Being brave in car design doesn't (always) pay off!

Many people have been criticizing that each new Porsche looks like the model before. And they are right. But Porsche learned the hard way that it doesn't always pay off to be brave in designing cars. When they launched the Porsche 928 it was very different to anything they had done before. It had an 8 cylinder engine in the front, four seats, was wide and big and it really looked very different to even any other car on the road, maybe with the exception of the AMC Pacer. And you don't want to see this as a design icon. Well the car also suffered from some weaknesses including being very thirsty and having the aerodynamics of a Volkswagen Beetle. But most of these things got sorted out over time and the car actually became quite good. But not good enough to no being successful enough. And never since Porsche announced any radical car like the 928 any more.
Other examples needed? Look at the Bangle effect at BMW. Or look at the TVR Tasmin (called the Wedge). Or what about Pininfarina? Most if not all of his cars were more evolutions than revolutions and he know quite well why he worked like this. Beauty has to be accepted by the buyers and you can't stretch it too far.

Hydrogen is not the answer to peak oil, Jeremy Clarkson, think again

In a recent blog post, TopGear Jeremy Clarkson makes the point that hybrid cars are the wrong direction to go and lean burn would have saved the world better than catalyst converters. He claims that Hydrogen cars should be the future. Now, I really like Jeremy Clarkson, but I think he is not really right in his entertaining article. Firstly lean burn wouldn't have brought the improvements in terms of clean emission than the catalyst did. A catalyst cleans about 90-99% of what the car produces while lean burn may lead to a 1.5-2.5 times improvement. Only the combination actually helps. Secondly Hydrogen suffers from many different problems that are difficult to solve and make the introduction very expensive. I strongly believe that improvements in battery technology will make the electrical car more viable than hydrogen powered cars. And if we don't think we need 400 HP and 2 tons to drive from London City Airport to Piccadilly Circus then efficiency should be okay. Hydrogen may make sense for certain types of usages, maybe even for powering the range extender, but I don't believe it's the future of motoring. As we have seen over the last 10-20 years there are many ways of improving already existing technologies. Cars today need probably 50-60% fuel of what they did for the same performance ten years ago. Electrical cars have substantially increased in efficiency over the last three to five years. Combining this with new technologies such as hybrid (ideally not with batteries but rather super caps) and hydrogen we still have a lot to gain before we are running out of affordable oil.
One comment to the blog was quite interesting as a thought - we may find other and better ways to fuel more and more cars, but there's a clear limit in terms of how many streets we can build and have. And that limit is given by the size of the earth ...
And as I am just on it, if you haven't watched the movie "who killed the electric car", then you should.

The Volkswagen Golf VR6 - creating a new category in the 90ties

The Volkswagen Golf VR6 was in many perspectives a new type of car. It probably wasn't the first time somebdoy fitted a V6 engine into a small car, but it certainly was the first time that the result wsa so successful. The VR6 continued what the GTI had started, creating a new car category that attracted a very diverse owner audience. Whether you were a banker, an artist or a psychologist or whatsoever, the VR6 was both a compact car and a little racer as well. Since then many manufacturers followed and built top end luxurious hatchbacks for the affluent who still likes a small and not so shiny car.
The VR6 engine with 174 HP from 2.7 liter was introduced as part of the Golf III range. It was the most powerful engine to have in a Golf for quite some time. It sounded nicely as well, but it wasn't known for it's very economical fuel consumption behavior. Despite the additional weight the car still handled quite well.
My own Golf VR6 was a three door version, painted in a color called "dusty mauve", somewhere between violet and brownish. I liked the car quite a bit, but still part exchanged it against a Mercedes C280.
I owned it for a year and did roughly 12'000 km with it. It was reliable and good to drive, and it certainly helped to establish my love for six cylinder engines.

Are cars male or female or something else?

It's quite confusing that their is no consensus on whether a car is male or female, or even something else. Of course that's a language issue. Let's take French: It's "la voiture" and "la Ferrari". Same in Italian with "la machina" and "la Ferrari". So if you look at latin languages a car seems to be female. In English it's all unclear, because there's no such differentiation. In German things get really complicated as you can expect. It's "das Auto", so neutral, neither male nor female. But it's "der Ferrari" or "der Mercedes", so male if you call a car by its (brand) name. And you can even find "die Limousine", female for the four door car. My language skills don't go much further so maybe somebody could drop in what other languages do with cars? Anyway it's interesting. And maybe this symbolizes that great cars are compounds of male and female virtues.

