Weekly Roundup: Of All The Trademarks You Could Violate Edition

I was at Toys R Us with my clone, shopping for a drift trike, and I spotted a very familiar-looking logo. It was attached to the Avigo Neon. I suppose the "e" is different enough from the original to keep Avigo out of trouble, and if they do get in trouble --- hey, it's just a quick-bake Chinese import brand. You let the company go bankrupt and come back with the same products under a new name. Ain't globalization wonderful, for non-Americans at least?

This raises the question, however: if you're going to go through the trouble of stealing someone else's name and logo design, why not steal something that commands respect? Sure, I happen to have a very high opinion of the Neon, since I own and race one. I have to be the exception that proves the rule, however. Why not call it the "Avigo F12berlinetta" or the "Avigo E-Type" or, just possibly, the "Avigo Barracuda?"

What do we have here? Well, it's a Mustang. But what's that in the upper left-hand corner? Why, it's only the flippin' sweet new logo for Avoidable Contact. The previous logo, a detailed medieval-style woodcut depicting your humble author writing a $6,000 check to NASA for disciplinary purposes, was too complicated to accurately reproduce, so I'm very happy with this.

It's attached to a pair of columns this week: an analysis of the Mustang's surprising sales success in Germany and a further discussion of ESC and its discontents. The website also reprinted my Elan NP01 test from the May issue of the magazine.

For TTAC, I told a tale of three Ubers and made fun of the half-wits at Motor Trend.

Brother Bark was uniquely productive this week: he discussed a recent high-profile road-rage incident that just might have been a premeditated murder, drove a FIAT 500X, answered a full list of your questions, and fulfilled the expectations of his harshest critics by saying nice things about a V6 Mustang.

Bark and I, along with three Road&Track contributors and a world-famous sheetmetal worker with an Alice-in-Chains beard, are girding our loins for the AER season opener at Watkins Glen next week. Right now I'm too fat for my race suit, I kid you not, so if you need me I'll be binging and purging. Have a great weekend everybody; I've got a date with an Indian Chieftain and maybe a few other things on the agenda.