God Shmod

You know those people, (usually celebrities), that you’ve never met but still hold in high regard. For my money, Bruce Willis is one. Bruce is the epitome of cool. It seems that he would be as comfortable having a beer in the dingiest of pubs as he would walking the red carpet of a Hollywood blockbuster premiere. I have never seen or read an interview that left me thinking he was a bit of a tool. The way he handled his and Demi’s divorce and her subsequent marriage to Ashton Kutcher left me in awe; safe to say that I had a bit of a man crush.

Reading Jane’s article today I was reminded of an interview I read with Patricia Heaton. (Don’t ask me why it reminded me of the interview with Patricia Heaton, my brain works in mysterious ways.) I always had a thing for Patricia Heaton when she was on Raymond. Mature age dame that always looked the business. I have read other interviews with her and knew that she had had plastic surgery, just enough to cure some wrinkles and other slight imperfections. I’m not a fan of plastic surgery unless it’s used to fix things like dog attacks, car accidents and machete wounds but, hey, each to their own. Whatever, I still liked Patricia Heaton.

So, I was reading this interview where she was talking about her new show, The Middle with The Janitor from Scrubs, and she started talking about her plastic surgery again. Okay, I’m still in. She then dropped the ‘G’ bomb and I’m glazing over. She didn’t just mention God like our black ‘homies’ do. You know, “I’d like to thank God for giving me more talent than you”. No, she was into ‘it’, talking about spreading the word of God to everyone and everything. I no longer liked Patricia Heaton.

There are other actors I have lost respect for because of religion, Jason Lee for instance. He may have been a pro-skater, played Brodie in Mallrats and named his kid Pilot Inspektor but Lee has fallen into the clutches of Scientology, along with bum brothers Tom Cruise and John Travolta. Scientology, to me, is the worst of the worst of religions that even comes with a built-in GST. How holy you are depends on how your bank balance looks.

Religion has been tackled more than once by the Tribune but I just can’t stay away, and neither, it seems, can religion. Can we make this clear? Man has always created his own Gods. They were first used to describe the workings of the Universe, eg. Ra, in his flaming chariot moves across the sky during the day to explain the Sun. Sometime in the past, about 400 BC, God cancelled his/her outsourcing policy and took back control of everything, at least that’s the way we who have been brought up in the Judeo-Christian system were led to believe. Maybe Telstra and Optus could have a look at this; although I don’t know how well it’s worked out for God.

Religion has been used to explain to people why their beloved ones died early, “They’ve been taken to a better place.” Why heaven would be so much better than being with their family and loved ones has never been sufficiently explained to me but there we are. It has essentially been used to explain every mystery in the universe until recently.

Why is it that we are now able to witness the birth of new stars and the death of old ones yet never have we come across anything which proves that God exists? Surely by now even the old boy would be thinking, “They may just need a sign.” We now live in an age where unless you can hold it, touch it and taste it it’s just not real. Most religious types will now, at this point, trot out the old faith argument and that you just gotta have it.

I’m sorry, I don’t have it. If I did want to believe that a fictional character from a book controlled the universe and everything I’d probably go with Terry Pratchett’s Rincewind. The universe seems just like the sort of mess that only he and his librarian mate could come up with. We are still told, however, that God has a plan. Good on him/her, maybe though, if he/she wanted the plan to come to fruition, he/she should let someone in on it.

Now, back to Patricia Heaton for a second; I couldn’t help but wonder what God would think of Patricia’s journeys under the medical knife. Surely if you believed that deeply in God wouldn’t you be prepared to let yourself age gradually and gracefully, a la Helen Mirren? Wouldn’t plastic surgery be an affront to God’s handiwork when he/she created you? Or do these people justify it with some crackpot phrase like, God gave us plastic surgery so it’s a sin not to use it?

Ahhhh, no. See, man created plastic surgery to fix all the things that ‘God’s plan’ had done to people. (See aforementioned dog attacks and so on.) Man then saw the potential in creating insecurity in people so that they could use plastic surgery to make themselves more betterer.

What I keep asking myself is why the hell religion has hung around for so long? Is it that ingrained in our psyche that we have to believe or feel guilty if we don’t? Why do we have to go to a place on Sunday to feel closer to him/her? Why can’t God just fade away like other horrible fads, you know, men’s skinny jeans, fluorescent colour clothing, leg warmers and ugg boots…….ummm……wait.

This article first appeared in the February 2010 issue of The King’s Tribune.

Petrol Power Is Here To Stay

It’s the reflections issue. I’ve only written three pieces for this ol’ magazine, so in reality the only thing I can reflect on is how the hell I’ve put on so much weight in the last six months. I’m tipping excessive food intake and no exercise. So, rather than reflect, I’m revolting and writing a whole brand new piece.

The Tokyo Motor Show was on just recently. Apparently, the majority of brands decided that, instead of going to Tokyo, they would just eschew the whole event, drink beer in Germany and then present their new vehicles and concepts at Frankfurt. Can’t say I blame them really.

This left the organisers of the Tokyo event with a rather large conundrum; not least because even the Japanese brands had followed the lead of their European and American cousins and buggered off to Oktoberfest as well. After much grovelling and begging, the Japanese brands decided to send their new range of electric vehicles.

This got me thinking about the future of motoring, not only in this country, but in the rest of the world as well.

The electric vehicles on display were all of the plug-in variety, even the hybrids. Mitsubishi are probably the most advanced in the field of plug-in electric car with their iMiev. I’ll admit that the iMiev car is pretty handy, around the city. Its range is still tiny (approx 250 km) compared to petrol and hybrids and Mitsubishi themselves have admitted that without proper infrastructure eg. recharge points, at car parks and other locations the iMiev remains a pipe dream for most Australians. Requests to the Australian Federal and State Governments for commitments relating to recharge points have thus far fallen on deaf ears.

