Today’s non-Cybertruck news: Lara Croft, snow sticks and a stuck Skoda

The Tesla Cybertruck has been unveiled in Los Angeles and has been trending on Twitter ever since. Here are some of the ‘big’ stories you might have missed.

Lara Croft wax model

Where were you when Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck?

It’s not quite the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall or a meal at Pizza Express, but for Tesla fans, it’s another moment in history. A significant date for the memory bank.

Tesla – and more specifically, the Cybertruck – has been trending on Twitter ever since. It’s secured top billing on the BBC homepage, while the Daily Mail has even given it greater prominence than Millie Mackintosh’s ‘bare bump’ and the ‘plunging gown’ of Charli XCX.

When you’re getting more exposure than Charli’s ‘floral tubing around the bosom and asymmetrical hemline’, you know you’ve managed to spin the PR thing to perfection.

Aside from a well-known yeast extract, nothing divides opinion quite like a new Tesla. Everything Elon Musk does appears to usher in an open season for opinions, memes and witty critiques.

This morning, the Tesla Cybertruck was likened to everything from Lara Croft’s ‘enviable assets’ (to use the Mail’s terminology) to a rubber door wedge. Some were witty – a few were even original.

Every day except Wednesday, Motoring Research asks me to write an opinion piece on something topical or newsworthy. I get the day off on Wednesday, presumably because, aside from the bin collection, nothing ever happens on a Wednesday.

As today is Friday, I’m free to write something on the Tesla Cybertruck. But I won’t. Not only has Ethan got there first, but there are literally no opinions left. I’ve shone a torch into the bowels of the opinion-o-generator and there’s nothing there. Zilch. Zero. Nadda.

More news than you can shake a stick at

Toyota Corolla

Instead, allow me to take you on a tour of some of the stories you might have missed. While you were watching the Cybertruck break new ground – and windows – in Los Angeles, here’s what was going on in the real world.

‘Halfords has launched a ONE METRE snow salt stick which quickly removes ice.’ As press release headlines go, this one goes straight to work. Note the emphasis on the size, because in the world of snow salt sticks, size matters.

Forget pointy trucks, what you need is a pointy stick. ‘The monster stick works like shake ‘n’ vac and home-owners and motorists just need to shake their stick and spread the salt over the affected area,’ claims Halfords.

Get out there and shake your stick.

Halfords snow stick

Temperatures aren’t expected to drop below freezing in Keighley over the coming days, but the biggest news in West Yorkshire is the long awaited Keighley News verdict on the new Toyota Corolla.

“Plenty of clever stuff then in arguably the best-looking Corolla so far, that continues to prove that reliable does not have to mean dull,” is the verdict. Rest easy, residents of Keighley.

Meanwhile, shoppers in Milton Keynes are being invited to enter a raffle to win a Volkswagen e-Golf, with all the proceeds going to a local charity.

Dude, where’s my Range Rover?

Literally and metaphorically, MK is a long way from LA, but that’s where we head next for the startling revelation that Hollywood actress Jennifer Garner lost her car.

Garner, who starred in the film Dude, Where’s My Car, was so traumatised by a visit to Build-A-Bear that she spent 25 minutes searching for her Range Rover. Two things: why is this news and how can you lose a Range Rover?

Maybe she needs to order a Ford Mustang Mach-E in Grabber Blue Metallic. Try losing that in a parking lot.

Speaking of parking, the Advertiser & Times reports on a Skoda Karoq driver who, in a blatant attempt to avoid car park charges, headed down to the beach. Either that or it was an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Isle of Wight without paying for a ferry.

Skoda Karoq on the beach

‘Cleans ya window screen’

There’s more. Over in the world of commercial radio, Heart has revealed how a bottle of Dr Beckmann’s carpet stain remover can treat frozen windscreens. “I’m a genius, get ya self one of these bottles, fill it with warm water and ya sorted,” said the ‘inventor’.

“No cold hands scraping anymore and it cleans ya window screen too, the brush bit is ideal.” Still want that Ford Quickclear heated windscreen? “With a salt stick and Dr Beckmann by your side, the winter blues will be a thing of the past,“ said an onlooker. Probably.

Finally, Farmer Tom might not have the social media following of Elon ‘Major Tom’ Musk, but he has come up with a very good way to stem the ‘constant tide of littering’ in the countryside. Printing car registration numbers on takeaway packaging could reduce the amount of litter thrown from car windows.

Discarded McDonald’s wrappers nestled in the roadside verges of Britain is a world away from the glitz, glamour and dry ice of a Tesla launch in Los Angeles, but it’s somehow more authentic and relevant.

More than 800 words later, you’re still here (thank you) and I still don’t have an opinion on the Tesla Cybertruck. I really ought to get my carpet cleaned, mind. Is there a doctor in the house?

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Gavin Braithwaite-Smith
Gavin Braithwaite-Smithhttp://www.petrolblog.com
Writer with a penchant for #FrenchTat. Owns 15 vehicles of varying degrees of terribleness. Also doing a passable impression of Cousin Eddie in an Italian-German beige motorhome. Doesn't get out much.

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