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My Swedish Love Affairs
Go somewhere else if you are expecting to find a sizzling read about my steamy encounters with tall, blue-eyed blonds with angular faces and high cheekbones. For one thing, although I have had a couple of male friends from Scandinavian countries, including Sweden, I never even flirted with them. What’s more, the blue-eyed blond I married is from Down Under, and I’m not going to spill the beans about that. This is supposed to be an automotive blog, so for anything steamy and Swedish, you’ll have to wait until I put out a Mills & Boon romance with a hero named Eric. Instead, this is about two of the nicest cars I have driven, both of them Swedish.
First of all, there was the Saab 9000, a.k.a. The Valkyrie. This was a deep pewter grey sedan that some of my friend dubbed “The Euro Beast”. This was my first encounter with Swedish cars – I had already encountered my share of French (Simca), German (VW), British (Morris, Austin) and Italian (Alfa Romeo) vehicles and was prepared for this new European model to be similar. It wasn’t. It was better. It had such an excellent blend of practicality and luxury that I forgave it all of its quirks, like the way that the interior cloth lining fell off the roof because it had been designed for the colder Swedish climate rather than the warmer one down here. I forgave it the way that it had to sit in the garage for yonks every time it needed a spare part that had to be imported and took three weeks to arrive on the boat from Europe. I loved that massive boot, the heated leather seats and its super-responsive acceleration. It was roomy, it was beautiful, it was fun to drive, and I was really sorry when the day came to trade it in for an Isuzu Bighorn so my husband, the blue-eyed blond mentioned above, could do a bit more with his contracting business and take the family on 4×4 outings.
Now, I have my new love. This is a Volvo S70 sedan, dark blue and nicknamed Hilda (from the letters on the rego plate). I have only recently picked up this little beauty for much less than it was worth and I am in love with Swedish design all over again. So far, its only fault has been that it has a tendency to creep over the speed limit when I’m not paying attention (it doesn’t have cruise control). The alarm is also a bit on the quirky side – yesterday, it decided to set the alarm off when I opened the door to get out of the car after driving for 45 minutes – but I’m figuring this out. It has the smoothest gear changes I’ve ever felt in an automatic, it corners like a dream and it is nicely frugal on the gas. I’m not sure exactly why the Frenchman I bought it off said that “Zis is a woman’s car”. There’s nothing particularly girly about the mag wheels or those comfy leather seats. Is it because the boot is big enough to take heaps of groceries? Is it because the back seat is wide enough for plenty of kids needing to be taken to school? Is it because of the lighted mirror on the passenger side sunshade? Is it because of the multitude of storage compartments around the place? Is it because it has the Volvo reputation for safety? I’m still trying to figure this one out. Anyone else got any ideas?
I am also hoping that this latest Swedish love affair will be a long-lasting one.
Happy driving whether you’re in a Swedish car or not,
Megan
The Car That Started The War
Today is November 11th – Armistice Day and the UK’s day for remembering soldiers who were killed in the wars, kind of like ANZAC Day here in Australia and New Zealand. So in honour of the day, let’s take a little look at a particular car that played a role in detonating World War 1.
The car in question was a Gräf and Stift Double Phaeton built in 1911. It was smooth, large and luxurious, having the grand total of two cylinders and having a maximum power output of 32 horsepower – heady stuff back then! Gräf and Stift was a company that was just breaking into the new field of automobiles, and was based in Vienna, Austria. They specialised in luxury cars popular with royalty, and buses and trams. Over the years, the luxury cars have dropped by the wayside, and Gräf and Stift kept on going with the buses. In fact, they still do make the buses, although the company got the new name MAN Nutzfahrzeuge Österreich AG courtesy of a bunch of mergers (a bit of a mouthful but probably easy to say if you speak German).
The fateful Gräf and Stift Double Phaeton was the property of Count Franz von Harrach rather than Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. The Archduke certainly had motor vehicles of his own – in fact, he once employed the brilliant Austrian engineer Ferdinand Porsche as his chauffeur when Herr Porsche was doing his compulsory stint in the military. Fans of the 911 and the Boxter are probably very grateful that Austro-Daimler bagged him once his military service was over. Just think what the world would have missed if Porsche had stayed on in royal service and had continued as the Archduke’s chauffeur. Instead, the car’s owner was the driver that day.
Why did they choose that particular car for the Archduke for his motorcade procession through the streets of Sarajavo? It was probably because it was large and luxurious, and because it was a soft-top convertible so the Archduke and his wife, Duchess Sophie, could be seen sitting side by side – something slightly controversial and radical, given that she was not of royal birth and it was a “morganatic” marriage. The Rules said that because of her humble origins, she could only be by his side if he was acting in a military capacity but not on other state occasions. As the Archduke was going on an official inspection of the Bosnian Army, they took the chance to appear in public together and to be seen as a proper royal couple. Hence the need for a large car with an open top so they could be in comfort.