I can see the government’s point though. If the whole of Australia goes for electric motoring how are they going to make any money out of it? At present the Government earns about 60 cents a litre from the sale of petrol. This means that every time I fill my 70 litre petrol tank I am giving the Government $42.00 for them to supposedly spend on road work and infrastructure development. Apart from the GST applied to the purchase of electricity to recharge the car; they’re not going to make any money from electric cars.

The technology involved in the internal combustion engine is old and, I would estimate, about 50 years out of date. General Motors have had a car that runs on water since the early 70’s and the idea of an electric car has been around now since….well, since the birth of electricity probably. But these ideas have never advanced any further than they are now. Why is that?

Putting my conspiracy hat on I would suggest that there is a major link between the car companies and the oil companies. To suggest otherwise would be naïve. Therefore I can’t see any major advances in electric technology until the oil runs out. Even hybrids, filthy hybrids, are just a temporary solution so that the use of oil power continues.

Why don’t I like hybrids I hear you ask? There has been a study recently that shows a Toyota Prius owned over three years, including all the mining of raw materials and producing the bits in factories, has the same global impact as owning a Land Rover Discovery 3, which is only a small step down from setting off a nuclear bomb for warmth. Hybrids mainly use NiMh batteries that are good for about three years before needing to be replaced, and where we dump the old batteries is problematic. In a collision there is the chance that the batteries will split and dump their acidic insides all over the place. But worst of all, why do all hybrids look like a normal car that has been pre-collided? Does the style of a vehicle even matter to the average person anymore? Show me a good looking hybrid and I’ll give you a decent wad of hard earned.

I like the idea of electric cars, but we haven’t nailed it yet. At this point in time I’m putting my star behind hydrogen fuel cells. Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. Although extracting it for use in electricity generation is a little time consuming, approximately 4 kg of liquid hydrogen will provide a vehicle with enough power to do 400 + km. Hydrogen, when burnt in fuel cells, gives off water vapour and that’s all. No horrible burnt hydrocarbons to stink up the place. The refuelling infrastructure would be similar to what we are using now and best of all, for the Government could tax it like they tax petrol. So why is everyone sitting on their hands? Why aren’t we producing Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars by the millions?

Oh yeah. Oil. Texas tea. Black gold. There is still bucket loads of it waiting to be liberated from its underground prison. There is still money to be made. Make no mistake, this stuff will be pumped from the ground until there is no more. When we get to the end of our supply there will no doubt be a massive global war to control what is left. A war to end all wars. There will probably be millions and millions, perhaps billions, of people killed.

Oh well, at least I’ll have the roads to myself.

This article first appeared in the December 2009 issue of the The King’s Tribune.

The Great Satan

I should be dead. (pause for effect 1…2…3)

Okay, so a short time ago I had reason to travel, in my car, at a speed that was above the acceptable level. I was late for a plane. Well, not really, I was late to pick up beloved at an agreed upon time so that we could go to the airport and get on the plane. Although I had plenty of time to make the plane I really was running out of it to pick up beloved.

Without saying the exact speed I was travelling it was a damn sight faster than the posted 100 km/h limit that is imposed upon us by idiots. As I was travelling I noticed something strange happening to my vehicle. The vehicle felt lower and more planted on the road, probably due to there being more air flowing over the car and those little aerodynamic pieces, eg. Diffuser, front spoiler; coming into effect more strongly. The steering also felt lighter and more responsive, a direct effect of the aforementioned aerodynamic pieces.

Something was happening to me as well. My brain had detected the feeling of elation that I was going through and dumped some adrenaline into my system. The net effect being that my nostrils flattened and opened to let in my air, my eyes widened to let in more light and my reflexes sharpened due to the adrenaline itself. A thought occurred to me at this time. If my car performs better at this speed and I drive better because I’m more focused and alert than why are our speed limits so damn low?

Now, I’m not going to advocate that our speed limits should be raised across the board. As Phoebe the Whippet’s recent misadventure shows, there is good reason why speed in suburban streets is limited.

Our country, however, is massive. On a recent road trip to the Gold Coast I found out how massive it really is. Although I enjoyed the drive immensely, one day I shall do an article about it, there was a nagging thought in the back of my mind that 100 and 110 km/h is just stupidly low for travelling this fine land.

To clarify my initial point. The TAC advertising department, to be forever referred to by me as The Great Satan, are constantly telling us via every type of media known to man that speed kills. Or does it? I decided that I would go to the TAC website and check the statistics. How many collisions are actually caused by speed? I clicked on the speed statistic and found that they don’t actually publish the cause of collisions but they do have the following quote from Prof. A J McLean, “Travelling at 10 km/h over the speed limit in a 100 km/h area doubles your risk of having a collision.”

Now I’m scared. Doubles my risk, DOUBLES MY RISK!! To qualify this statement the question has to be asked. What was my original chance of being involved in a collision in the first place? 1 in 100, 1 in 1000 or 1 in 1000000000? Digging deeper into the website I couldn’t find it. The Great Satan tells us that speed is a contributing factor in all collisions. Of course it is morons, otherwise the cars wouldn’t be moving and the collision would never have taken place.

The worst advertisement The Great Satan has ever come up with is the one where the lady is crossing the road and gets hit by the car. Then she turns to the camera and says, “If the car was travelling 5 km/h slower I’d only have a bruised hip.” Yes, that may be true but, if the car were going 5 km/h faster it would have missed you completely. The problem with this commercial is that the speed of the car is irrelevant. What is relevant is that some stupid pedestrian decided to step onto the road without looking and gets cleaned up. Why doesn’t she turn to the camera and say something like this, “I apologise for walking in front of your car and giving you nightmares for the rest of your life.” None of these commercials ever consider the impact of stupid people on the motorist.

