April Fools’ Day: the best and worst car spoof stories

The motoring industry is celebrating April Fools’ Day with a series of fake vehicles and spoof features designed to trick unwitting car fans. 

Every 1 April, motoring sites are flooded with stories of new machines that either seem too good or too ludicrous to be true, with BMW even building a fake pick-up version of its V8-engined M3 sportscar in 2011. 

Here are this year’s best pranks - and some that missed the mark:

The best

One of the more creative stories this April Fools’ Day comes from Chinese smartphone giant OnePlus. 

The tech firm announced on Twitter that it would be expanding into the motoring industry with its new “WarpCar”. With a tagline of “Are you ready to say goodbye to gasoline?”, fans who fail to check today’s date might be fooled into thinking the gadget maker has an all-electric hypercar in the works.

Though the tweet was posted on Friday, it seems clear that the mobile firm is winding up fans. As Android Authority points out, “there’s never been any rumours or speculation that the company is working on a OnePlus car”.

That said, the Chinese tech firm has ties with McLaren, so the idea of a OnePlus car developed in partnership with the British supercar firm isn’t as inconceivable as it might first appear, the tech site adds.  

Meanwhile, Land Rover is claiming to have installed the UK’s “most remote charging point” for electric cars, 15 miles from the nearest tarmac on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of Scotland. 

The company’s alleged head of vehicle charging, Max Watts, is quoted as saying that Land Rover has “ohm-mitted nothing in [its] quest to ensure that eco-minded Land Rover owners are able to adventure in zero-emissions comfort”. 

Admittedly, more rural chargers might be welcomed by electric car owners, says Autocar, which adds: “They nearly had us.”

And the worst

Fiat’s April Fools’ offering is a “falsified” advert for a special edition of the Panda to mark the tenth anniversary of hit TV comedy The Inbetweeners, Auto Express reports. 

Designed as a tribute to the “battered old” yellow Fiat Cinquecento Hawaii Edition from the Channel 4 series, the alleged new model features a “pre-dented” red passenger door, black plastic bumpers and an M-reg number plate. 

BMW, meanwhile, announced that it would be launching a new paint scheme that charges the batteries of its electric cars using lunar energy. 

Responding to that story, Autocar suggests: “Perhaps there’s an easier time of day to generate energy from light sources? We’ll look into it.”

But the worst gag has to be that from Skoda, which claims to have developed an LED puddle light system that allows users to project text or images on the road when they open their car’s door.

Dubbed ProjectaPal, the system might be within the realms of possibility, but it seems unlikely that most drivers would want to take their car personalisation that far.