Ten things we learned this week: 23 October 2015 edition

We’re used to carmakers jumping on the bandwagons of special occasions. The glut of gnawing April Fool’s Day jokes, for instance, or the bunch of Back to the Future day photoshop specials.

The potential of Halloween, though, remains veritably untapped by automotive standards. Perhaps with good reason, if this McLaren is anything to go by. Making the 650S Spider all too literal is this picture opportunity by McLaren San Francisco.

“Boo! Our showroom just got a little scarier. Is that spider staring at you?” reads its whimsical Facebook post. Ten Things is acting on principle, and choosing to not buy a McLaren today. That’ll show ‘em.

Trivia fans! What’s the UK’s best selling car? Forget the Fiesta, Corsa and Golf: in a typical year they are all outsold by something with just one seat, no windows and propulsion only possible if someone is willing to push.

We refer, of course, to the Cozy Coupe, the car of choice for the under-fives and a pioneer of zero-emission motoring long before the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi Outlander.

Except for this one, that is. It has room for a passenger, is powered by internal combustion and is suitable only for the over 17s. It’s an adult size ‘Crazy Coupe’, which failed to meet its £21,500 classified price on eBay this week.

If you think that’s rather a lot for an exceedingly draughty car that doesn’t outdrag a Veyron, you’re probably right. But surely someone out there has a large enough sense of humour?

The Chevy Spark (nee Matiz) has only ever been really good at two things: transporting OAPs to their weekly shop, and serving up mild disappointment in the cheapest row of the airport hire car park.

Until now, that is. Meet the ‘Domino’s Delivery Expert’, or DXP for short. It’s a Spark-based mobile kitchen, capable of keeping the pizza purveyor’s goods hot in its oven, which replaces the rear quarters and can be accessed from the outside.

In total, the DXP can transport 80 pizzas, which is enough to keep the TG office going for a couple of hours. Domino’s is hoping to have 100 DXPs built, in association with Roush, a company whose expertise is normally applied to heat up Mustang V8s, not a bootful of Fiery Hawaiians.

Alas, these cookers-on-wheels are for the US only.

Perhaps Domino's UK needs to buy some old Vauxhall Zafiras. With a handful of owners taking to social media to share reports of the dashboards of their MkII Zafiras catching fire, Vauxhall has carried out an official investigation.

The reason for the flames? Dodgy repairs, says Vauxhall. "Our investigations have found that a number of incidents have occurred due to previous repairs being performed improperly or using certain non-genuine parts," reads the firm's statement.

For now, there is no official recall. “If you are concerned about operating your vehicle or if you notice any unusual characteristics with the heating and ventilation system (for example a squeaking noise from the dashboard) you should contact your Vauxhall dealer and arrange for your vehicle to be inspected. This will be done at no cost,” says Vauxhall.

The issue affects Zafiras built between 2005 and 2014, with manual air con as opposed to climate control.

A select band of Uber users were given a treat on Monday, when not only was their cab ride completely free, but upgraded to the luxurious hindquarters of the brand new BMW 7-Series.

Why? Because someone at BMW concocted a neat piece of modern-age marketing for its tech-festooned S-Class rival, as it aims to steal a load of sales from that ubiquitous Merc.

There were a number of ‘ifs’ to the offer; you had to be in Chicago, Florida, LA or New York, and you had to have more than a fistful of luck to fish out a posh BMW limo from the Uber pond.

Your treat, though, was a completely free ride anywhere in the city. Whether anyone opted for a cheeky extended sightseeing tour of NYC is unconfirmed…

“Here in my car,” Gary Numan famously sang, “I feel safest of all, I can lock all my doors.”

With central locking as standard, then, we imagine Numan relished his trip in a Citroen C4 Cactus this week. “Why was a rock star travelling in a sensible family hatchback (TG’s best of 2014, in fact)?” you may sensibly ask.

It’s all because of Citroen’s sponsorship of the Q awards. While most award bashes have a platoon of posh limos depositing ‘slebs at their doors, the music magazine’s sponsorship by the French manufacturer ensured its official awards transport was altogether brighter and less legroomy.

Wonder if the rock stars were all pining for an Uber 7-Series?

There seems little Lewis won’t dabble with: on top of the obvious (well, we hope F1 is obvious), Ham has been appearing at fashion shows, has eyes on a music career and exhibits a well-known passion for his pooches.

Quite how he squeezes it all in we don’t know, but the man who might already be 2015 world champion by the time you read this has been developing a motorbike on the side, too.

This picture and teaser video reveal little of the tie up between MV Agusta and Lewis, other than a plaque with Lewis’s number 44, some really quite red wheels, and a lack of respect from the reigning F1 champ for the bike maker’s tyre budget.

No word on what the creation might be called. May Ten Things suggest the L-Hambretta?

Here in the UK, flinging a bit of rubbish out of your car’s window is punishable by a modest fine. In the Russia, the repercussions can be altogether less pleasant.

This video shows us two things: that chest cams can be as illuminating and entertaining as dash cams, and that being a litter bug in Russia is frowned upon by at least one determined motorcyclist.

Alleviate your car of trash through its window and you could find it coming back to you, in a form far messier for your lap. You have been warned…

A word of warning should you share a car with your partner: forget who has been driving it and it could cost you over two grand.

At least it did for Kirk and Beverly Shenton, when their Lamborghini Gallardo was snapped at 35mph in a 30mph zone along Rhos-on-Sea promenade in North Wales.

The couple claimed not to remember who was behind the wheel – they’d swapped after Mr Shenton had a pint – and were both taken to court and charged for failing to identify the driver at the time of the offence. Each had six points added their licence, and in total their fines topped £2,400.

"The documents from the police clearly state you have to be 100 per cent certain before naming the driver and we couldn’t be sure who was driving. The picture is too dark and grainy and we didn’t want to lie,” said Kirk to Mail Online. “We tried to stay within the law and we’ve been persecuted for it.”

The couple had been in North Wales to view a castle they wanted to buy. Hashtag first world problems, and all that…

Without wishing to end Ten Things on a bum note, we head to South Africa, where BMW is planning to run one of its factories with the help of cow manure.

The German carmaker plans to power all of its production with renewable energy. And helping it to its target is a ten-year deal to buy electricity from a biogas plant near its Rosslyn factory (pictured), which is on the outskirts of South African capital Pretoria.

Among the plant's power sources is the gas emitted by the dung of the 30,000 cattle that graze on its site. Whether the cows boast a 'defeat device' to lower their official emissions remains unclear.