So why is speed targeted by everyone? Because it can be taxed. Speed cameras are the collection agency. To make it clear I’m not against speed cameras; I am however against the way they are used. Speed cameras should be deployed at identified black spots, painted fluorescent orange and have big shiny signs that tell the motorist they’re there. Why? Then people will slow down at the intersection and the problem ceases to exist. No more collisions, no more problems. They should not be placed on straight pieces of road where the speed limit drops for two hundred meters and then goes back up. In other words it should all be about safety and not revenue.

The Great Satan and the idiots at Victoria Government love to get out and about spouting how great it is that there advertising and tax policy has led to an overall drop in the road toll over the last ten years. I disagree completely. There was news today that the new Holden Ute has just received five stars in the latest ANCAP safety rating. Ten years ago the Holden Ute would have exploded if you mentioned the word ANCAP within its hearing. A Mercedes-Benz C-Class was a two star car ten years ago. Now they are considering bringing in a six star system just to cover Mercedes and other European brands. Could it be that people are now surviving collisions that would have killed them ten years ago?

Ten years ago the humble airbag was barely even considered except in high end luxury models. Renault now has an airbag which protects your knees. Vehicle safety has increased at a phenomenal rate and I suggest that this has had a larger bearing on the road toll than any number of speed cameras and Great Satan’s commercials. Speed is not the biggest cause of collisions. That title rests with fatigued drivers, bad roads, unsafe vehicles and Toyota drivers. The rest of us are just running late for a plane.

This article first appeared in the November 2009 issue of The King’s Tribune.

Idiots In The Motoring Village

It will no doubt become apparent with every one of these that I write, that I am what Shannon’s Insurance Company refers to as a motoring enthusiast.

My car is not just a means of transportation, I actually enjoy driving it; there are few other things that will captivate me like driving does. Even in peak hour traffic, I can sit back and admire the gentle thumping noise my V8 makes as it idles away merrily. I find the idea of driving along an unknown road full of twists and bends, slight rises and dips and corners that are both off and on cambered, intoxicating. It is challenging and exciting and can leave you breathless at the end.

There is nothing quite like a quick blast up a mountain road full of undulations and tight bends. A series of hairpins that makes the pulse quicken and your hairs stand on end. Blast away towards a corner, brake hard, and start to turn in, search for the apex, point the car at it and back on the throttle. It is such a simple thing but it makes me happier than winning lotto (false analogy – never won lotto but you get the idea).

Victoria is blessed with great roads to drive on, the road to Zumsteins camping ground from Halls Gap is one, and the Alpine region is full of back roads to die for. It is just a pity that the nanny state doesn’t let us enjoy them for what they are, road crafting masterpieces.

To find the best driving road in Australia one must leave our little southern state and head north to mid New South Wales. There you will find an inconspicuous little hill called Mount Panorama. I recommend everyone at least do one lap of this track before they die. Even at the limited 60 km/h you get a rollercoaster of a ride up and down the mountain. The moment you go over the top of Skyline into the Dipper will make you wonder how they do this at speeds up to 300 km/h. In fact, if you don’t leave the place with a newfound respect for those that drive this track than you are an ignoramus, bereft of all senses and probably don’t deserve to live.

However, I digress.

To highlight the village idiot of all that is motoring is a difficult task. There are too many candidates, people with hats, people with stupid bumper stickers and Toyota drivers, just to name a few. In this article I will point to the most obvious one, The Victorian Government.

The Victorian Government makes other idiots seem banal in comparison. They continue to treat motorists as mobile piggy banks, while forcing them to suffer inferior infrastructure and horrible conditions. Recently they made an announcement which ran my blood cold and my head threatened to not only explode with rage but also take the next six months off lying on a deserted beach. The announcement not only fulfilled their undying quest for idiocy but was also incredibly presumptuous. However, given the lack of public outrage about the issue their presumption may have been well utilised. I am talking about the common enemy to the car and motorists everywhere: Buses.

Buses may have been a good idea in the 1920’s or 30’s when cars were expensive and only the rich drove them, so a way was needed to get the proletariat from here to there quickly and inexpensively. That problem doesn’t exist now. Cars are relatively cheap and easy to procure. Buses now simply clog the roads and pump the air full of cancerous causing pollution. The announcement as it related to buses was simple: more priority to be given to them.

Now, you might argue this is a good thing. More people will ride on buses and therefore the roads will be clearer for people like me who enjoy driving. Ah ha nice sentiment, but I have two questions: One, to paraphrase Jeremy Clarkson slightly, why do poor people and others who don’t care enough to buy a car deserve higher priority than me? Two: when was the last time you thought to yourself, ‘I know I’ll take the bus’? That’s right, never. No one in their right mind ever chooses the bus over any other form of transport.

Therefore, no one will use the highly prioritised bus, which simply means there will be more empty buses clogging the road and giving us all disease.

The presumption thing is simple as well. How much more priority can buses actually be given? They already have the right to stop and pull out when they want throwing other road users into panic. I guess the next step is to fit them with cow catchers and tank tracks letting them force their way through and over cars.

Therefore the new announcement does nothing. It won’t fix the traffic issues; it will only buy votes from other idiots while the authors of this abomination walk away to plan their next idiocy.

I just wait for the day when our glorious editors are elected to the top job. I shall become their loyal transport person. Trains will be put under the ground and lines expanded. Trams will be placed above the road and lines expanded, and buses; there is a nice warm place in hell waiting for them.

Last month I wrote several disparaging comments about Toyotas and Toyota drivers. I take nothing of this back. I would, instead, like to add the following:

There are two types of Toyota I would buy and drive under certain circumstances.

1. If I was a tradie and needed a ute, Toyota HiLux 3.0 Turbo Diesel 4 x 4.

2. If I was travelling outback, and not just picking up the kids from school, a Toyota LandCruiser V8 Sahara or turbo diesel would do the trick.

This article first appeared in the October 2009 issue of The King’s Tribune.

Toyota Drivers: The New Volvo Drivers?

