I know Fluffy Auto Boutique (FAB) aims to make cars look fab but even we were stunned at this awesome piece of work.  The car was a collaboration between stylist Luisa Beccaria and Citroen.  Mmmm is that gear knob available anywhere….

Fluffy Auto Boutique (FAB) has won the Business GEM 2009 award for ‘Most Exciting Business Idea’.

The ceremony was held at the Alhambra Theatre, Bradford on Wednesday 23rd September 2009.

Many thanks to the Bradford GRID and Bradford Council and ATL who were all key partners in this award.

Despite the efforts of car manufacturers and designers, all of the vehicles they’ve provided for society in the last 60 years are pretty much uniform in appearance (inside and out). You’d be forgiven for confusing your own set of wheels for dozens of others in Asda’s car park on a Saturday afternoon. Economy of scale and cost of production prevents car manufacturers from making anything too radical, since it either will not sell in droves or they haven’t the bottle to launch something that really stands out from the rest (save for Renault with their Megane with the ‘big arse’ - it’s major selling point in the TV ad).
Unless you’re unnecessarily wealthy bordering on the obscene (a la Simon Cowell, Roman Abramovich, the Sultan of Brunei), you will likely own an ‘off-the-peg’ car. The days are long gone where you could purchase a rolling chassis and engine from Alvis, then pay a coachbuilder (Mulliner or Parker Ward) a King’s ransom for the body-style and interior of your dreams, no matter how opulent or ostentatious. Us mere mortals therefore have to content ourselves with personalising our own bag of bolts ourselves in order to make them unique to our (sometimes highly questionable) tastes.
Having learnt my lesson from my first car - as mentioned in a previous article - I stick firmly to placing the odd dangly ornament from the rear view mirror, or a window adhesive displaying where my football allegiances lay. This is all well and good, but my younger son took a particular shine to a soft toy penguin I had dangling from the windscreen a few years ago (if my memory serves me correctly, it was of one of the characters from the cartoon film ‘Madagasar’), and upon exiting my little Citroen one Sunday afternoon decided there and then he wanted it, he had to have it, he could not live his life beyond that point without it. So he grabbed it, pulled, and got out of my car - taking the penguin with him - AND the rear view mirror. Not having learnt my lesson the first time, I hung a dangly Elvis from same point a while later (an item I’d purchased in Florida whilst on holiday), and you won’t be that surprised to learn that went the same way - along with the rear view mirror once again.
But his antics don’t stop there - Perry has a penchant for altering the location / position of my window stickers, resulting in the Coventry City Football Club crest regularly being upside down and back-to-front in my rear window. This undoubtedly causes much hilarity and amusement to motorists following me in traffic - not just due to the strange positions of the graphics in said window, but the basic fact I’m brazen enough to publicly declare to the entire world I’m a supporter of the Sky Blues (and be proud of it too).
As for other decals on the rear of vehicles, a huge boom in this fad began in the late eighties, when no self-respecting owner of a ’hot-hatch’ wouldn’t be without an enormous transfer in the rear window displaying ’XR3i’, ’GTi’, ’MG’ or ’205’. These graphics were hardly discrete, taking up the entire glass area, thereby resulting in vision at best becoming incredibly restricted. By the mid-nineties, they had (thankfully) died a death as common sense and good taste prevailed, however after a brief look-see on eBay, I found it’s still possible to procure a brand new, still in packet example.
Another graphic that became a regular sight and went through a ‘flash in the pan’ phase, was the infamous ‘splat’ seen plastered across many a bonnet or boot lid. Whilst it was quite amusing seen adorned upon car bodywork when first conceived, the idea soon became monotonous and a victim of it’s own popularity, as every other Escort and Golf on all street corners had this image stuck on them. Depending upon what colour the ‘splat’ was, it gave the respective vehicle the distinct appearance it had either a) been ‘shat on’ by a low flying pterodactyl, b) been parked a smidge too close to an over-exuberant children’s birthday party just as the blancmange throwing began or possibly c) some kind member of society staggering around in the ether after closing time, suddenly found they could contain themselves no longer and had to reintroduce the civilised world to the excessive alcohol consumption they’d sank, as they generously chundered across your paintwork.
Back during the eighties, various companies would take your common or garden Sierra / Cavalier / Maestro etc and add on a reasonably sporty looking skirt and spoiler kit, plus ‘faded’ transfers along the flanks. They looked quite the business, infinitely better than what the Maestro originally appeared as in the first place when it emerged out of Long bridge - that is if you didn’t mind the car being re-appointed in polar white, pastel lemon or powder blue.
These companies would also supply body kits and graphics to the D.I.Y enthusiast who wished to personalise their own motor at home on a budget. Sadly, like all projects we undertake with our own fair hands, they never quite result in the end product appearing entirely the same as when a professionally qualified tradesman does the task.

During the last few years, it’s become the trend to place an image upon the spare wheel cover hanging on the back door of a 4×4. My, how we laughed when we saw the comedy pic of two rhinos copulating on a Suzuki Vitara, then cringed as we tried our utmost to explain said vista to our eight year old child in the most innocent, Songs of Praise style. Then, how sad we considered the Welsh / Scottish flag and the other mumbo-jumbo pasted across spare wheels of Shoguns in Bromsgrove.
The crux of the matter here is everyday cars need that certain little something to make them unique to ourselves, just like our homes are. Even with the economic climate as it currently is, motorists still strive for that elusive feature to make their pride and joy echo part of their personality, rather than the ego of the post-graduate who designed the vehicle sitting in Coventry University’s Automotive Design Studio. But as a closing thought, take heed of a girl I used to know during my time at University - she had acquired and affixed so many Jaguar and Daimler emblems to the rear hatch of her Metro, it was truly a sight to behold in bad taste and over the top personalisation. I did tell her she was probably burning a good extra half a gallon of fuel per week just to cart around the extra weight!!!!
Stuart Tidman September 2009