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What They’re Driving In The BRIC Nations
If you’ve ever had a quick brush with international economists, then you may have heard about what’s known as the BRIC nations. BRIC stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China, and they’re the up-and-coming force in world markets. Now, when I take a look through the cars reviewed here at Private Fleet, there’s not a whole heap of Chinese, Brazilian, Russian or Indian cars listed there, although China is making its presence Down Under felt with the Great Wall and Chery (OK, a lot of marques with European or US origins probably get bits assembled in China these days, but all the same…). I had to ask myself what people are driving in these countries. Are they driving their own cars or something else?
So, research time…
China, of course, has a list as long as your arm of its own car manufacturers (and that doesn’t count the ones made in China for “European” cars). Some of the Chinese local brands include BYD, Dongfeng Motor, FAW Group, SIAC Motor, Lifan, Chang’an, Geely, Chery, Hafei, JAC, Great Wall and Roewe. SAIC, Chang’an, FAW Group and Dongfeng are known as the “Big Four”. SAIC, incidentally, owns MG, and has its finger in the Skoda, Chevrolet and VW pies, among quite a few others (including other Chinese marques like the Rover-inspired luxury line Roewe). The rest of the Big Four also seem to have a stake in some of the more familiar names we know: Chang’an has a few joint ventures with Ford and Suzuki; FAW Group is cosying up with Audi and a couple of others like Toyota; Dongfeng has a lot of partners, including French marques Citroën, Renault and Peugeot. Quite frankly, trying to decipher what’s going on with the Chinese automobile market is simultaneously confusing and enlightening.
But what about the Chinese-exclusive marques – things with badges we don’t recognise on the noses? The list is massive. Just a glimpse at the brands at the bottom of the page should give you an idea. Do some of them look like rip-offs of other logos? You betcha!
India also has a couple of unfamiliar names buzzing around the crowded streets of New Delhi and Mumbai. One that would, however, look familiar to a lot of Aussie drivers is the Maruti. The what? Well, some of the top sellers in India are the Maruti Alto and Maruti Swift . Yes, Maruti is Suzuki in a sari – the Indian equivalent. It’s kind of like the Holden/Vauxhall/Opel thing. Of course, the big name in Indian cars is Tata, with another popular one being Mahindra & Mahindra. Other things on Indian roads are quite familiar: Hyundais and the like.
Brazil has often been the place where marques headquartered in other countries were actually made, and this still goes on. Fiat is one brand that is thought of as Italian but is actually made in Brazil. Brazil churned out heaps of VW Beetles and Kombis, and these were sold throughout Latin America. There is a Brazilian local marque: the Troller, which specialises in off-road vehicles (which makes sense, considering the amount of wild Brazilian back country in the form of the Amazon jungle).
Russia has Lada, of course. The Lada brand may have been the butt of a few jokes here in the West and they weren’t exactly known for their comfort features, but they were tough and sturdy. They were the Eastern Bloc’s “people’s car” and they were no-frills affairs that had to get from A to B in conditions that could range from the arid deserts in the south in all those countries that now end in “istan” to freezing Siberian conditions. Ladas made it over here and to the rest of the world, but some others stayed at home – unsurprising, given that Russia is currently the largest European market for cars. Other Russian brands include AvtoVAZ (formerly known as just VAZ – and it owns Lada), GAZ (with a lovely gazelle logo) and KAMAZ (makes trucks that have won their class in the Dakar rally). A lot of Russian cars are sold elsewhere in the world. What’s with the AZ bit? Simply, AZ is short for “avtomobilny zavod”, which means “automobile plant” or “motor works”.
Great Wall is here. Chery is here. Lada is here. My question is: what’s going to be over here next? Will we see Tatas on Aussie roads? Or other Chinese marques? Time will tell, but I won’t be surprised if they do.
DIY Car Repairs: Safety Tips And More
Having spent a fair part of the weekend tinkering around with a screwdriver trying to see what was wrong with the electric windows in my Ford Fairlane, I thought I’d better talk a bit about DIY car repairs and maintenance. To my fellow female motorists, this is something that I really encourage you to have a go at. For one thing, it can save you a couple of bucks, same as it does for any DIY person; secondly, it makes it less likely that the few male chauvinist pig* mechanics out there are going to try to rip you off if you do end up having to take your car to an expert – they’re unlikely to charge you for “fixing” something that wasn’t wrong if you tell them precisely what’s wrong. And if Her Majesty Elizabeth II of England (and, for the time being, Australia) can do it, so can you!
There are some things, however, that are best left to the experts. Things to do with electric and electronics, for example. You really need to know what you’re doing with this sort of thing, same as you would for a computer (probably because it is practically a computer). The only exceptions are fuses, spark plugs and light bulbs – they’re easy enough for a DIY person to do. Turn the ignition off first.