Would a different car have changed the course of history by making it harder for an assassin to have reached the Archduke? Possibly. The more closed in design of the 1910 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost would have protected him. The lack of a running board on the 1910 Mercedes Skiff, plus the extra “windscreen” in front of the back seat could have made it harder for the assassin to get close to the royal couple.
The fact that it was a soft-top saved them during the initial assassination attempt where a bomb was thrown at the motorcade. This bomb hit the Gräf and Stift Double Phaeton all right, but it hit the folded down soft top and bounced off, rolling under another car, where it exploded, wounding a number of the crowd. Ultimately, this led to a change in plans that saw the route of the procession being changed so the Archduke and the Duchess could visit the wounded in hospital. Unfortunately, some of the drivers weren’t informed of this change, and some started heading along the original route. During the few moments when the mistake was being realised and cars were being reversed to get back on the right road, a Serbian rebel named Gavrilo Princip saw his chance and stepped in with a pistol…
Then everything went mad across Europe as treaties and alliances called one country after another into conflict, with the colonies across the world following suit.
It’s interesting to speculate about what would have happened to the automotive world if World War I had not broken out. The desire for better weapons and more efficient troop transport spurred development and design. Would technology have been delayed without this spur? Perhaps… but perhaps not. The glamour sport of motor racing was doing its bit to encourage development (nothing’s changed there!), so who knows?
And what happened to the Gräf and Stift Double Phaeton? Because of its significance in history, it has been preserved in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna.
Having THAT Conversation With Grandpa
It was one of those conversations. I don’t think that I’ve seen a look on my mother’s face like that since my younger brothers were teenagers. No, my mum wasn’t complaining about anything I was doing. What she was frustrated about was an upcoming conversation she was going to have to have with my 91-year-old grandfather. “If I ever get like that,” she said through gritted teeth, “just take the keys away from me.”
The tricky conversations she was having with my grandfather were about his driving. Yes, he still had all his marbles and his eyesight. He’d passed his medical tests for driving. However, my grandfather is the stereotyped absent-minded professor who will serenely ignore all sorts of chaos around him and keep on going regardless. “Keep Calm and Carry On” is advice he doesn’t need. He is the sort of person who would be so busy doing complicated mathematical operations with the numbers on the rego plate of the in front of him that he wouldn’t pay much attention to the sirens blaring and bearing down on him from behind. He just couldn’t see what the problem was about and why we were all making a fuss about how he drove around town without his glasses – he was going to the optometrist’s wasn’t he? And didn’t he know the way there? OK, he wrote off his Fiat Uno in one ding a few years ago and has had a couple of close calls in the Suzuki Swift that replaced it. And so what if he dies in a crash – he’s over 90 and ready to go, isn’t he? So what was the problem?
The problem is that we have all seen him making all those scary last-minute dodges, getting lost after a detour around road works sends him somewhere that doesn’t look the way it did as he remembered it 30 years ago. We’ve seen him getting in and out of the car park and nearly collecting other cars and a tree. Quite frankly, I would rather ride in a car driven by my learner-licence teenage son than by my grandfather. And we don’t want him to kill himself by accident in a car crash even if this idea doesn’t bother him. He could easily take someone with him. Or he could not see that kid on a bike that he doesn’t expect. My mother was having THAT conversation because a few people had expressed concern about his driving.
Australia has phased out driving tests for older drivers on the grounds that a lot of older drivers are perfectly competent on the roads. Fair enough, too. You don’t magically become exactly like everybody else the moment that you have a certain birthday. Older people need to stay independent for as long as possible, and this often means driving.
However, there are some factors that put older drivers at risk. Older bones are more brittle and healing takes longer, so a ding that would merely bruise a younger driver could send Great-Aunt Mary to hospital with a fracture. Reaction times do get slower. Add in the way that a lot of older people prefer little hatchbacks that aren’t quite as sturdy in a collision and you have a recipe for trouble, especially in combination with absent-mindedness.
It’s tricky, though, telling an older driver that they’re becoming a hazard. It requires tact, sensitivity and delicate handling. I certainly don’t envy my mother the task (and am grateful that she has given me permission to just take the keys when the day comes). Mind you, my mother already had THAT conversation once before many years ago when my grandmother’s Alzheimer’s was starting to kick in and affect her driving.