Anyone growing up in the eighties will remember them. Volvos. They were a car, and of course, still are. But I will always remember them fondly as what they were. They were square, they had push-me, pull-you styling and they were safe. Oh god yes, they were safe.

I can remember the advertising, Volvos being smashed into everything conceivable, thrown off buildings and the like. Afterwards a Swedish man would come and open the doors and show us that the little dummies inside were all okay, he would point out that the passenger cell was intact and that the pedals had, in fact, dropped to the floor so they wouldn’t push up through your foot and replace your knee joint.

There were many safety advantages to buying a Volvo, but unfortunately not much else. Evidently Volvo had one of the smallest styling departments in the world, with the possible exception of Porsche, and weren’t bothered by things like fashion. If cars were colours, Volvo would have been beige.

Then there were Volvo drivers. It was a generalisation, but an entirely apt one. You would see them coming from miles away. Not because the cars were big, but because every other car on the road was doing something to avoid it: driving into ditches, U-turns, parking and hiding behind the dash hoping the Volvo driver wouldn’t see him. If there was someone on the freeway doing eighty and holding up traffic, chances were it was a man, driving a Volvo, wearing a hat.

In the nineties something happened. It started when Volvo decided to run a couple of station wagons in the British Touring Car Championship. Everyone else chuckled and took bets on how badly the Volvos were going to do. They were right of course and Volvo finished behind the Fords, the Vauxhalls and the Renaults, not to mention everyone else.

The next year however, when everyone was still chuckling about the Volvos, the Volvos were doing something else. They were quietly, in smart Swedish fashion, winning everything they could. So now they had performance, but they still needed something else. The styling department were thrown a copy of GQ and Harpers Bazaar and sternly told to get on with it.

So, in a short period of time, Volvo had not only performance but also the beginning of style, sort of, and a different type of people started buying Volvos. No longer being bought by men in hats, they were being bought by people who had brunch, with lattes, and who spent more than $10 on a haircut. More importantly these people believed in cool, or at least their interpretation thereof, and we ended up with the Volvo C30. Everyone wins. Well…almost.

The people who traditionally bought Volvos no longer had their own marquee. They were car-less. Something had to fill the gap. I have made my summations based on being held-up, distressed by, yelling at and otherwise horrified. The old Volvo drivers have moved to Toyota.

With Volvos this wasn’t an issue, as there weren’t enough of them to matter. Now we are talking about the biggest car company in the world. There are Toyotas everywhere. Camrys, Corollas, other Corollas and yet more Corollas, and we can’t get away from the god-awful Prius.

How many times have I been boxed in on the freeway, doing eighty, by three cars and noticing that all three were a version of Toyota? Or watching, aghast, as a lady does a thirty point turn to get out of a car park big enough for doughnuts in a Road Train. Avoiding a weaving car doing the speed limit minus thirty with the male driver’s face pressed against the glass, all in a Toyota and yet, not a hat in sight.

How have Toyota managed to do this? Well, quite simply they make cars that don’t break. They are bland, boring and only exist to go from A to B, but they’ll never fail. Toyota have made their fortune by selling reliability and the person that buys reliability is not that far away from the person who buys safe. In fact they may be worse. So much worse in fact that I’ll make the following outlandish statement: If you buy a car based only on its reliability you shouldn’t be allowed to drive.

This article first appeared in the September 2009 issue of The King’s Tribune 

‘Tis The Season

Bugatti Veyron Super Sport

Well, at time of writing it nearly is – and at time of reading it probably will be – December. This means many things. The shops will soon be busier, unless you’re more organised than I and got your shopping done in that short period of time after Easter Eggs disappeared and before the Christmas carols started playing.

Some families will begin to plan annual pilgrimages to far off lands to see people they haven’t spoken to all year, while many others will stay home and attend their chosen Mecca’s to continue their bi-annual conversations with a being they’ve never seen. And the eternal lie of the fat guy in a red suit will be perpetuated, taking credit for the hard work of parents who have chosen awesome, yet, entirely inappropriate gifts for their offspring.

It’s at this time that vehicle manufacturers start to get rid of new cars built in the current year at prices slightly higher than a new pair of socks. I have mentioned before that my father sold cars for about thirty years of his life and it is with some pride that I say he was quite successful without losing his integrity. In fact some ten years after he left the ‘game’ he was still being courted by Holden to take over various dealerships. I mention this purely to illustrate the point that I have some inside knowledge of how the car industry operates.

It’s no secret that a vehicle with a year plate of the previous year is far less desirable than one with the current year. It could be a difference of only a few weeks but it normally equals savings of thousands of dollars. If you’re in the market for a new car than there really is no better time to approach a car yard, particularly high volume car manufacturers, eg. Holden, Ford, and yes, even…yawn…Toyota zzzzz….

However, in these times of good deals and good wishes something sinister lurks. Over the next month I would like each of you to walk down the magazine aisle in your local supermarket and look at the cover of every car magazine they sell. It may take you a little while as there are a few available but you should start to notice a common thread. Yes, it’s time for the local and international publications to start handing out their awards for the year.

I flicked through the recent Herald-Sun CarsGuide and noticed the shortlist that they have compiled. I was not surprised to see that the selection was a list of unlikely winners (Peugeot RCZ), banality (Camry Hybrid) and cheap Korean crap (Hyundai i20). If the past years are anything to go by no matter how good a car is as soon as it goes above the level of about $45000 it becomes the spawn of Satan.

Other cars shortlisted for consideration by the Herald-Sun Cars Guide team include the Suzuki Kizashi, the Skoda Superb and eventual winner Volkswagen Polo GTI. Do you see what I mean now about the price limit? With the exception of the Camry and the i20 every other car is a worthy addition to the list. There can be no doubt that the Polo GTI is a worthy winner but can I honestly say that it is the best car released this year? Not a chance.

