When it comes to gambling, the Lottery doesn’t usually come to the front of your mind in terms of the most glamorous of activities. Sure, scooping several million squids is pretty cool. Yeah, we all love the end results, but compared to say betting the house at Monte Carlo – or risking it all on ‘black’ at the Bellagio, watching a permatanned Dale Winton poncing around in front of a giant bubble gum machine doesn’t really do it for us.

We felt that the whole lottery formula needed a bit of a shake-up, so in true Dotz style, we’ve not only slapped it around the face, but we’ve also ruffled its hair and given it a wedgie. The Dotz Lottery is better on loads of levels. Firstly, it’s free. So we’ve won that one. Secondly, the prizes are way cooler than the usual tenner for getting some of the numbers right. Who knows? If your luck is in, you could be sitting alongside the legendary 2009 King of Europe Drift Champion, Adan Kerenyi as he skilfully steers and slides his way through one of the 2011 Drift events. In fact, we’ll raise you. You can take a mate as well. Wait…wait, we’re all in!. we’ll even chuck in a full weekend away with all VIP perks and stately accommodation! Believe me, Eamonn Holmes ain’t ever going to do that for you.. He doesn’t even have Adan’s phone number! Us?.. we have it on speed dial!… on ‘1’..

Simply by registering for the Dotz Lottery at www.dotzmag.com/lottery, you’ll immediately become eligible for all of the superb prizes – and you don’t even have to sit through an hour’s worth of crap Saturday night telly to see whether you’ve won or not! Up for grabs is a full set of Dotz Custom Finish rims, complete with TOYO Tires – and for the runners up, another three sets of totally unique Dotz Custom Rims.. it’s all too much I tell thee! Our partners at Foliatec will lovingly graphic your wheels to your own exact design meaning that you will never commit the fashion faux pas of rocking up at a show with the same rims as everybody else. It’s not a good look.. unless they’re ours of course.. in which case, that’s just great minds thinking alike! Lol!

Our partners at Armor-All have also chucked a few car kits into the pot, and to keep things ticking along until the big draw in the autumn, we’re even giving away Gift certificates each month. Five for the Dotz shop. Three for Foliatec and One for Armor All. That’s every month, mind!

So now you can go out and spend Saturday nights doing far more important things like drinking, dancing and trying out your best chat up lines.. Switch off the telly and leave the bonus ball action up to us, instead!

Good luck!

Green was the dominating colour at the Autosalon in Geneva: hybrid-modells, electric engines and compact cars were all over the fair in Western Switzerland. All of that gathered in the “Pavillon Vert”. On top of that, more than 30 world premieres were presented.

The image shows springtime for the automotive industries: almost forgotten the evil sales figures from last year. All prominent producers showed their optimistic face on the shores of the Lake Geneva.

Among others VW-subsidiary Porsche took care, that this side is going to be slightly more green: the first presented 911 GT3-R is outfitted with a hybrid-engine, empowered with 480hp and will bring his power to the streets at the 24-hours-race at the Nürburgring in upcoming May.

©Autosalon Genf

In Geneva Citroen showed his avantgardistic radical study Survolt. With a range of 3,85 metres the Survolt is 17cm longer than the Revolte, but with a height of just 1,20 meters significantly flatter. Some design-elements like the radiator grill and the rear lights are coming from the Revolte.

©Reuters

Big presence showed the german side: at the Mercedes-booth Daimler-CEO Dieter Zetsche met with Formula 1-heroes Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg next to the study F800 Style, which reminds us of american road cruiser. The 800, following the style of the CLS, is powered with a 300-hp-gasoline and a 109-hp-electric engine.

©Reuters

Opel showed with the conceptcar Flextreme the technological combination-possibilities of gasoline- and electric engines: the 1,3 litre four cylinder common-rail-diesel, which is powered by a 27 litre fuel storage, doesn’t directly power the whells – he is the second power unit for batteries instead. With that the Flextreme goes 715km and reaches a high speed of 160km/h.

©Reuters

Once again back to VW: another subsidiary, Audi, presented the other big Geneva-trend to compact cars – the Audi A1. Considering that the A2 wasn´t a huge success, the new baby-Audi wants to attract the Golf-class customers. The energy spectrum reaches from 86 to 122hp. The A1 will be available from 16.000 EUR onwards.

©Reuters

Startling attraction were also the Peugeot-limousine-study WZX and…

©Reuters

…the Nissan Juke. The compact SUV with the buggy-design, which will be in stores October, allows a variable power-distribution at the rear wheels.

