Fluffy cabs: Female Motoring, Car Accessories & Car Styling

Typical Woman Driver

admin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:51:55 +0000

by Laura Dutton
“Typical Woman Driver” - a cry we’ve all have to endure from our male counterparts from time to time! Whether it’s a direct hit at our own driving or a verbal tirade aimed in the direction of a fellow female motorist, us ladies always seem to get the blame for what are often the driving blunders of the male of the species!
We’ve known it for a long time -women are safer drivers and this is reflected in the Car Insurance discounts that can be achieved just by being a member of the fairer sex.
We do have our share of accidents - of course we do - but generally because we drive slower our accidents cause less damage - meaning insurance companies having more leverage to offer us better deals! We drive smaller cars, travel less distances and spend more time on urban roads. Male drivers tend to have bigger cars, drive faster and due to their competitive ego have more serious accidents, often due to reckless over-taking.
We’re so good - we’ve even got car insurance companies dedicated to us! These specialist ladies-only insurance companies can offer some excellent packages for lady drivers and it’s certainly worth getting a quote just to see what you can get.
However, to ensure that you gain the best quote you can possibly get, it’s worth shopping around on comparison sites which review the car insurance market for you and churn out the best quote.
Top tips for gaining cheaper car insurance
1. Being a lady!
2. Drive a car with a smaller engine
3. Be prepared to pay a voluntary excess if you do have to claim
4. Pay annually rather than monthly instalments - the penalties for this can be considerable
5. Any added security devices and modifications can bring down your premium
Don’t forget,Compare Car Insurance quotes at Moneysupermarket.com to get the best deal. http://www.moneysupermarket.com/motor/

Car Flower Power!

admin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:19:22 +0000

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) wins award!

admin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:47:55 +0000

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.

I Want To Be An Individual!

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:07:33 +0000

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

Car Flower, Car Vases & the wonderful Auto Vase

admin — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:47:12 +0000

You don’t have to have a VW Beetle to have a flower in your car now! Have a look at the beautiful Autovase Car Vase from Fluffy Auto Boutique. We love this little vase here at FAB.

As long as the dashboard has an airvent this autovase will fit well.
The Vase clips onto your car’s air vent and the clip rotates for horizontal or vertical vents. It also adjusts up or down the glass tube and can also be removed from the vase for cleaning.
The metal holder comes in a choice of silver or black.

You can see how it looks with the flowers in if you have a look at FAB.

Fluffy Auto Boutique gets new outlet!

admin — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 13:43:53 +0000

Fluffy Auto Boutique will soon be in Keighley, West Yorkshire. Come and see us at Unit 2, Keighley Canopy, Low Street, Keighley, West Yorkshire BD21 3PQ.

You can also see Fluffy online at Fluffy Auto Boutique and Ebay

Have a look at our sites for fabulous ideas on how to make your car look fab!

