Directory:Sniff Petrol
Sniff Petrol is a satirical British online magazine written chiefly by Richard Porter, with contributions from James May and others, dedicated to automobile-related humour.
History
Known to some as "the Onion of the motoring world", the site was originally launched in 2001 with a bi-weekly release of each issue. The site was originally designed to cater to a mostly-English audience, though as the site grew in popularity, so did the scope of the jokes. In 2003 the release was made monthly. In October 2004, Porter published a book entitled Crap Cars, dedicated to some of the worst cars ever made. A United States-specific version known as Crap Cars USA came out one year later in 2005. Since January 2006, Sniff Petrol has had its own segment on TV presenter Gareth Jones' motoring podcast, Gareth Jones on Speed. At the end of May 2007 it was announced that the site would alter from the monthly layout to a new blog-style format, updated in smaller chunks but more frequently, but in April 2008 the site reverted to the monthly issues, yet still using the blog layout.
The new site was first presented using a free Blogger account, but was quickly moved to a fully-hosted WordPress installation, with a custom design commissioned from Interconnect IT.
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Running jokes
Sniff Petrol has many running jokes and vendettas. The most well known of them is a constantly-released stream of fake advertisements, (based on actual ones) highlighting the flaws of the cars being advertised. The bulk of the adverts are MG Rover and British Leyland/Austin Rover which are included in each issue using an old car advert from the '70s or '80s. Other gags include a campaign against ITV Formula One commentator James Allen known as "Stop the Cock", a now-ubiquitous photo of Michael Schumacher sneering at brother Ralf accompanied by a snide remark (which changes in every issue), all news events having happened "yesterday", many of its Formula One-related quotes coming from "Maurice Ital of Every Other Sunday magazine", referring to TVR owner Nikolai Smolenski as a 12-year old boy, the notion that modern Land Rover vehicles weigh more than the Earth itself, and many others including a short series of photographs depicting Pedro de la Rosa falling into various rivers - probably inspired by the Formula One driver accidentally jumping over a barrier into a stream following his retirement from the 2002 USA Grand Prix. One successful campaign offered car designer Peter Stevens £20 to shave off his moustache. Stevens agreed, in return for a £50 donation to a charity of his choice which he matched from his own pocket. Starting in 2003 was a long-running campaign against mopeds, with the catchphrase "The Great Sniff Petrol Moped Campaign - Annoying them as much as they annoy everyone else" - its logo was a moped with "Get a Proper Motorbike" spray-painted over it.
Controversy
The website is often critical of many different people and companies for a variety of things. BMW styling director Chris Bangle, often lambasted by the magazine, once reportedly described Sniff Petrol as "fucking scum", following a spoof piece about him in Top Gear Magazine.
The website also withdrew a story about the late legendary motoring journalist Russell Bulgin after he reportedly took offence at it.
In November 2004, an MG Rover lawyer contacted the website when the company failed to realize that an article about it being listed on eBay was a spoof.
In October 2006, Neil Lyndon contacted the site to complain about an article satirising the reaction of certain members of the motoring media to Richard Hammond's jet car accident. He took offence as the original Daily Mail article that was parodied was heavily edited by the subeditors, and that he wished to dissociate himself from it. Sniff Petrol replaced the parody with a link to the email exchange between Lyndon and Richard Porter.[1]
In November 2007, under threat of legal action from the representatives of Foxtons Estate Agents, Sniff Petrol removed an image of a Foxtons Mini titled "Foxtons lets public design their new MINI livery". The photoshopped image of the car was decorated in part words and images that suggested negative feelings towards the estate agents. The episode has been referred to occasionally in the blog, such as when the strapline was changed to "And your MINIs are lovely".
Famous fans
Popular British motorheads Jeremy Clarkson, Tiff Needell, Jason Plato and David Coulthard have all acknowledged being fans of the magazine,Template:Citation needed and in the past the site has featured contributions from James May and Jim Bamber. However, when trying to discover whether personal hero Gordon Murray was a reader, a colleague at McLaren acknowledged that Gordon had not seen the site and was "not very good with computers".