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19 Jun 2014

Three Motoring Fails from The Week

This past week has witnessed an unusual amount of motoring related fails. Embarrassing moments and news which are comical and sometimes borderline forcing us to question the integrity of humanity. Rest assured, this is the internet and we tend to bask in the smugness and amusement which comes with witnessing major fails.

At Speedmonkey, we are certainly no different. Of course we love to read about supercars and rare classics, but we also love to laugh at the misfortune of a seemingly expanding population of idiocy. Here we have three laughable fails from around the world.

1 - Chav gatecrashes Brands Hatch


During a Volkswagen Fun Day race at Kent's prestigious Brands Hatch race track, a complete hoon decided to crash the party with his girlfriend's Volkswagen Polo. Ignoring pleas from her to pull over, the thick skulled have-a-go Hamilton passed pit crew and emerged onto the track, during the middle of the race.

With a barrage of glottal stops and the most displeasing accent ever forced upon this writer, the 21 year old male from Tonbridge in Kent completed an entire lap of the track before later finding himself remanded in custody for the false imprisonment of his petrified significant other.

Whilst this amoeba of human being is obviously a complete joke in himself, the actual fail here is the security at Brands Hatch. As many Twitter users exclaimed, someone such as this driver should not have even reached the paddock, let alone the pit lane and track. Some even suspect that the entire charade was little more than an elaborate hoax by the Volkswagen PR team, however this can instantly be dismissed by the commentator for the race mistaking the Polo for a Golf, and various tweets by the Kent police force. The fact is that this incident was very much real and concerning for the safety of everyone competing.

At the time of writing this, the suspect; Jack Cottle, has been released on bail.

Here's the video:


2 - Drunk Firefighter Topples Truck


A firefighter in Yunlin County, China, had one drink too many this past week. Instead of passing out in a hedge or vomiting over a pretty lady's dress like a normal person, the bumbling buffoon decided to take a local fire engine for a joy ride. Predictably, the entire charade ended with an over-turned engine, several crashed cars, a damaged lorry and a toppled telegraph pole.

Adding to this awful scenario was the fact that this particular engine was a state of the art machine, the flag ship of the local fire department, worth over £500,000. Brand new and manufactured in Finland, replacement parts will have to be sourced from Scandinavia, at a terrible cost and delay.

Predictably, a spokesperson from the local fire department has stated that 32 year old Chen Huangxin will never work again as a firefighter. To add insult to injury, Chen now face a potential two years in prison after his drunken rampage. Lesson learnt, don't drink and drive...or wreck a £500,000 fire engine. There will be no way to extinguish this guy's blazing lunacy.

3 - Audi loses laser headlights arms race to BMW


After promotion throughout the media about the limited edition Audi R8 LMX, which was supposed to feature the world's first laser headlights on a production vehicle, it appears that the German manufacturer had the lights switched out on themselves. Following their appearance at the Le Mans 24 hour race, Audi's LMP1 cars demonstrated the futuristic technology to the masses.

See an article written on the Audi R8 LMX written by myself just two weeks ago here.

This week however, the first customers received deliveries for the BMW i8 plug-in hybrid. As you guessed it, these vehicles came equipped with the very same technology which Audi claimed to have pioneered for road vehicles recently.

Please don't feel too depressed on Audi's behalf though, as their "pioneering" design was actually stolen from BMW. Announced at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show by BMW, Audi hijacked the design and announced the technology for the R8 LMX. BMW simply exacted some sweet revenge by beating the plagiarisers to the chase, forcing Audi to flick the fail switch.

By Mike Armstrong