Bugatti, extremely upset about some American upstart company called SSC, or Shelby Supercars, building a car that was faster than the wonderfully improbable Veyron, built the Veyron SuperSport which tops out a fantastic 431 km/h. Ridiculous? Yes, you bet, but it does all this while keeping you cloistered in perfect comfort. It comes with a stereo, air conditioning, ABS, Sat Nav and every other modern creature comfort available today. In Australia it will cost somewhere north of $2,000,000. I would like to suggest that this car is far better than the Volkswagen Polo GTI. It is ruled out because of its inaccessibility to the proletariat.

This is a load of nonsense and must be redressed as soon as possible. It is unlikely to be done this year, for instance when reading the blurb that accompanied the Hyundai i20 it appears that it was chosen because it now has iPod connectivity which essentially means we are rewarding car companies for installing two metres of wiring and a USB port. It probably costs them about 0.0001 of a cent to install such a thing but for some reason is been haled as a revolution. Why do we support such mediocrity?

While I’m talking about mediocrity I’ve really had a gutful of car ads which still talk about power steering, air conditioning, and a stereo as being ‘features’. It’s nearly 2011, if those things weren’t available as standard I’d be spending my money elsewhere. There are of course exceptions to this rule. As I mentioned in a previous article the wonderful Porsche 911 GT2 RS has none of these things and it costs around $500,000. This car is made almost legal for the road while been a focused track car. In no way is this thing mediocre.

I understand that these publications must write to suit their chosen demographics but it also appears that every magazine have the chosen the same audience. There is an inherent fear that if a magazine thinks outside the box they may get it wrong and held up to ridicule by there rivals. Personally, I would prefer to go out on a limb and be wrong but at the same time putting some distance between myself and the rest of the herd.

It’s easy to be cynical about car awards the same way it’s easy to get cynical about entertainment awards. It’s very easy to imagine car companies delivering their cars to magazine headquarters and the winner is the one with the most money in the boot. At least that’s the way that I’d do it if I owned a car company.

The best advice I’d give to anyone about to buy a new car is to completely ignore any magazine awards and do things the old fashioned way. Work out how much you can spend, check out the cars in the price range and then test drive them. Take whatever you normally carry in your car and throw it all in and see if it fits. Pull the interior apart and put it back together and have the idiot with the grin answer your questions. No matter what advances in technology we make, sometimes the old ways are best.

This article first appeared in the December 2011 issue of The King’s Tribune

And The Loser Is….

BMW X1

The old adage is true; you can’t please all of the people all of the time. This past month I have been lambasted, mostly with good nature, by friends over my selection of what I considered to be Car of the Year, the Bugatti Veyron SuperSport.

Questions have been asked. Questions such as,

“How the hell can you choose a car that costs more than $2million?”

“There’s only going to be five made. Are you insane?”

“Don’t you think accessibility is the key component to choosing Car of the Year?”

The answers of course are:

Easily. Quite possibly. No.

You see, as I stated in the December issue, the Car of the Year awards have been usurped by the affordable and banal. This award should be a celebration of all that’s automotive; it should not be given to humdrum boxes from Korea. The Hyundai i20, for example, won Green Car of The Year. How? I don’t know. The i20 doesn’t have the best fuel economy, the Ford Fiesta Econetic does and the Mercedes-Benz S-Class is still the most environmentally sound vehicle, at least with a view to using recycled materials in its construction. It would appear that Hyundai executives have dumped a truckload of money on the judges and this was the only award on offer.

Continuing, this article is a little different. This is the Yang to last articles’ Yin. It offers balance. You see, you can’t have a winner without a loser, otherwise how do you judge the excellence of the winner? This article is all about the loser and, while there were a few, let’s consider the only possible grand winner, or loser, or…whatever. I have a distaste for all (automotive) things Korean but it’s not one of them, it could be a Toyota (which I hate more) but it’s not. My choice may surprise you. My choice of Worst Car of the Year is in fact European. Not just European though, German and not just German, BMW German.

Usually BMW are considered one of the best kinds of automotive Germans. The M3 and M5 still remain at the pinnacle of car design and the M Divisions updated Z4 will provide you with all the thrills you’ll ever need. Recently, however, BMW have spent far too much time chasing the American dollar. The American dollar is, or should I say was, extremely lucrative and that particular market is important for all car companies that consider themselves global. Sometimes though, when you chase the American dollar what you end up selling is your soul.

For example, Porsche chased the American dollar and we ended up with the Cayenne. How does a sports car company end up making a 4WD? It is possibly one of the most capable 4WD vehicles that money can buy and it’s been a massive success in every market it’s entered. However I don’t know that it fits with Ferdinand Porsche’s original concept behind his cars.

Now, back to BMW. I have been dreading this vehicle. I have been awaiting it for some years now. It is perhaps the most useless, needless, ridiculous, unfortunately inevitable motor vehicle ever made. Sports Utility Vehicle’s, or SUV’s, which I despise with every fibre of my being, are extremely successful. Just look on the road next time you are driving. They’re everywhere. The BMW X5 was one of the first and is one of the most successful. BMW were always going to milk the formula for every penny and of course there was going to be an X3. As soon as the 1-series entered the market it was apparent there was going to be an X1 as well. Now the prophecy has been fulfilled.

Jeremy Clarkson once said of the X3 and I quote,

“If, one day, it turns out you are mad and by mad I mean you wake up and think you are an onion, this is the vehicle for you.”

In the case of the X1 that onion has been chopped, diced and sautéed for about an hour. Until recently I had only seen it in magazines and newspapers and couldn’t get my head around it then. Now, I have seen it and I want to grab the driver by the shoulders and shake them until their bloody head falls off.

First off, it is small. About the same size as a Mazda 3 which sounds okay, if you have a Mazda 3. Secondly, it has the ground clearance of a pregnant Earthworm. No towing boats up mountain roads for those owners although it still has its token 4WD system, for some reason. I recently had the opportunity to watch a young couple attempt to put their child’s pram in, what BMW laughingly call, the boot. I sat their discreetly for some minutes as they attempted all manner of positions before giving up, placing the pram wheels in the “boot” and stowing the rest of the pram on the back seat.

