.