Ten things we learned this week: 19 May 2017 edition

Ten Things loves an ‘animals in cars’ story, and this absolute nugget of gold comes directly from Bentley itself. Behold the Bentyaga Falconry by Mulliner.

If you need a reminder, Mulliner is the name applied to particularly poshed-up Bentleys. And this one is spectacular: Bentley’s SUV has been given some specialised extras to make it the perfect vehicle not for taking your dog for a walk, but taking your bird for a fly.

“The Bentayga Falconry features a bespoke installation in the rear which houses all the equipment required for an enjoyable falconry expedition,” the bumf tells us. “At the heart of the Bentayga Falconry by Mulliner are two individual natural-cork-fabric-trimmed units: a master flight station and a refreshment case.”

The flight station acts as storage for all the falconry essentials – GPS bird tracking unit, binoculars, hand-crafted leather bird hoods and gauntlets – and you can specify them all as extras. The refreshment case doesn’t contain many doomed mice, rather metal flasks, cups, a blanket and refreshing face cloths. We’re unsure whose face those are for.

You need perches, too. Obviously. There’s one in the boot and one inside the car, perfect for when your feathered friend wants to travel up front and bask in the Bentayga’s plush interior. Wouldn’t want them getting in a flap…

'Animals in cars' part two, with reports of something very fishy going on in south London this week from the Evening Standard. Police had been chasing a suspicious vehicle through Chessington, and when it crashed and the driver scarpered, officers found a goldfish in the boot.

Amazingly, though, Peter the goldfish (christened on the scene by the officers) was alive and well, still swimming around in the pint glass of water he was being transported in.

Kingston Police spokesman Seb Ellis told the Evening Standard: “We discovered a goldfish, in a pint glass, just sitting there chilling and casually staring at us. We couldn’t understand how even after the fast driving and the crash the pint glass was still upright!

“Officers at the scene affectionately named the fish as Peter. Goodness knows what the fish was thinking after his tour around Chessington in a pint glass.”

Peter had been stolen in a burglary, alongside a TV, money and shoes. You’ll be delighted to know he’s returned to his owners (and his original, though undisclosed name) while the driver of the car has been arrested.

Image: Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff

When the Range Rover Evoque cabrio launched, many questioned the need for a soft-top soft-roader. And indeed, who the heck would want such a vehicle.

Well it turns out the answer is ‘the French president’. New leader Emmanuel Macron rode in a convertible crossover during his inauguration ceremony, confirming the sub-niche’s target market. ‘World leaders’ may be a small group, but we dare say it’s an influential one.

Macron’s isn’t an Evoque, of course, but a DS 7 Crossback, which is significantly more French. The roof isn’t from the options list, either, but a special order request. We await the DS 7 Presidential Edition just after the model’s proper launch, though.

Oh, and top marks to Macron for going roof down when it’s raining chats and chiens…

Heard the one about the 124mph car sled? According to Tesla boss Elon Musk – and his ‘The Boring Company’ offshoot – it’s the solution to Los Angeles’ traffic woes.

It appears Mr Musk, for all the autonomy and electrical wonder of his cars, doesn’t enjoy LA’s congestion. So much so, he’s come up with the kind of solution you’d expect a 1970s film about the future to contain.

The idea is you’ll park your car – a Tesla in this promotional video, obvs – upon a street-level sled, which then lowers into a network of tunnels and is pinged about the place at high speed – up to 124mph – taking you from one part of the city to another. Idea is, it turns a 30-minute crawl through traffic into a five-minute slingshot through the dark.

Testing has begun, something apparently proven by this video. A video which will almost certainly make you quite dizzy.

Seriously. Elon’s Instgram posting of the video starts with ‘Warning, this may cause motion sickness or seizures’. The future, everyone…

Paul Newman, Patrick Dempsey… plenty of actors have swapped being in front of the camera to sitting behind the steering wheel of an aggressively powered car. You can add Assassin’s Creed and X-Men actor Michael Fassbender to that list, as he’s now racing a Ferrari 488 in the 2017 North American Ferrari Challenge series.

