Ten things we learned this week: 03 June 2016 edition

It sounds like the stuff of nightmares. Pictures were widely circulated in the press last week of a Mitsubishi Outlander that was followed by an enormous swarm of bees after their queen got stuck in the boot.

A team of beekeepers was drafted in to retrieve the buzzing horde, only for the wind to blow the lid off the box containing the recaptured queen, who then returned to the rear of the Outlander.

Unaware that the royal insect had returned, the owner of the car then drove off, only for the swarm to make a bee line (excuse the pun) for the car in pursuit of the tiny stowaway. According to reports, they stayed locked onto the back of the car for about 48 hours.

Bee careful out there, folks.

McLaren celebrated a very special birthday last weekend, as their team passed the ’50 years in F1 milestone’ during the Monaco Grand Prix.

But a double points finish wasn’t the only thing the team had to mark the occasion: McLaren also unveiled a special edition of the 570S.

Officially called the 570S M2B Edition – named after their first F1 car, built by Bruce McLaren in 1966 – the only difference from the standard model appears to be the British racing green stripe that traverses the length of the car.

Less is more, right?

Image credit: Richard Pardon

Since the invention of bus lanes, the drive to ensure that cars never have to encounter buses on the roads again has rather petered out. Until now.

Chinese engineer Song Youzhou has come up with an innovative way of keeping the two types of vehicles apart, by designing a bus that straddles two lanes of traffic and passes overhead like a moving tunnel.

A demonstration of the Transit Explore Bus was unveiled at a technology convention in Beijing back in May, and it is hoped that a trial in the coastal town of Qinhuangdao this summer will prove its credentials.

Youzhou claimed that a single TEB would be able to transport 1,400 people, and that five of them could be built for the price of an underground train. Hmm...

Image credit: New China TV

The Alfa Romeo 4C is a gorgeous car, but we’ve always had the feeling that it’s been missing something. After failing to put our finger on it for several years, we now know that that something was snakeskin.

Yep. In conjunction with Adidas, Garage Italia Customs has done the motoring equivalent of donning a leopard-print onesie for a night out; all in the name of promoting a new football boot design, apparently.

The wrap follows the group’s work with the multi-coloured BMW i8 last month.

Surely the Dodge Viper would have been more appropriate? Or a Hennessey Venom?

Karting tracks will always be a hotbed for original overtakes, although we’ve never seen anything quite like this before.

During a race at the Eastern Canadian Karting Championship in Ontario at the end of last month, an anonymous driver clipped the back of a competitor and was launched into the air, seemingly destined for a heavy impact with the wall.

Amazingly though, the driver in question managed to land his kart on all four wheels and return to the track in one fluid motion, turning an almighty crash into one of the greatest overtaking moves we’ve ever witnessed.

Understandably though the incident cost the driver momentum, and he soon lost the place again. Too bad.

As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron earns a yearly salary of £143,462. So when news broke last week that he’d bought his wife a car, everyone’s first thought was ‘Which car did he buy?’

Maybe a Bentley? Or a Rolls Royce? Perhaps a stately German saloon?

Um, not quite. It transpired that the PM had actually parted with just £1,495, picking up a second hand Nissan Micra from a dealership a few miles from his constituency in Witney.

The blue Micra reportedly had 92,000 miles on the clock, and Mr Cameron is believed to have paid the full asking price for the vehicle.

Formula One bosses have decided to use the Ferrari-tested halo head protection device in 2017, rather than the more popular aeroscreen backed by Red Bull.

While this may look like another example of F1’s hierarchy playing deaf to popular opinion, they do have their reasons: the aeroscreen reportedly performed badly in its most recent test, and problems with its proximity to the driver’s head have still not been resolved.

While it may be the ugly duckling of the two options, the halo will at least have a less dramatic aerodynamic effect on the cars and is less likely to restrict visibility from the inside the cockpit.

But if you’re worried for the sport’s future appeal, then fear not: the powers that be have agreed to keep refining the aeroscreen with a view to introducing it at the start of the 2018 season. Sounds sensible.

Police officers likely come across all manner of things in their crime-preventing capacity, although to the best of our knowledge, this is a first.

Two officers – named only as SSO Richardson and SSO Mortimer – stopped a vehicle in Leeds on Monday, and were shocked to discover that the driver had modified the steering wheel in a very peculiar way.

As you can see from the image above, the owner of the car had sawn off part of the wheel to give his Renault sporting credentials it probably didn’t deserve.

It’s not known what happened to the driver or the car afterwards, as West Yorkshire Police said that they had merely “advised” the person in question. Be in no doubt though: this is a wheely dangerous thing to do...

Image credit: @WYP_Specials

Research published this week has indicated that people are less likely to buy cars that don’t seamlessly connect to their smartphones.

According to consultants McKinsey and Company, 28% of buyers prioritise connectivity over features like fuel efficiency, and as many as 20% would switch brands entirely to get a vehicle that was better equipped for syncing up to a mobile device.

As such, Nissan employ Patrick Keenan – known as ‘the man with 40 phones’ – to ensure that their latest models are keeping pace with modern technology.

“Today’s new cars have a lifecycle of five or six years before a new version is launched, but a mobile phone will only be on the market for less than two years before it’s replaced,” he explained. “Keeping cars and phones talking to each other is the crux of my job.

“My job is to make sure anyone who walks into a Nissan showroom anywhere in Europe doesn’t walk out again because a car they want to buy won’t pair with their phone.”

Motor Sport Magazine’s Hall of Fame includes people like James Hunt, Enzo Ferrari and Michael Schumacher, and now they have been joined by five more prestigious names from the world of racing.

They are F1 safety campaigner and neurosurgeon Sid Watkins, American driver Dan Gurney, multiple MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi, rally driver Sébastien Loeb and endurance racer Derek Bell.

For the first time the new inductees were selected by the public, with a total of 25,000 votes cast.

Valentino Rossi was particularly pleased to receive his award, saying: “I will put the prize in my bedroom so we can sleep together!”

The full list can be found here. Anyone fancy Max Verstappen for 2017?