©Reuters

Take coffee, for example. It wasn’t all that long ago that a weary traveller, stopping at the average services, would have been happy with a choice of one lukewarm brown drink, entitled simply ‘Coffee’. Usually hideously overpriced and horrendously underwarmed, it could usually be likened to tar.. although slightly less tasty. If you wanted to spice things up, you could go mad and add sugar..and if you really wanted to mix things up,… you ordered tea. These days though, two steps off any motorway exists the latest crop of coffee houses that boast a drinks list longer than most movie credits and the opportunity to embarrass yourself whilst ordering the world’s most ridiculously entitled Italian beverage. ‘Two doublebubblemochaskinneymegalattefinocinos, please.’ Honestly, some of these places require you to take an Italian degree, just to be able to place an order.

Thing is though, although I’d much rather give it a miss and go and have a cuppa, you have to admit that what Starsucks, Costalot and their brethren have all spotted is that these days, we do expect a bit of a choice in everything we do. And whilst 85 different coffees, 35 toppings and a personally tailored muffin solution seem a bit like overkill, you have to admit, it does allow you to get exactly what you want. And ultimately, this is a good thing..

Sandwiches are another. Gone are the dark mornings when your Gran packed you up with a cellophane parcel, containing last night’s dinner between two bits of aged bread. These days, there’s a sub for that.. And pretty much anything that you can imagine that can be legally inserted into a footlong loaf – and probably a few things that you can’t – can be ordered in the blink of an eye, and the swipe of a card.

It’s nothing new of course. The fashion industry has been doing it for centuries. Here’s one industry that realised almost back in Jurassic times that if all your neighbours were wearing mammoth, then you’d look pretty flippin’ special rocking up in a sabre-tooth two-piece. And so it went on. We’ve all been able to pick our wardrobes to suit our personalities since Mum stopped dressing us (at the age of 27 in my case) and this freedom extends to our homes, where even the aesthetically challenged are free to roam B&Q, picking god-awful combinations of fixtures and fittings. Vive le difference!.. as the French say..

The funny thing is, when you examine our beloved car scene, it’s strange that no-one has ever really taken the opportunity to allow personalisation to accommodate the most minute of details.. until now, that is.  Sure, you can choose which car you drive.. and then you can make it your own with the right suspension, the right wheels, the right accessories. But, the manufacturer still dictates what colour and size you get.. and that’s it. If you want to make it truly personal, you need to resort to doing it yourself – or farming it out to a third party specialist. And then, you can never be sure of the results.

Thankfully, someone at Dotz saw this coming, and knowing what a picky bunch we all are, came up with a cunning plan that should mean, once you’ve exercised your artistic talents, you will be able to create a truly one-off set off rims – and all under the warm, fuzzy glow of a factory warranty.

A quick click to www.dotzmag.com and the Custom Program reveals a world of choice based around 4 stunning wheel designs. The Tupac, Freeride Peak, Touge Graphite and Mugello. Not only are these good-looking rims available in a massive variety of fitments, but thanks to teaming with respected fashionistas Foliatec, Dotz can provide this in pretty much any colour way you can imagine. Over 200 Custom caps, inlays and rims finishes can all be ordered, making for an incredible 2,000 possible different combinations, meaning you have no excuse for not having things exactly the way you want them.

The online configurator lets you have your Picasso moment. Trying out all the different colourways from the comfort of your armchair, before you make your choice. It’s amazing that no-one has thought of it before, really. We spend hours poring over colour and trim charts before we choose our motors and then seem happy to accept our rims in vanilla flavour. But not anymore. Whether you’re feeling a hot-rod vibe, a bit of flower power, or maybe you’re just chasing show and shine trophies or magazine covers. Whatever. There’s A Dotz for that…

If I start shouting words at you like Rubik’s, Kajagoogoo, and Yuppie, you’ll either think that I’ve lost the plot, or depending on your age, you’ll already be drifting back in time to the ‘80s. A decade where peoples’ aspirations were exceeded only by their shoulder pads and mobile phones came with more hand baggage than the average Ryanair flight. It was truly a great decade though, as Maggie Thatcher (ask your Dad) sold off the entire country and created an appetite for success that saw a 911 in every car park, a taboo and lemonade in every bar (ask your Mum) and a real belief that if you had a great idea and a bit of patter, you could probably make a million. And plenty did…