Stewie’s views: It’s all a matter of taste

admin — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 13:33:52 +0000

If you think back to the time when we passed our driving tests and then had our first motor, you’ll no doubt remember it was - not to put too fine a point on it - a complete and utter heap. For some completely irrational and unfathomable reason with no realistic hope of success whatsoever, a good percentage of us decided to ‘personalise’ or ‘customise’ said bag of bolts to our own warped tastes. This is all well and good if it’s simply adding a set of mud flaps, pair of fog lights, even new seat covers, but sadly it goes way beyond this into the realms of ’For goodness sake……………….’
Modern science and psychiatry has yet to fully establish why this particular affliction seems to be more predominantly found in the male of our species. From my own personal experience, this is actually quite (and embarrassingly) true. I did some horrendous things to my first car - a bright custard yellow 1975 Vauxhall Chevette that in hindsight I should’ve been beaten about my person with a cricket bat which had six inch nails inserted through it for my crimes against motoring good taste and common sense.
In my defence, the interior of the Chevette was boring beyond mind-numbing tedium - faeces brown vinyl, peculiar khaki-tartan upholstery that in retrospect the Burberry company would now be ecstatically proud of, and finished off with carpet that very shade of brown you only ever see on the fur of stray, mongrel dogs. To my late-teenage mind back then, this just was not socially acceptable. I didn’t have a love-life as such back then, but this would’ve terminated it altogether. Something different was desperately required.
First of all, the upholstery. I found a pair of front seats in a Coventry breaker’s yard - infinitely more comfortable that the originals in the Chevette (these replacements had head-rests too), plus being from a Mk.1 Cavalier / Opel Ascona (stable mates of the same era) I assumed the fittings would be identical to my little car. What do you know - they weren’t!!! I established this as I endeavoured and toiled to install them. The only way these seats would fit was by removing the anchoring assembly from the original seats and somehow fix it to these replacements. A very frustrating Sunday afternoon ensued, with several blooded knuckles, many choice words that would’ve made Gordon Ramsay seriously impressed, and my father questioning my sanity on numerous occasions.
The other slight problem was the colour of these ex-Cavalier seats - the exact same hue as a Persian blue feline. I purchased a black set of covers from Halfords but being made from Nylon meant I could see the old upholstery through the covers. It looked vile. Mind you, it was my own fault for purchasing a more inexpensive collection. And my disappointment didn’t end there either - the set did not include head rest covers, and I was totally unable to source anything suitable - so Mother made me a pair!!! That’s right, homemade head rest covers!! At least it was something to talk about to a date as I was driving her home, should a girl ever be brave enough to be seen dead inside an insipid yellow car.
And finally, if these replacement seats hadn’t been enough of a headache, they were too wide for my Chevette. To put this into perspective, if I shut the driver’s door a tad too firmly, the passenger door would fly open immediately. Perhaps they weren’t ex-Cavalier seats at all - possibly from or something bigger, for example a Carlton or Opel Commodore.
When the seats were removed from the car, I also tore out the worn carpet. I had my eye on a nice new black carpet but the purse strings wouldn’t stretch to this sadly. Mum and Dad came to my aid again, by giving me a reasonable size off-cut from what they had their stairs layed in. The only snag was this new carpet I’d inherited was the same colour as weetabix - brown again!!!!! Still, the old saying is you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, so into the Vauxhall it went.
Installing this wasn’t without it’s tribulations either, as proper car carpet is a ‘cord’ weave and quite thin. This was household carpet. Four times the thickness. I think for the rest of it’s useful life, it was the carpet and adhesive that was holding certain parts of the chassis together in the correct places.
I do believe it’s rather self-explanatory why in the four years I owned and drove this car, I only ever had three dates. What a babe magnet, eh?
My girlfriend, Annette, ironically enough also had an old Vauxhall for her first set of wheels - a 1972 Viva HC. Obviously she was as thrilled as the rest of us at gaining her motoring freedom upon passing her driving test, but faced with the prospect of driving an aging car from the early seventies she did add something to the interior herself to personalise it - a magic tree air freshener.
Annette did the direct opposite of me (no doubt having infinitely more common sense and better things to spend her time, money and patience on), leaving her Viva as it was, keeping it the same as when it left Ellesmere Port. She simply began saving for her next motor, not bothering with insignificant cosmetic adjustments to a car she clearly wasn’t going to hang onto.
Once Annette had amassed enough necessary, she purchased a Mk.1 Ford Fiesta XR2i - a car sporty enough for her tastes, that didn’t need any personalisation in the vein of the criminal acts I’d performed upon my Vauxhall (save for magic tree). She could look stylish, modern, a bit of a ‘girl racer’, but had seen sense and not pillaged the accessory section in Halfords for items that just add weight to your car and serve no productive contribution to it’s performance.
Now, as a fully-fledged ‘proper’ grown up, I frown upon seeing any car that’s carrying ‘bling’ and been customised to within an inch of it’s life. It took me a good quarter of an hour the other day to work out underneath the spoilers, tinted windows, pointless over sized rally bucket seats and hideous alloys was a Citroen Saxo. But it may have been a Corsa. Or a Clio for that matter.
Praise the Lord common sense and good taste prevail eventually - bar those members of society who purchase a Fiat 500 with it’s high usage aimed white / beige interior!!!!

Stuart Tidman August 2009

Attention Female Motorists!

admin — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 12:54:20 +0000

Evans Halshaw would like to invite you to “An Evening Under The Bonnet”.

Taking place 6.30pm Tuesday 18th August 2009 at Citroen Garage, King’s Road, Bradford this fun and informal evening for female motorists will teach car safety and car maintenance techniques, provide practical car knowledge demonstrations, and will also be giving out intriguing prizes. There’s complimentary refreshments as well so come and have a bit of fun while learning a bit more about your car. Firemen will be there doing interesting things with cars!

Fluffy Auto Boutique will be styling cars, and Vie will also be there with fab beauty products.

Call 01274 230230 to book.

Contact evanshalshaw.com for your nearest event.

Polar Ford’s Swish Party Styled By FAB

admin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:23:22 +0000

FAB (Fluffy Auto Boutique) is proud to have styled the New Fiesta, Focus Cabriolet, and New Kuga at Polar Ford’s recent Swish Party Ladies Event.

During the SWISH Party the cars became the shopping trolleys and each boot was labelled with ‘accessories’, ‘bags’, or ’shoes’. Clothes were hung up next to each car and organised into sizes.

A whistle was blown as we all lined up, ready to run towards our fav items.

FAB used the new Autovase car vase and added flowers and feathers to co-ordinate with the car’s paintwork. Here’s a few of the flowers we used:

Fluffy ‘Cabs’?

admin — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:27:32 +0000

Cab (N)
From Cabriolet….the enclosed driver’s compartment of a vehicle….

Usually they’re just dull, dull dull! We’ve gotta fluffen them up a bit!

Fluffy Hearts Air Freshener

Paris Chihuahua Dog on Pink Cushion