Aussie Motoring

Remember the goold old days when you bought a new car and you could just jump in it and drive? You didn’t have to spend hours reading the owner’s manual before you could drive it home from the showroom and you didn’t need a degree in computer science to set the dashboard clock.

Sadly those days are all but gone and here is a true story of one man - a technology analyst - who has spent 18 hours programming his new Infiniti G35 … and he still hasn’t finished.

It might look simple but …

It seems that some car makers are realising that we’re all going to have problems as their products become more and more high-tech. Some believe that the solution involves voice recognition but frankly that scares me even more than 18 hours of programming.

You see I have a very minor speech impediment - it’s so minor that you wouldn’t notice it but anything that requires voice recognition seems to have great trouble recognising what I say. Our local electricity provider has this you-beaut voice recognition system that answers their phones and no matter what I say it can never understand me.

I’m not looking forward to the day when my car tells me that it can’t understand me either.

Here’s the latest concept car from BMW - it’s the Series 1 tii and it’s based on the BMW Series 1 Coupe.

Points to note on the exterior are:

• optimised aerodynamics on the body with individual, distinctive design of the front air dam, side-sills and rear air dam
• fins along the engine compartment lid to optimise the flow of air
• visible, open towing fixture

Points to note in the interior are:

• sports bucket seats with integrated headrests and side airbags
• the white rev counter highlights this instrument of particular significance in motorsport
• use of dark alcantara on the door linings and the instrument panel prevents reflections and accentuates the driver-oriented design and configuration of the cockpit
• The newly developed structure tissue for the footwell accentuates the sporting and functional character of the interior.

Now I’m sure I could find a place in our garage for something like this

Well it was no secret that Ford wanted to sell Jaguar but now it’s official. Not only does Ford intend to sell Jaguar but it hopes to sell it very quickly.

The managing director of Jaguar told journalists at the Tokyo Motor Show earlier this week that the sale of Jaguar was definitely on and the President of Ford Europe has indicated that the company hopes to offload Jaguar within two months.

While Ford is not revealing who might be interested in it industry pundits suggest that potential buyers could range from private equity groups right through to two Indian car manufacturers. Back in August Aussie Motoring looked at those two manufacturers in some detail and you can find the article here

The Australian International Motor Show is on in Sydney at the moment and Holden has taken the opportunity to unveil a concept car fitted with a variable V8.

Under load it will fire on all eight cylinders but at cruising speed the engine will shut down four of its cylinders to improve fuel economy.

At the moment the variable V8 only has concept status but we may see it advance beyond the concept level quite quickly … at least we should hope so.