January 27, 2021

Dutch girl first to join the Ferrari Driver Academy

Filed under: Automobiles,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 4:52 pm

Maya Weug

Sixteen-year-old Maya Weug of Belgian-Dutch-Spanish nationality, has recently made history by becoming the first female driver to join the Ferrari Driver Academy.

She was selected from the final stage of the Girls on Track – Rising Stars initiative, a program run by Ferrari together with motorsport governing body the FIA.

Weug apparently beat competition from 17-year-old Doriane Pin of France, 14-year-old Antonella Bassani of Brazil and 15-year-old Julia Ayoub of Estonia.

Weug has earned a place in the Academy which prepares talented young drivers for a potential career in motorsport.

“I will never forget this day! I am so happy to be the first female driver to join the Ferrari Driver Academy,” said Weug, who was born in Spain to a Belgian mother and Dutch father.

(Link: edition.cnn.com, image from Maya Weug’s instagram)

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November 24, 2020

Dutch artist Streetart Frankey unveils huge car pick

Filed under: Art,Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 1:23 pm

You know those ‘paper picks’ you might have seen in real life at a dinner or in a movie featuring a dinner where after the bill was paid, an employee would put it on a paper pick?

This new outdoor piece by Streetart Frankey does the same, but with cars, a nod to when there were more cars than green space at the art installation’s location. The artwork can be admired on the corner of Hondsrugweg and Hettenheuvelweg in Amsterdam Zuidoost, the city’s only exclave. Amusingly enough, I saw it this morning from a bus, but was not quick enough to snap it.

The general area features many large businesses like the big Swedish furniture warehouse and the Johan Cruijff Arena. Soon the are will have a park, surrounded by 5,000 new homes, which are sorely needed in Amsterdam.

The cars are what the Dutch call ‘old timers’, which means cars that are at least 25 years old in this case DAF cars, a Dutch brand.

(Link and photo: parool.nl)

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May 24, 2020

Dutch marbles make it to the big leagues

Filed under: Automobiles,Gaming,General,Sports by Orangemaster @ 2:20 pm

Dutch brothers Jelle and Dion Bakker build and present elaborate marble races on their hugely popular YouTube channel Jelle’s Marble Runs.

Recently having lost their main sponsor, they tweeted out for help and fortunately for them it was John Oliver of American television show Last Week Tonight that answered their call. In the video below Olivier talks about them in a show on the current lack of sports. As Oliver said, remotely watching marbles duking it out is definitely something the world needs right now.

Not only has John Oliver given the brothers a huge boost, but will also donate 5000 US dollars to food banks and another 20,000 US dollars to an international help organisation ‘International rescue committee’ on behalf of winning teams. After having reached 1 million subscribers a few days ago, the brothers have announced that they are working on presenting a brand new tournament before the start of the Marble League 2020 on June 21.

The brothers are very close to joining the big leagues themselves as far as money goes. They’re able to pay the folks who work for them properly, making them a serious outfit. The voice of the marble races is American sports fan Greg Woods. You’ll notice that Marble Runs also use play on words of Formula 1 such as Marbula and F1 sounds with permission from F1 who are huge fans of the marbles as well.

Back in 2016 we told about what a ‘marble tsunami’ sounded like and I guess anything you watch on their channel will keep the entire family entertained these days.

(Link: nos.nl, Photo of Marbles by Meghana Kulkarni, some rights reserved)

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July 10, 2019

People stuck in car park during Iron Man race

Filed under: Automobiles,Sports,Weird by Orangemaster @ 3:12 pm

Hoornmuseum

As if parking garages were not scary enough on the best of days, a bunch of people about to drive off found out they were locked in during an Iron Man race happening in Hoorn, North Holland a few days ago.

Parking garage Het Jeudje was closed, but still had people in it when that was decided. In what sounds like a calm manner, one woman said at the time “We can’t get out and we don’t know when we will be able to”. Hoorn residents didn’t know anything and got locked in after they entered.

They had to wait 30 minutes, and everything was fine after that. But imagine if they had needed any help, that would have been bad news. Apparently, residents were partially informed about the accessibility issues of their city centre during the race, but not as well as they should have been. The city claimed it sent letters ‘that did not reach everybody’, as it was not able to inform some people who have a ‘no-no’ sticker on their doors, meaning they refuse to receive any unaddressed mail.

As well, the ‘internationally oriented website’ didn’t make getting online info any easier, which I must decode as, it’s in English or Dunglish and not the info residents were looking for. And then you get locked into a car park.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl, Photo of Westfries Museum, Hoorn by Fnorp, some rights reserved)

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January 8, 2019

Don’t let horses lick your car

Filed under: Animals,Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 11:46 am

Some of you might be rolling their eyes, others like me are surprised: apparently horses like to lick car paint, damaging cars, and one Dutch nature association in Nijmegen, Gelderland is warming people about it with the pictogram above.

I have zero scientific knowledge of why horses like car paint and metallic paint in particular, so I’m going with a Google search for plausible answers:

– They like shiny things
– They really need salt
– Lack of nutrients from the plants in their pasture (I vote for this one)
– Boredom
– They like the taste of metal

In any case, it’s bad for them and bad for your car! And it’s like chips (crisps) for humans: once they taste it, they want more.

The idea is to park your car far away from the horses. Having to explain horse damage to your insurance company is probably difficult as well.

