April Fools’ Day 2018: the best jokes from the car industry

Once again, the car industry has tried its hardest to pull our leg; here’s our rundown of the best efforts this year

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by Sam Sheehan

3 mins read

1 April 2018

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It might seem like it’s all spanners and motors in the automotive industry, but sometimes car engineers and PRs alike like to have a laugh.

April 1 is an opportunity for them to vent some weird and wacky ideas for future models, so we run through some of our favourites of this year below.

Aston Martin Project Sparta

Gaydon has been working on a top-secret monster truck to compete in the 2019 Monster Jam series. Apparently, the development has run alongside the DBX programme.

We’re not sure if the name, Project Sparta, is in reference to comments from Aston’s design boss, which described Rolls-Royce and Bentley as “ancient Greece”. Ouch. Shots fired, etc.

Oh, and Project Sparta will be powered by the same 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 as the Valkyrie AMR Pro with 1100bhp. Obviously.

Honda CR-V roadster concept

Honda kicked-off this year’s April Fools’ early with the reveal of a new concept car it describes being “completely undriveable”.

The CR-V roadster concept is essentially a hacked-into Honda CR-V that’s lost its B and C-pillars, and roof. The result is a structurally unsound car, hand crafted by an angle grinder and backed for production by, um, Honda’s PR team.

“This is a bold new direction for the CR-V and opens up an entirely new non-existent market,” said the project’s boss, EipurirufÅ«ru, which translates into April Fool in English. “Our sales target is somewhat conservative to start with, at zero cars, but we are confident that once the minor glitches are ironed out, such as the lack of roof and the fact it is totally structurally unsound, the car will fly out of showrooms.”

MG alpaca power

MG reckons it’s found a quick fix for car emissions – and it comes thanks to alpacas. Apparently, MG engineers have found a way to use their waste as fuel.

“Following our decisions to no longer sell diesel-powered vehicles in the UK market, we wanted to take it one step further and see what was possible using alternative fuels to develop low emission vehicles,” said MG UK’s sales and marketing boss, Daniel Gregorious.

While it might help to cut CO2 emissions, we’re not sure you’d want to be following a car pumping this stuff out of its exhaust tailpipe.

Skoda noise cancelling headrest

Skoda is renowned for offering plenty of kit for your quids – but its April Fools’ invention could be one of the most valuable offerings yet.

Aimed at parents sick of bickering back-seat kids, a new noise cancelling headrest has been fine-tuned through thousands of hours of testing with a ‘Scream Team’ to counter the most annoying tones.

“We tested 1,000 families over 10,000 miles and identified that 80dB, the sound equivalent of a vacuum cleaner, is the pitch most unbearable for parents,” said special projects leader, April Fürst.

More content:

April Fools' 2017: the best of last year

April Fools' 2016