Get Me To The Church On Time
I don’t know whether it’s because it’s summer time or whether it’s to do with Valentine’s Day being just around the corner but I’ve seen quite a few cars running around the place on Saturdays with white ribbons on.
Going Smaller
Big engines that guzzle the gas are getting the boot. Over in America, the popular Dodge Ram is big on the outside but getting a whole lot smaller under the bonnet. In the past, the Dodge Ram housed the very powerful and thirsty hemi engines. We love the performance, but when it comes to filling up at the pump you felt rather like a deflated balloon. Modern times have put the squeeze on these gas guzzler types, and we’re seeing the smaller 3.6-litre Pentaster V6 engine doing the job for the Ram really well. In fact, the same Pentaster V6 engine is showing up in the Jeep Wrangler, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Dodge Journey and Dodge 300 C.
In North America, the latest Car of the Year was the new Cadillac sedan. In the past Cadillac sedans have housed big, powerful engines under the hood. This is certainly not so with the new Cadillac sedan which is an AWD or RWD vehicle that is similar in size to the BMW 3 Series. Now, four and six cylinder engines are used for moving the new Cadillac, and the result has been hugely popular. Rave reviews for the car’s performance and handling goes to show that smaller engines can still produce an enjoyable and satisfying drive.
Feeling Sleepy?
It can be as dangerous as driving drunk and probably contributes just as much to accidents, including the fatal ones, just as much. But you won’t find the boys and girls in blue standing on the side of the road asking you to breath into this little meter so they can find out whether you’re under the influence of this thing. You can’t regulate sales of this or perform any tests at the side of the road. Even clever Swedish cars like Saab and Volvo can’t be fitted with a gadget that prevents you from driving when you fail the test (both these marques have optional accessories that prevent you from driving drunk).
It’s about sleep. We all need it and an awful lot of us don’t get enough of it in the modern world. And if you don’t get enough of it, you can end up nodding off at the wheel. As anyone who’s had a cranky baby could tell you, the sound of a car engine is rather soothing and can easily lull you off to sleep. It’s particularly bad on country roads in Australia that involve long straight stretches where there’s nothing to see except the road markings whizzing past you at a constant and predictable pattern. It’s quite hypnotic late at night. It happened to my brother-in-law when he was working on a farm out the back of Adelaide. He was driving back from town late at night, perfectly sober, and fell asleep at the wheel. He lived to tell the tale, luckily for him, but others aren’t so lucky and end up going off the road into a ditch or a tree or, worse still, another car.
Making Sense of Car Scents
I don’t think they’ve managed to bottle it yet, but there a certain something about the smell of a new car that is very attractive. The closest the perfume industry ever came to it was Paco Rabanne’s “Calandre” (French for a car radiator grille) and it was supposed to represent the smell of leather seats and making love al fresco on the bonnet of an E-type Jaguar (French perfume gurus create briefs that instruct the poor lab techies to come up with the smell of a fantasy. But we’re getting off topic here). Even cars bought second-hand from a dealer have a characteristic smell.
I have more than a suspicion that the nice smell of new cars is actually the stuff used to manufacture the dashboard and the seats off-gassing, while the smell of a dealer-bought second-hand car is the smell of the heavy-duty cleaning stuff they’ve used to get the car presentable. The trouble with this is that they’re not terribly good for your system, being aldehyde sorts of things, I think. The flip side of this is that the “new car” smell wears off quickly enough, so you’re unlikely to get too much of it buzzing around inside your system. Unless you buy new cars as soon as the fragrance wears off and douse yourself head to foot daily in Chanel No. 5 (which is chock-full of aldehydes), in which case, getting a discount deal on your next new car probably isn’t a concern.
Level 2, 9 Help Street