As sales of wet-look hair gel and stone washed denim threatened to reach an all time high, it was the discotheques, dance floors and ghetto blasters of the UK that started to bump and grind to a whole new bleepy electronic vibe. Gone was the hideous Glam-rock of the 1970s, and in its place was a whole new genre of very cool music made on some new fangled thingamabob called a synthesiser. There really was some quality tuneage emerging at this time, with bands like Depeche Mode, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet hitting the shelves of Our Price Records and fighting for chart space with the likes of Nik Kershaw, Go-West, the afore-mentioned Kajagoogoo and best of all, Kid Creole and the Coconuts… don’t worry, it wasn’t all bad.. this was also the decade that spawned Run DMC and saw rap finally hit the mainstream.  Funnily enough, a lot of 80s tunes still get sampled to death. Try listening to Hall and Oates ‘I can’t go for that’ and you’ll see what I mean. But of course, who can forget the most controversial record of the decade; Frankie Goes To Hollywood, singing ‘Relax’. Banned by a seething Mike Read on Radio 1 when he realised half way through the first couple of plays that when they sang ‘When You wanna come’, they didn’t mean ‘arrive’…

If music was making a turn for the better, then fashion perhaps wasn’t. Neon was the order of the day, usually garnished with leg warmers and a day-glo tutu. And the girl’s fashions were even worse! Seriously though, it was all about the power dressing. And white. Lots and lots of white. I seem to remember zips making an unhealthy appearance in there somewhere too. And odd neon socks. God, it’s all coming back now! For ladies, it was all about the shoulder pads and unfeasibly large earrings. In fact, at certain points in the 80s, shoulder pads got so out of control that a sharply dressed filly could have severe difficulties entering through a doorway and wouldn’t have looked out of place lining up for the Miami Dolphins. Oh yeah! American Football shirts.. there’s another thankfully long forgotten 80s trend!

It's called 'Fashion'

For the gentleman, it was all about the striped shirt, set off by a dashing set of red braces and the mandatory Filofax. Yes, in the days before Palm Pres and synched desktops, it was all about these little blighters. Basically it was just a posh diary with a few dividers in it, but they were well over a ton back in the day, and mint ones are fetching twice that on Ebay now!

For the rest of us urchins, a ‘Frankie says Relax’ T Shirt was mandatory apparel. Usually twinned with a Mullet, a set of Ray-ban Wayfarers and a pair of stonewashed Levis. Aaah, happy days.

Thankfully, from an automotive point of view, it was a pretty seminal era. For the man in the street, we saw several cult classics hit the streets for the first time. This was truly the dawn of the Hot Hatch with the Golf Gti, Astra GTE, Peugeot 205 Gti and Escort XR3i forever swapping places in the sales charts, giving the average Joe something that looked and went the part (and usually with a hideous black louvered blind on the back window… Yes really!) There were just too many cool cars to mention. The Renault 5 Turbo, The E30 3 series, The Sierra Cosworth….

Higher up the food chain it was truly a case of weapons grade conspicuous consumption with every city clicker reaching for the nearest 911 or Testarossa, usually to find that his income/driving talent ratio was woefully inadequate, resulting in said supercar being deposited in the nearest ditch. The few that were left were then raced around the then fledgling M25, which was then something of a poor man’s Nurburgring before those dastardly Gatsos came and ruined the party.

The 80s brang us mainstream Ferarris and Porches

As you read through this little lot, either fondly reminiscing – or wondering what on earth I’m talking about – you may notice that a lot of this stuff is suddenly very cool again. Except Kajagoogoo, of course – playing at a Butlins near you soon. Indeed, this is a fact not lost on the great and the good of the automotive industry. Consider the latest 911 Sport Classic as a prime example. Wearing a ‘ducktail’ spoiler and a spangly set of Fuchs, this car shows that even in the boardrooms of Stuttgart, they’re drinking Sodastream and swapping Smurfs once again.

Little wonder then that Dotz, always a brand to be found ahead of the fashion curve, can rely on its sister brand Calibre to deliver the authentically styled merchandise when it comes to set of rims for your retro ride. The latest Vintage and Dub designs couldn’t look more right for the times if they rocked up in a set of Deely Boppers, singing the hits from ‘Fame’ and carrying a Betamax copy of ‘The Karate Kid’. These two stunners look oh-so right for cars of the period, but also add a dash of class to more modern tin too.  The perfect addition for your small bumper Gti, W123 Merc or slammed Sierra, you get everything we loved about that era, with the production methods and quality control of this. That Michael J.Fox knew what he was on about. Back To The Future is where it’s at!

Perfect for the vintage car