The internet has made it easier for DIY motor repairs people, as you no longer need to buy a book of diagrams or grab one from the local library. You can usually find a collection of videos or diagrams online easily enough. It’s smart to familiarise yourself with what things are supposed to look like before you begin.
When you get around to tinkering with your car, you should always bear a couple of safety tips in mind:
- Don’t smoke and keep the garage well ventilated.
- Unless you actually need to run the engine, make sure that it’s cold before you start poking around.
- If you have to get underneath your car and you have to raise it (not always necessary if you’re thin or if your car has high ground clearance), then put it on proper supports rather than just a jack or on a wooden box. Make sure that you put it in gear and put the handbrake on to stop it rolling backwards. Even a small little hatchback could crush you if it comes down on you.
- Let someone know that you’re working on the car just in case, especially if you have to go underneath it.
- If near moving parts, tie back long hair, wear tight fitting clothing and remove jewellery.
- Keep alcohol out of the picture.
A few basic tools will do the job for DIY work on the car, although real enthusiasts will probably invest in some fancier ones. Personally, my rule of thumb is if it can’t be done with the basics, it’s a job for an expert (or else for my husband’s friend Trev, who is one of those enthusiasts with lots of tools). Occasionally, you need a few other simple tools that you are likely to have around the place. Sometimes, when my husband has been working on a car, that tool is me – an extra pair of hands to hold this, put pressure on that or pull that. Especially as small female hands can get into gaps that big bloke hands can’t.
My suggested toolkit for basic DIY car repairs comprises the following:
- Screwdrivers – star head and flat head, and possibly one of those fancy square head ones as well;
- Socket set;
- Adjustable wrench;
- Can of WD-40 or CRC 5.56
- Pliers, especially long-nosed ones
- Light hammer – not for banging anything on the car but for tapping the wrench to get that stubborn nut started without risking your knuckles
- Spare nuts, bolts, screws and washers.
Lastly, you need a dollop of common sense. That’s the essential tool. Also the ability to give up and take the thing to the mechanic if you need to.
*Small rant on the topic of male chauvinist pigs and car repairs. While hunting online for a good image for this post, trying to show a woman fixing a car, most of what I came across was either a woman staring at the open bonnet and generally looking helpless, or else some cheesecake picture involving skimpy clothing (often tight-fitting torn denim a la Daisy Duke) and artfully applied smears of motor oil. Grrrrr!
Timed Traffic Lights?
Have you ever had one of those days when it seems like you get caught by every single red light on your daily commute? Traffic lights have been annoying us for a very, very long time. Apparently, the first lights were set up in the UK back in 1868 (yes, in the country that also brought us speeding tickets). These lights used variations on railway signals and controlled the bustling traffic outside the British Houses of Parliament. London has had traffic issues ever since… The original lights exploded after less than a year of use, as they used gas for the lighting system. The USA then copied the idea but threw in electricity for lighting (thanks, Mr Edison) and added a yellow light.
Nowadays, we’re all familiar with the red-yellow-green system. However, a few people need a bit of a reminder that the yellow (also known as orange or amber) actually means “slow down and prepare to stop” rather than “put your foot down so you can get into the intersection before the light turns red”. j
I guess I’m not alone in sitting at an intersection waiting at a red light and wondering “How much longer am I going to wait for?” Other questions that flit through my mind is whether or not it’s going to be worth popping the gear into neutral or not while I’m waiting rather than sitting there with the auto still on Drive and the brake on.
And it looks like there are starting to be attempts to answer this sort of question. There are rumours on the internet of a new LED traffic lights system that has been designed by someone named Thanva Tivawong. This design gets rid of the traditional row of three lights (more if you’ve got a multilane intersection with left and right turn arrows, plus lights for bikes or buses or trams) and replaces them with an hourglass shaped display. The hourglass changes colour and “sand” trickles down, showing how much more time you’ve got left before the lights change. They also have a “get ready” yellow light between red and green – a sort of “ladies and gentlemen, start your engines” signal so you know when to start getting in gear.
Comments on the web have included queries about how colourblind drivers are going to cope, as you don’t have the usual red up the top, green down the bottom convention (which was put in place for the sake of colourblind drivers). I guess something could be sorted out – horizontal stripes for red and vertical stripes for green, maybe.
As far as a quick flick around the web can make out, it’s unclear whether or not these lights are actually installed anywhere yet. They may still just be a concept. Certainly, there would be a lot of legal hoo-hah and research before they actually get adopted anywhere.