“From a very early age I idolised Ferrari and its champion, Michael Schumacher, in particular, so now racing in the Ferrari Challenge brings that dream full circle,” he said, words presumably crafted by his own brain, and not written on a film script.

We wish him the best of luck. Though we’re not sure he needs it. Fassbender just sounds like a fast name, doesn’t it?

Well, sort of. Northern Irish police have used a bit of not-that-new car tech to add a whimsical tone to the arresting of a drunk driver.

“A CAR phoned us to let us know about a crash last night when it turned out the driver was drunk," the Facebook page of Craigavon police said. “You think you're having a rough weekend? At least your car hasn't touted on you!"

The 'CAR' in question is a Ford Fiesta, one with the ability to call the emergency services when it detects it’s crashed. In this case, the crash happened with an alcohol-imbibed driver behind the wheel. The phone call, then, directed the police directly to his whereabouts.

Not quite the alcohol sensing car, then. But a moral victory for a bit of in-car tech we’ve never thought to shout about…

And that’s whether or not he actually wins the Indy 500 in a week or so’s time, too. Alonso will race the McLaren/Andretti Dallara-Honda IndyCar in lieu of doing the Monaco Grand Prix – in which Jenson Button is his stand-in – as Nando aims for motorsport’s Triple Crown. As in winning Monaco (which he’s done) and the Indy 500 and Le Mans 24 Hours (which he hasn’t).

However it pans out, though, he needs to make room at home for a bright orange, pointy car. Only it won’t be clutturing up the house collecting dust. When you’re as famous as Alonso, you’ve naturally got a museum to pop it in.

"Every car I jump in from 2004 or something like that, it is always in my contract that it will be in my museum afterwards, so this one is no different,” he told the press. No pressure to bring it back in one piece, then…

Remember when patriotically rooting for a British tennis player meant perennial disappointment? Basically, remember Tim Henman? The nice-but-not-as-talented-as-Andy-Murray tennis personality has, for reasons we've not fully fathomed, been one of the first people outside Jaguar to drive the new XF Sportbrake.

The idea behind the marketing campaign is that Susan MacCormick, one of Andy Murray's fans, found an incredibly remote tennis court on the Scottish island of North Harris. Murray didn't believe in the existence of Bunabhainneadar Tennis Court - apparently named by picking up an extra large handful of Scrabble letters and hoping for the best - so Henman picked up MacCormick and whisked her up there in the Jaaaag to show the current British number one that it's real.

We're not sure what the moral of the story is, but it's an excuse for Jag to show us a Sportbrake with some tennis ball-coloured camouflage. The undisguised car will make its debut on June 14, with MacCormick meeting Murray in the process.

Exciting news from Spain, where one of the stars of the Barcelona motor show is... a Seat. Probably not a surprise, that. But the Seat in question probably is a surprise. And not just because it looks like a Fiat.

This is a Seat 600, based, unsurprisingly, upon the Fiat 600. Described as "the car that put Spain on wheels" - we assume they mean Spain's people, not the physical landmass - it celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. So Seat has taken a neglected example and lavished 1,500 hours of love upon it, so it's tickety-boo for display at the motor show.

Those hours were carried out by 30 people, using 15 litres of paint and 50 metres of fabric, among other materials. Not well up on 600 facts? Nearly 800,000 were sold, it was rear-engined and rear-wheel driven, and the most powerful version put out a dizzying 21bhp. When you've got the whole of Spain to move, that's not much...

But don’t worry, because we expect it won’t happen. The Aston Martin Cygnet wasn’t exactly a roaring success, after all…

That hasn’t stopped rendering genius Peisert Design from knocking together his vision of a Maybach-ified city car, though. And hey, who’d have predicted a Maybach G-Wagen a few years ago?

Its grille is unarguably the defining feature, the 25-slot item borrowed from the stunning Maybach Vision concept. As are the lights, it seems, though they’ve been flipped vertically. The styling is bold, it’s fair to say.

As is the wheel choice. Upping the Smart’s rims to what must be at least 20-inchers must do little for ride quality, given how much they’ve shortened the wheelbase, while the turning circle has probably been harmed, too.

Still, the Cygnet still found a loyal bunch of buyers. Reckon this could, too?

Image: Peisert Design