(Link and pictogram: naturetoday.com)

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January 7, 2019

‘Roundabout with pizza cutter needs pineapples’

Filed under: Art,Automobiles,Food & Drink,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:37 pm

Dutch journalist Lex Boon has just published a book called ‘Ananas’ (‘Pineapple’) about his love of pineapples. In his hometown of Beverwijk, North Holland, there’s a roundabout with a pizza cutter as art.

Boon figured the roundabout could conveniently use a new name and a new look: “My dream is to rename this pizza roundabout’ the ‘Pizza Hawaï Rotonde’ (‘Hawaiian Pizza Roundabout’) as a tribute to the pineapple.”

Putting pineapple on a pizza was a Canadian ‘invention’, thanks to Greek-born Canadian, Sam Panopoulos from Ontario, Canada. Follow the Wikipedia link and read the recent story about Canadian Prime Minister and the President of Iceland ‘debating’ the issue of whether pineapple belongs on pizza.

Boon also interviewed Panopoulos for his book, surely before the summer of 2017 when the latter passed away. The pizza cutter is not an officially commissioned art work, it’s advertisement for a local pizza parlour. Boon would love to see that thing full with piece of pineapple at some point.

I’m off for lunch.

(Link: nhnieuws.nl, Photo of Pizza pie without pineapple by Adam Kuban, some rights reserved)

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December 12, 2018

Dutchman makes it to Australia in electric car, still driving

Filed under: Automobiles,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 3:08 pm

Dutchman Wiebe Wakker took a big long drive in his electric car all the way to Australia. Called ‘Plug me in, an electric trip to Australia’, his journey will bring him from Amsterdam to Sydney. Wakker left on 15 March 2016 (yes, 2016) in a car called ‘the Blue Bandit’ without any money and relying on the kindness of people.

Throughout the journey Wakker engages with organisations, people and initiatives active in the field of sustainability to learn about the environmental challenges in the countries he visits and sees what solutions are available to tackle the climate problem.

It took Wakker 827 days to reach the city of Darwin, which he reached in June 2018, and four days ago, he reached Brisbane after driving for 991 days. “I crossed 33 countries on my way, reached the other side of the world, driving 84,000 km without visiting a single petrol station on the way.”

Wakker claims he has become the first person to cross Turkey, Iran, India, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia in a fully electric, battery-powered vehicle, surpassing the current Guinness World Record of the ‘longest distance covered in an electric vehicle (non-solar)’ of 22,000 km. This, of course, will be reviewed and announced at some point and we’ll be glad to write about it.

And his trip hasn’t ended yet, as he is still 921 km away from Sydney.

The only thing that might irk, is the fact that he has been ‘relying on the kindness of strangers’ for years, which is probably an easy thing to do in his case as a Western man, but might be seen with some contempt, considering he comes from a rich country and can apparently afford his trip.

(Link and photo: financialexpress.com)

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November 18, 2018

Dutch designer makes vegan furnishing with palm leather

Filed under: Automobiles,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 10:57 am

Dutch designer Tjeerd Veenhoven makes rugs made from sustainable palm leather, a vegan alternative to traditional leather. Interested in nature fibres, Veenhoven started experimenting with palm leather about eight years ago, and asked someone he knew in India to send him some palm leather to research it.

“In my material research I found out that the material was super brittle and not very useful, but if you soften it with a special material of glycerin and water, and some other materials you can make it nice and soft,” explains Veenhoven.

Besides producing and selling rugs, Veenhoven’s studio in Groningen hopes to sell palm leather to demanding automotive companies that have recently become increasingly interested in vegan alternatives to leather car interiors.

(Link and photo: dezeen.com)

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August 22, 2018

DAF searches for oldest truck in the country

Filed under: Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 1:02 pm

Dutch truck manufacturing company DAF, with headquarters in Eindhoven, is currently searching for the oldest DAF truck in the country that is still on the road.

Celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, the company says it receives photos of proud owners and their trucks all the time, which means finding the oldest one shouldn’t be that difficult. DAF claims that their trucks are known for their fuel efficiency, driver comfort, as well as reliability and durability.

Irishman John Tarrent pictured above shared a photo of his classic DAF 2100 from 1984 in use now for 34 years – look how happy he is. People can send in photos or videos on DAF’s Facebook page until the end of November. The general feeling is that a lot of the ‘oldtimers’ (that’s actually what ‘classic vehicles’ are called in Dutch) will be found outside of the Netherlands.

(Link: ed.nl, Photo of Irishman John Tarrent and his DAF by DAF)

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June 11, 2018

Inebriated moped riders break breathalyser

Filed under: Automobiles,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:36 pm

Two Dutch men on mopeds in Geldrop, Noord-Brabant were stopped by the police for drunken behaviour and had to blow into a breathalyser – so far so good, or bad.

However, they were so drunk that they broke the breathalyser. In fact, they were so drunk that dismounting their mopeds was a job in itself. The first one had four and a half times the legal allowed amount of alcohol in his system and was ‘breathing alcohol’. It took 45 minutes for the breathalyser to come back to life and for the one drunken man to give it another blow.

And if being a danger to road users including himself wasn’t bad enough, his driving licence was not valid and his ID card was expired. They will both be appearing in front of a judge soon enough.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl)

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