This isn’t the first time a designer has tried to include time left into a traffic signal. There was the “Marshalite” design that came out in the 1940s that had an arrow that travelled around a circle like a clock hand, moving from red to green, with a brief segment painted amber. These were an Aussie innovation and several of these were around Melbourne until the 1970s. You can still find one on display somewhere in the Melbourne Museum.
But I have to admit that the traffic light system that I liked best was the rather basic one that they had in La Paz, capital of Bolivia, in the late 1980s, when I lived over there. Most traffic lights outside the city centre were operated manually by a cop, except late at night when there wasn’t much traffic (not sure what they did then – I was never out that late). The cop would sit there flipping the switch up and down, with a brief pause in the amber section that showed yellow for all directions. There were no problems with hoons using the “get ready to go” signal as an opportunity for a drag race, as there was a cop there watching everything. The cop would usually change the lights when the waiting traffic on any road built up to a certain level. Usually is the operative word. Most motorists knew perfectly well that if a chauffeur-driven Mercedes swept along, standing out like a sore thumb in the middle of the Beetles, Ladas and Pajeros, the lights would be operated in its favour… after all, it could be a government official or the head of police in there. The human factor would also come into play if you were (a) good looking and female, and gave the cop a nice smile; or (b) had a heap of kids waiting to cross as pedestrians.
It probably isn’t the world’s most exciting job and it probably doesn’t have to be done by fully-fledged cops, but couldn’t this sort of system be a solution to unemployment problems?
Driving Barefoot; Driving in Thongs; Driving in High Heels
“You can’t wear those when pay for homework you’re driving,” my father said, pointing to the high-heeled shoes I was wearing at the tender age of sixteen when I was getting one of my first driving lessons. “There’s no way that you can operate the pedals properly in those.” So I ended up taking that lesson driving barefoot.
I have to confess that I like driving barefoot. People talk about enjoying the feeling of the steering wheel and the more hands-on method of driving provided by manual gearboxes or paddle-flapper semiautomatic gear shifting. But not much has been mentioned about the sensory pleasure and subtlety of what you do with your feet. If anything, the trend seems to be to use your feet as little as possible, given the trend towards auto-braking on top of automatic transmissions and cruise control. A naked foot applies brake and accelerator (OK, I drive an automatic) with minute shades of control. A little pressure here, a slight bit of easing off here, a brief flicker of the brake there. Simply shoving one’s hoof down for maximum acceleration followed by jamming on the brakes seems, well, crude. Like scribbling with a vivid marker, whereas driving barefoot is more like delicate pencil sketching.
Cars tend to like that sort of driving, too, as it doesn’t create as much wear and tear. So does your wallet, for the same reason.
However, the problem with driving barefoot comes at the end of the journey, as where you’re parked is less likely to be pleasant to walk on without something between you and the elements. Quite often in the warmer months, that something is a pair of thong sandals (aka flip-flops or jandals or whatever else you want to call them – you know the things I mean!). All the same, I don’t drive in them.
Contrary to popular myth, it is legal to drive barefoot (how could it not be?) and it is also legal to drive in thongs, except, apparently, in Victoria. However, it isn’t safe to drive in thongs, even though a lot of people do it, especially in our warm climate. There have been road safety studies in various parts of the world, and it seems that thongs might slip off and interfere with the operation of the brake and the accelerator because they can jam underneath the pedals. Describing and visualising how this happens can be tricky – the best bet would be to go out to your car in a pair of thongs and, with the engine off, fidget your feet around a lot and see what happens.
It’s also a dumb idea to kick your thongs off and leave them floating around by your feet, as they can still get stuck and/or in the way. Chuck them into the passenger seat or stick them in the glove box (who keeps driving gloves in the glove box these days, anyway?).
You do get some stories about people not braking properly when driving barefoot because a sharp stone is sitting on the brake pedal and they jerk their foot back automatically. But how often does this sort of thing happen really? I usually go through a little ritual of sliding my feet up and down the brake pedal before I start the ignition (partly because I’m readjusting the seat after my husband’s been driving), which gets rid of any stones.
And as for high heels… well, obviously, not many of you guys wear them. They do put your feet at an awkward angle for applying the pedal (into the passenger seat with them and drive barefoot again). They also have next to no grip and slide off pedals at the wrong moment into the bargain. However, this wasn’t the case for one car I’ve driven. This was a late 80s Alfa Romeo of my grandmother’s, and the accelerator pedal was at an awkward angle that meant that you had to either raise your heel from the floor to operate it or floor the thing. How Italian is that? Either high heels or furious driving. The more recent Alfas have, thankfully, corrected this fault. However, in my grandmother’s car, I struggled along for most of the trip getting a very sore ankle and calf as I drove along with one heel in the air. Then the sneakers came off and I ended up using my bare toes to operate the accelerator. It still hurt and I was glad when that trip was over, but it was a lot better than the high heels.
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