I now have to wonder whether they bought the pram first or the stupid ridiculous BMW badge. Let’s face it, that’s what the majority of people will buy. It just so happens that this badge has the automotive equivalent of a wart growing out of it. Either way, do people even check their requirements before making purchases anymore? If you feel the need to buy a status symbol, I don’t know, buy one of those small, stupid dogs and a handbag.

But, in the end, if you really must have one of these awful, dreadful and pointless motor vehicles then, for god sakes send me a message on Twitter. Make sure that message has your address and I will be around, every morning. To slap you. Hard. Until that need goes away. It’s the least I can do.

This article was first published in the February 2011 edition of The King’s Tribune

Melbourne Motor Show – The Return Trip

Tomorrow is the last day of Melbourne’s turn to host the Australian International Motor Show. Next year the show travels back to Sydney and Melbourne will not see it again until 2013. If you have not attended yet I would urge you to, particularly if you are a fan of things automotive, design and particularly technology. There are some amazing things happening in automotive technology right now, particularly with hybrids.

I’m not a fan of hybrids really. I see them as being a stop gap measure to ensure that we continue to use fossil based fuels and make already rich companies even richer. There are alternative sources of propulsion, pure electric and fuel cell, which I think are far more worthy of being developed. Yes, they are extremely expensive right now but show me a new technology that isn’t.

BMW Vision EfficientDynamics

BMW Vision EfficientDynamics

Either way, hybrids are here to stay and there are some interesting proponents of the technology on display at Melbourne. Probably the most interesting is the BMW Vision EfficientDynamics. It’s an exciting design and shows a similar style to that which we have been promised by science fiction movies for decades. It uses a diesel engine in conjunction with electric motors and at it’s most urgent will produce similar acceleration to the current M3, which is impressive.

BMW promise a combined fuel economy of 3.76 l/100 km and maximum combined CO2 emissions of 99 g/km. Most importantly though, it drives now and as I stated in my previous article will form the basis for the whole range of ‘i’ vehicles that BMW is about to launch.

Another interesting concept is a new company called A Better Place. A Better Place have just launched their first site in Denmark and are committed to an entirely different approach to electric motoring. Electric cars aren’t a new idea. They have been around for a long time, however, they have not been done well due to the limits of available technology. Mostly this has been down to batteries being heavy and a not very efficient way to store whole lots of power. Batteries are also expensive and raise the cost of their associated vehicles exponentially. Take a look at the Mitsubishi iMiev’s cockpit; it’s pretty bare in there. Now look at the price of the overall vehicle and compare what you can get in other cars for the same price.

A Better Place acknowledge all this and what they are proposing has some merit. Rather than purchasing the battery pack, which cost around $20 000, they allow you to lease the pack from them. What follows then is very similar to a mobile phone plan. The monthly cost of the batteries relies on how many kilometres you drive. Okay, so nothing really groundbreaking here yet, right? Hold on.

Say you’re driving along and you realise you are not going to make your destination on the current level of charge that your battery pack currently holds. A Better Place, as mentioned above, are currently building sites in Europe. They look a little like a car wash. When you’re driving and realise that your car is going flat your Sat Nav locates the nearest A Better Place site and directs you to it. You drive your car in one end and are deposited out the other, rather than exiting with a clean car you will find that your old, spent battery pack has been replaced with a brand, new freshly charged one. Part of the purchase price also includes a home charging station and the cost of using it, if I understood the boffins at the A Better Place stand correctly, is  included in the cost of the monthly plan.

I can see this working quite well in Europe where people generally travel only short distances at a time, but, perhaps not so well in Australia. Australia does not have a centralised population, we’re everywhere and we tend to drive long distances as a result. This is going to be the biggest hurdle to people’s uptake of electric cars in Australia. I’m also quite happy to be proven wrong on this issue and with A Better Place having the backing of several vehicle manufacturers including Renault it may be that that’s the case.

HSV Black Edition

The return trip proved a little different to the first, scouting mission. I was expecting to look at several cars that I missed on the first visit and indeed that was the case when I spent some time looking over HSV’s new Black Edition cars.

HSV don’t really do subtle very well and while these retain shouty elements they are far more restrained than the rest of the range. Unfortunately build numbers are limited to 25 of each model which ensures that most of them will spend their lives in garages rather than the road, where they belong.

Things took a slight turn after this when Beloved announced that she wanted to look at vehicles that could tow her horse float. So the next few hours were spent looking at 4 x 4 Turbo Diesel Dual Cab utes with occasional glimpses at Bentleys, Porsches and other desirable pieces of metal,including the awe-inspiring Lamborghini Aventador, which Beloved dismissed with, ‘Yeah, it’s never going to happen.’ Well, certainly not with that attitude.

Land Rover Discovery

I don’t know enough about 4 x 4’s to accurately report on them except to say that we pretty much whittled down the contenders to the Nissan Navarra or the Toyota HiLux. This was based pretty much on guess work and toys that you got in the cabin. Then we got to Land Rover and spoke to a very nice man who works at the Geelong Land Rover Dealership. Beloved walked away suggesting that the Discovery would suit our needs very nicely indeed. Now there were some jokes told, by me, about school runs and soccer mums but I have the feeling that she could well be right. Watch this space I suppose.

I would also like to add that Bentley’s are the most ostentatious and garish vehicles entirely suited to dictators and mafia types. I would have one in a heartbeat. I think they are the only vehicle that you can actually see where the money goes when they’re built. Wood and chrome as far as the eye can see and perhaps the one car where I would be happy to sit in the back.