It’s better for everyone if older drivers are honest with themselves about their ability to drive safely. The Transport Accident Commission has put together a list of warning signs that perhaps it’s time to think through your options (hire a chauffeur? public transport?). These warning signs are:
- Serious health conditions such as arthritis, epilepsy, high blood pressure, anxiety or a heart condition;
- Medication that impairs driving;
- Difficulty reacting to what other drivers are doing;
- Regularly driving at inappropriate speeds, either too fast or too slow;
- Always needing passengers to give you directions and tell you when it’s safe to enter intersections;
- Regularly ignoring or misunderstanding traffic signs and signals;
- Difficulty judging distances between vehicles
- Getting easily flustered or angry;
- Difficulty turning your body, head or neck for extra visibility;
- Problems with glare from shiny things or other cars, especially at dawn or dusk;
- One or more accidents in a short space of time;
- Easily tired after driving for an hour or more;
- Problems concentrating when driving;
- Passengers pointing hazards out to you that you haven’t seen or don’t see until later
- Feeling uncomfortable in heavy traffic.
(more information at the TAC website: http://www.tac.vic.gov.au/road-safety/safe-driving/older-drivers).
But there may be another solution. A lot of modern cars have collision avoidance systems, blind spot monitoring and sensors here there and everywhere. While these probably ought to be avoided like Ebola for learner drivers, they are just what an older driver needs to rein in a wandering mind or to supplement slowing reactions, or to point out hazards when you don’t have a handy passenger to do this for you. So there you have it: permission to go and grab a new sports car for your old age!
Happy driving, no matter how old you are,
Megan
Life With A Learner Driver
For some time now, my teenage son has had his learner’s licence and the blue-tack holding the L-plates to the back and front windows is starting to get a bit the worse for wear. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that we were having to explain which pedal was which…
Most of us who have teenagers go through the journey of watching them progress through the licenses and become fully fledged motorists. It’s quite an emotional roller coaster – and some journeys feel physically like a roller coaster, too. However, in spite of what it can do to your stress levels at times, I recommend that parents encourage children to get their drivers’ licences early on. Not only does it suddenly make your kids grow up and learn some responsibility but it also saves hassles later on. If you’d seen one of my friend’s daughters wind up as a young mother with no driver’s licence, or if you’d seen one of my other friends constantly ferrying around a teenage boy who prefers a gaming console to a steering wheel, you’d feel that way too.
The first few forays out in the car are always amusing. For once, your teenager will be listening carefully to everything you say and will (for once) act like they don’t know everything. This phase, which usually takes place on quiet roads, involves stalling, lurching and incorrect gear selection, plus the odd near miss as your teenager realises that you have to start braking earlier in the picture than you do with computer driving games.
Then you teen will master the basics and will get back to thinking that he/she knows it all. The times that you are driving, you will wish that you had duct tape handy, as you will have the world’s worst back seat driver on board who will tell you exactly what they would have done and ask why you’re not going at the full speed limit at the moment (when it’s raining cats and dogs late at night and the road is flooded so you can barely see the white lines in the middle). This is where you grit your teeth and explain why you’re doing what you’re doing. Are you familiar with the phrase “teachable moment”?
During this phase, you’ve got to teach them as much as you can. Let them learn good habits. You shouldn’t stop riding with them altogether during the provisional stage, as they’re still inexperienced, but you still need to make the most of the learner phase to ensure that the next generation of drivers has decent skills, by trying things like the following:
- Drop your teens in the deep end. You don’t have to be quite as vicious as my husband was, getting our son to do his first parallel parking manoeuvre between an expensive new Audi and an equally expensive new Jaguar , but make them do the difficult stuff.
- Hand the keys over as much as possible. Yes, you like to drive. However, your teenager needs the practice, so give them all the chances they can get.
- When you are in the driver’s seat, model good driving etiquette and attitude. Would you want your teenager going just a shade over the speed limit and trying to nip into small gaps because he/she is running late? Would you want him/her leaning on the horn at the slightest provocation? Trying to just nip through on an orange light? Checking the cell phone while driving just for a few wee seconds because this text might be important? You get the picture…
There’s also one very important thing that you need to do:
- Get them driving in a car with as few driver aids as possible. These days, you can buy cars with blind spot monitoring, warnings about things approaching from the side, cameras all over the show to help you park, collision protection that automatically jams on the brakes if it detects that a ding is likely and so on. My own inner alarm bells are going off to think that some teenagers are learning to drive in cars like these. Of course, we want to protect our beloved sons and daughters and make sure that they’re safe. However, if they’re always driving a car that does a lot of the work for them, they’re going to learn to rely on these driver aids. They won’t know how to do it the hard way. The time will come when they buy their own cars… which will probably be older models that don’t have all these active safety features. And they will probably be driving them solo. Scary stuff. Beeping noises don’t have the same impact on behaviour as much as “What the heck were you doing? You nearly hit that car/truck/person! You’re supposed to turn your head and check the blind spot before you change lanes! Don’t you ever do that again! I want to see your head turning to check. Let’s try that one again.”
Safe and happy driving for you and your teenagers,
Megan
Level 2, 9 Help Street