cars & life blog
Published at: http://uygarr.blogspot.com https://carsandlife.net
Today I saw something which really surprised me. I didn’t see ten Bugatti Veyrons at the same time. What I saw was more interesting than that! A terrible consequence of extreme brand extension strategy by Pirelli marketing team. This is the same Pirelli which produces tyres and calendar (I still could not understand the point of calendar’s impact on tyres). Let me tell you what I saw today, Pirelli branded shoes! Yes, they are shoes for humans and sold in Selfridges (Department store in UK) with a very “nice” price 210 € or 175 £ or 285 $.
These shoes are the extreme edges of lunatic brand extension tactics. Company thinks, we can expand our brand to everything and make products which never fit with the brand. Pirelli is a rubber company and mainly focused on vehicle tyres. Everyone perceives Pirelli as a heavy industry firm not a fashion firm! As a result of this perception nobody expects to see a Pirelli in department store.
Unfortunately Pirelli thought we should be in fashion business, because we publish a sexy calendar each year. So people may wish to wear a tyre brand :) Or they might think; we have lots of extra rubber let’s turn them into shoes and sell them. Whatever they thought is not working that well. Nobody was looking at Pirelli shoes or I have never seen Pirelli shoes on any fashion magazine. I think main reason for this, people used to see Pirelli on their car but they are not used to see on their feet! And this is the minor point Pirelli may accidently skipped!
I did some research on internet and I found out that it is worse than I thought. Pirelli has women section also! They also have high heels for women! I have never seen a woman who desires to wear a pair of Pirellis.
You can see the women and men collection of rubber producer Pirelli. I think they have more thinks but I could only found these on Yoox.com
The shoes I took pictures were named as PZero and here is the real PZero! And the Pirelli’s fashion brand called as P. By Pirelli. Don’t miss the dot after the P :)
A typical fashion conversation;
-Where did you buy your shoes? From Pirelli.
-Really I have just bought four winter tyres from Pirelli also.
Today I was planning to write totally something else but when I consider the weather today in UK, I decided to publish these videos. There are four luxury vehicles placed in same position for snow climbing test. The test was conducted in Russian and I have no idea what they are saying but I can understand, all vehicles have their winter tyres on. The first one is Mercedes-Benz S500 4MATIC, second one BMW 750 xDrive, third one is ab old Audi A8 4,2 Quattro and the last one is Porsche Panamera. I don’t know the exactly model of Panamera but I did not hear any turbo sound, so it could be 4S!
All these vehicles have four-wheel drive systems but each of them have different technologies. Mercedes calls it 4MATIC, Audi calls is Quattro, BMW calls it xDrive and Porsche just names it as “4”. Basically their four-wheels have power from the engine but the distribution and functionality is totally different in each car. 
Porsche: Constantly changing, no pre-determined split
Winter tyres, in UK this sounds a bit weird. What is it for? Many people are saying this and they are right. For eighteen years in UK history, they did not see proper snow so they did not have a solid reason to buy winter tyre. However during last two years, the white thing that comes from the sky became a huge problem. And people started to wonder, is there something for snow? 
Similar story happened in Turkey also, many people were saying a tyre cannot change the way car goes on snow. And they ignored, after many bad incidents now everyone is rushing to replace their tyres on winter. 
This sliding opportunity will also help you to make new friendship. Forget Facebook and Twitter, they are for summer times :) When your car started to slip with no control, it will hit somewhere. This is very basic, every objects hits somewhere to stop! So, sliding will not last forever and you will hit to a vehicle or an object or some other places. In the end some people will come to help you or the other drive come to express own nice feelings to you. But you will make this friendship instant, no private message, no wall posting! Directly, face-to-face. But I cannot guarantee how long and how will last.
As a result of sliding and meeting with a new people, you might need to call some numbers. Of course, not for reservation in a restaurant. You will be calling emergency number to report the incident. And you will be able to calculate how quick an ambulance can arrive after your phone call in winter while you are shaking from cold. Also you will experience the privilege to attend a car with siren and colourful light and that is called ambulance. You will be the fastest moving vertical person on street!
If you are lucky, you will have a nice conversation with the insurance company and then call your “new” friends and then go to service and this will repeat for quite long time. If you are not that lucky, you can measure the love of your friends through their visit in hospital. And also you will have chance to taste hospital food, learn about the problems of health system.
I am in UK nearly for two years and I noticed two things; first there is no olive oil in pubs and second nobody uses winter tyres. During last two winters, we could not see the impact of global warming and it snowed. This white thing dropping from sky was quite unusual for UK, nearly for 18 years it did not snow and they had no idea how to drive in snow.
The first time nobody was aware of winter tyre and they suffered really badly. The good part of driving with summer tyres while snowing, you can make new friendships. You don’t need to have a Facebook account to know the driver in front you or the one who is going to hit you from the rear. Thanks to summer tyres inadequate traction on snow, you can meet with anyone on street. But I said you can meet, I did not say you can be very close friends. Most probably both of you will crash in an ungentle way and the results of the collision will be remembered for a quite long time.
As it started snowing in my city in Turkey, I see the same story again. People spend enormous amount money to buy luxury cars but they don’t tend to buy winter tyres. People with reasonable car may say, I cannot afford to buy winter tyres and I stuck on snow, that’s ok! But people who are rich and ignores the winter tyres and stuck on snow is an interesting issue. Their main reason, for couple of days in snow, why I should buy winter tyres. Yes, winter tyres are for snow! So, wear your short trousers during winter until it starts to snow :)
As I noticed, people don’t believe that winter tyres can make that difference and the other fact is; their testosterone (shown in right picture) levels! For some people, using winter tyres during winter time and on snow is showing your deficiency of driving ability. In more clear way; a real man should drive on snow even with slick tyres, the testosterone hormones providing the adequate help while driving on snow :) Actually I could not see any relevant impact of hormones on tyres but many tend to believe this! Actually what they are saying is a small bit of your their potential, I think they could goto space without anything more than a car with summer tyres :)
And here is the proper testing;
I thought last year was a heavy for UK. Of course relatively only a few centimetres, as I found out it didn’t for eighteen years! And now it is snowing really heavily. In some parts of UK, snow is up to thirty centimetres. This is a serious snow and needs serious precautions. Unlike the snowing, British people don’t like to replace their tyres during winter with winter tyres. As they told me, there is no snow why I should replace tyres! This is wrong, even if there is no snow, winter tyres provides better handling in cold weather. And last year, people were caught by snow with summer tyres! 
However I didn’t read any news about booming demand on winter tyres. And this year it snowed more and I still didn’t read anything about winter tyres. This is very basic, if you want to drive in snow, you have to replace your tyres. I know it is expensive but it is reasonable cheaper than staying at hospital ;)