Holden Cruze CD Sedan Series II

Holden Cruze CD Sedan

Holden Cruze CD Sedan Series II

Series II Cruze’s are now being built in Australia alongside the Commodore,and while I didn’t have an opportunity to drive the Series I, which was built in Korea, I am told that the difference between them is quite large. The car passed the first test because when I picked up offspring from school they declared the car to be ‘cool’. To be fair they said the same thing about the Hyundai Getz we had last month so it may be that they don’t know what they’re talking about.

It comes with most things you would want in a car, air conditioning, CD player, cruise control, heated side mirrors, iPod connectivity, 6 airbags, stability control and a few other bits and pieces that most people, including myself, deem necessary. All in all, when I found it didn’t have something I had to remind myself that this was a $20 990 car.

The Exterior

I quite like how the Cruze looks. The body itself has clean well differentiated lines that makes rivals, such as the Mazda 3, quite frankly, look a bit of a mess. It’s bold while still remaining conservative. Overall though, there is very little difference on the outside between the Series I and Series II Cruze. The car I was testing had steel wheels with hubcaps which puts it a little behind the Toyota Corolla but on par with the Mazda 3 Neo. I’m still not 100% sure on the tail lights but it is definitely something I could live with.

The Interior

The interior of the Cruze is a genuinely nice place to be which is fortunate. The first hour with the vehicle was spent in one of the worst traffic jams I have ever seen on the West Gate Bridge. This been caused by four morons crashing their cars into one another. The interior was probably the biggest surprise of the entire car. The base model Commodore, the Omega, is a horrible place to sit with grey, dreary plastics and basic creature comforts. I was expecting much the same.

One of the questions I had after picking the car up was, ‘Has this car been specced up?’ Turns out the only option that had been installed were the Rear Park Sensors. Where I was expecting flat seats with no support the exact opposite had been installed. Where I expected to find dull, dreary plastics I instead found a faux brushed titanium. Sure the plastic was hard and probably cheap to produce but no-one said that was the way it had to look. All the dials, knobs and switches were surrounded with a chrome bevel which added a certain level of class.

At night the dials are surrounded with a cheery blue glow, by day they are quite easy to read, although the entirely optimistic indicated top speed, 220 km/h is a bit of a laugh. All the controls are reasonably intuitive to use and well placed, the iPod connects without a hassle and is totally controlled by the steering wheel controls. The stereo itself is a little low-rent and several radio stations kept dropping in and out of reception. Another point of annoyance was the lack of lighting around the ignition which means you’re constantly scratching the trim around it as you search for where to put your key. No left foot rest means there is nowhere to put your left foot when you’re not changing gears and the gap between the clutch and the firewall is a little bit too narrow for my foot. I was also surprised by the lack of Bluetooth connectivity which, in my humble opinion, should not be an option. But really, I’m nitpicking here.

Driving

This is, unfortunately, where the Cruze falls down a little bit. The biggest weakness with the car is the 1.8 litre engine. Although the output of 104kW of power and 176Nm of torque seem perfectly reasonable, the car itself is heavy at 1385 kg and around town I had to work the engine a little harder than I would have liked. Holden’s claimed fuel use of 7.0L/100Km is a little bit hard to believe as I struggled to achieve 8.5L/100Km.

The engine aside, the Cruze is a good car to drive. Just near my house there is a road which, with all its pot-holes and ruts is probably the worst road in Australia. At 60 km/h the Cruze skipped over it without too much bother. Road noise is kept to a minimum and fits within the overall comfort levels of the cabin. Holden has done a very good job tuning this chassis and suspension to local driving conditions giving steering a well weighted feel and providing a limited amount of feedback through the wheel.

Although I’m reasonably tall, 191cm, the car was comfortable for me to sit in all positions, except the rear middle seat and even with the driver’s seat back there was ample space in the back seat for the offspring. Boot space is large enough to fit a couple of good sized suitcases and the spare wheel was of the full-sized variety, not sure whether this is standard but you could probably negotiate this with the dealership.

Overall

This is the first review of a vehicle that I have actually done so it’s a bit hard to give it score out of 20 or a star rating until I have reviewed other cars. Probably the best thing I can do right now is ask the following question, “If I had to spend my own money, would I buy this car?” You know what? I would, although I would probably spend the extra cash and upgrade to the CD-X. While I’m at it I would also take the 1.4 L turbo engine.
The Cruze remains a particularly important vehicle in the Holden line-up. They have invested a large amount of money upgrading the Elizabeth plant to manufacture it. Now that the Cruze has passed the Mazda 3 as the top selling small car it appears that their investment will pay off.

Musing From The Motor Show

Lamborghini Aventador

The Australian International Motor Show has returned to Melbourne this year. For those who don’t know there was a major outcry from motor vehicle manufacturers a few years back, complaining about the cost of attending both the Melbourne and then the Sydney Motor Show.

The solution was much the same as what was decided in many European countries. The site of the Motor Show would alternate between each of the cities. This results in more manufacturers attending the Motor Show and giving the punters the best bang for their buck.

I love the Motor Show. It brings the glitz and glamour of the car industry and puts it all on show. This was also the first year that I was granted media access which meant that I was able to enter before the general public. Unfortunately, my actual place of employment decided that I had to attend work that day and I turned up late, missing all the loud and flashy bits. This was unfortunate but on the flip side most of my fellow motoring hacks had left for the day giving me better access to the PR boffins, most of which had already doffed their formal frocks and were happy to talk in their more casual attire.

I will be going back to the Motor Show to have a more protracted look; this was more of a scouting mission. I ignored most of what can be considered the mundane and focused on collecting the available press information and checking out what the industry likes to call Concept Vehicles. Generally speaking there are two types of concept vehicle; those that work and those that don’t. Those that do work can probably be divided into two categories as well; those that will be built and those that definitely won’t. This is often a fine line.

So what impressed? Well, talking in the order that I visited each individual stands, Holden brought the Cruze Hatchback concept. This will be the hatch version of the car that I drove and reviewed just recently. It should be on sale in the last quarter of this year and is production ready. They also had a new Colorado show truck which looked big and chunky and I wish I knew more about 4 x 4 type vehicles so I could report on it better. It was red, if that helps.

Holden Cruze Hatch

BMW brought one car. One! It is their new BMW Vision concept which reportedly is a fully functional vehicle and has to be seen to be believed. Essentially it is a diesel hybrid and the technology will form the basis of their new i-range which for starters will contain the i3 and i8. Knowing BMW the i1, 5, 6 and 7 will follow shortly thereafter.

Nissan bought their updated GT-R and the new Leaf electric vehicle. All the work on the GT-R has been done under the skin so it looks the same as the old one. The Leaf has plug at the front where the engine would normally be and a solar panel on its roof. I will find out more about it but at the time I had other things on my mind.

Subaru’s concept offering the SV Concept appears to fit somewhere below the existing Forester and overall did nothing but confuse me as it’s not much smaller than the Forester. There were interesting things happening at Mazda as they bought their two new concepts, the Minagi and Shinari. The Minagi is a SUV which will probably become the basis for the CX-7 and CX-9. My thoughts on SUV’s are pretty well known and I didn’t waste any extra time on it. The Shinari is awesome. There is no doubt as few changes will be made and then it will be released as the RX-9, replacing the RX-8.

Toyota is displaying two new vehicles, the new Yaris, which is an impressive little thing and one of the few Toyotas that I would consider buying and the FT-86 concept. Now, I would like to spend some time talking about this car. It is supposed to be going into production and has possibly had the longest gestation period of any car. It has been around so long as a concept that it’s had three variations and is now into Series II, I’m starting to think that the ‘86’ in the title represents the year it was designed. It was developed in conjunction with Subaru, looks absolutely fantastic and shows that Toyota have the ability to build something other than whitegoods on wheels.

Toyota FT-86 II

Hyundai were still waiting on nine cars to be delivered and I skipped through there pretty quickly. One interesting point I did manage to glean from them is that the awful, awful Hyundai Getz is now defunct and probably means that we’ll soon see the i10 in Australia. Mitsubishi had some cars on display and I must say were a little underwhelming, they may or may not have the i-Miev on display. I really wasn’t paying attention and I apologise for that.

For some reason, in my opinion, Ford have ruined the Focus and proudly have the new Territory front and centre, the Mad Max concept vehicles commissioned by Top Gear Australia magazine are some exciting pieces of design and you get to vote for the winner.

Mercedes-Benz is showing the updated C63 AMG, SLK and CLS. The AMG SLS Gullwing is the highlight, it’s stunning, as is the mildly insane G-Wagen, although for different reasons. I may have then walked into Honda but I really can’t remember. What I do remember is walking into the middle row to see the absolute highlight of the entire show.

Lamborghini have chosen to grace Melbourne with the presence of their Murcielago replacement, the LP-700 Aventador, which probably means something in Italian. I fully spent about twenty minutes looking at this car from any number of angles and can say without a doubt that its side profile is its best side. There were cars either side of it and I can’t remember seeing them, so overwhelming was the Aventador, I think one was a Gallardo.

Porsche, bless ‘em, have put ‘Moby Dick’ on their stand. For the uninitiated Moby Dick is a truly legendary race car and just insane. The last version of the outgoing 997, the Carrera RS 4.0, has only just been announced in Germany and unfortunately did not make it to Australia; however, the new Cayman R did and sits alongside the Panamera, Cayenne and the latest iteration of the 911 Speedster. Strange things are still afoot at Volvo and not one ugly car is to be seen on their stand. The V60 plug-in hybrid is an extremely good looking station wagon and an advertised economy of 1.9L/100 km may be some kind of record. It is wonderfully appointed inside the cabin and if sold in Australia should shake things up in that particular price bracket.

Volvo V60 Hybrid

At this point things got a little weird, I got into an argument with the people at Jaguar who gave me some seeds, no really, seeds. For plants. They then tried to tell me that Jaguar have an eco model which made me upset. Jaguar aren’t about eco, they’re about shouty, flashy cars and British pride. They’ve done diesel in the past but it still had a level of performance that meant it could do 9 minute laps around the world famous Nurburgring circuit. I left Jaguar and walked over to sister company, Land Rover, to have a look at the Range Rover Evoque. It’s an SUV, reasonably handsome, well-priced and apparently sold-out until mid-November.

Kia gave me some Maracas and told me that I had missed Todd McKenney singing something about Rio. This pleased me greatly and with high spirits I walked across to Skoda. Everyone should consider Skoda if in the market for a new car. Volkswagen technology and build quality, good looks and practicality. Make sure you check the new Superb as it is really impressive and one that I want to go back for.

Volkswagen have relented and announced the Scirocco R will finally be sold in Australia next year. Built on the Golf platform it is a two-door coupe and one of the best looking cars on the planet. The Audi team were extremely busy and unfortunately no one seemed to have much time for me. I asked for the press pack to be told that they were all gone. When I asked if there were contact details to obtain one I may as well have asked for some Uranium. I had a quick look at the Audi R8 GT, one of my favourite cars in the world, and walked away. I’ll try again when I go back.

Overall, the whole show is impressive and if you’re looking at buying a new car any time soon is one of the best ways to look at a lot of vehicles really quickly. While you can’t take any for a test drive you can book a drive with your local dealer.

There are some disappointing omissions. Alfa Romeo and Ferrari have chosen not to attend which is unfortunate as Ferrari just released the FF ‘Shooting Brake’ prior to the show and I was hoping to catch a glimpse. Renault do not have a dedicated stand which means that the Magane Sport 250 was absent and that was upsetting as it is one of the best looking cars available today.

As I said above I will be going back to the Motor Show for a more in-depth look.

If you are unable to attend yourself and wish me to look at something for you please Twitter me at @Skoeman74. I am also available at email address skoeman74@gmail.com I will try to answer any questions that you may have.

This article also appeared in The King’s Tribune and MyHQ.com.au