The Datsun 160B - first car I have driven on public roads

The Datsun 160B was the first car I have driven on public roads. It was my father's car and it was a typical child of the time. According to the spec it should have had 80 HP, but it didn't feel that fast and it was quite heavy too. But it was a car and it had everything you needed to practice for example double clutching. I took it for a spin quite often after I had received my driving certificate. And it was a very reliable car, something you couldn't say about the brown Alfasud 1.5 Berlina that replaced it. The 160B even became a rallye car, the SSS versions were quite famous at that time and won for example the East African Safari if I am not mistaken.

Mercedes C111 Wankel - 300 km/h in 1970

The car was a sensation, maybe that's not even the full story. 300 km/h was a lot, most people drove a Volkswagen Beetle at that time, with 30 HP from a four cylinder boxer engine, not 350 HP from a Wankel engine. The Mercedes C111 was the first German supercar after the 300 SL Gullwing. And it was quite revolutionary. Wankel engine, 1'240 kg, 0-100 km/h in 4.8 seconds - that was lighter and quicker than the Lamborghini Miura, the car that was to be beaten at that time. It probably was also the first fiberglass car built by Mercedes. And the first mid engine car as well. It was a race car for the road. 50 cars Mercedes wanted to build, some even said 500. The price would have been around DM 60'000, 10-15 of what a Beetle or Kadett was. The energy crisis changed these plans.
The car was never produced and it's only the prototypes that are left. Too bad, the car must have been damned good. At least when you believe what the journalists at "hobby" wrote in No 7 1970. They drove C111/70. If you compare this engineering highlight with the McLaren SLR or even the new AMG Mercedes SLS then you really wonder where all this creativity and innovation spirit has gone.

Merry Christmas!

I didn't even think about trying to find a Christmas car picture ...

May all our wishes become true.

Merry Christmas

The worst car I have ever driven

I have driven many good and some even excellent cars, but there's one car that really stands out in terms of mediocre handling and sub-standard performance: The Datsun 120Y. How could a manufacturer that was able to build such great cars as the Datsun 240Z come up with such a crap car? The handling was more than dangerous, I almost lost the car on a straight! Well the look didn't help either and gosh, the interior was horrible. Anyway I haven't seen one of these for ages and I am sure I would have to smile if I did.

Motoring in 2000-2009 - why there's so little to be remembered from that decade

In the previous post I talked about the cars from the passing decade that people will remember in 20 to 30 years. However, maybe more interesting than these memorable cars from the 2000 to 2009 decade is the very long list of cars that will be forgotten and why that’s the case.

If you have read my other list you will have missed a number of cars that you may have expected, for example certain models from BMW, Ferrari, Mercedes or Audi.
The Audi R8 didn’t make it onto the list, because while Audi being brave entering a new category with a new car, the R8 wasn’t really that innovative. BMW didn’t really present any remarkable model during and after the Bangle period. The Mercedes SLS is somewhat interesting, but will only really arrive in 2010 and even then it is somewhat of a Dinosaur. The Ferrari 458 Italia could have made it onto the list, but didn’t because it’s only shipped in 2010. However it’s an impressive and beautiful car offering Ferrari Enzo performance at half the price. The Alfa-Romeo 8C is probably the best repackaging gig, but is almost more of a showcar than a real production car. And what about the other manufacturers? Where is Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce, Porsche, Bentley or Honda? None of these really brought something new and exciting that will be remembered in 20-30 years.

I even wonder whether people in 2030 or 2040 will remember any car of the passing decade. In all the decades before there were some really mind boggling cars, for example the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing in the 50ties, the Jaguar E-Type and the Lamborghini Miura in the 60ties, the Lamborghini Countach in the 70ties, the Ferrari F40 in the 80ties or the McLaren F1 in the 90ies.
Super and hypercar manufacturers totally missed the point in the 2000-2009 decade really. Where is the sub-1000kg 400+ HP rocket that could have made the difference combining performance AND efficiency? It is possible from an engineering point of view, it’s just a lack of imagination and passion hindering us to go there!

What we will remember though from the 200x years are the massive failures, such as Saab going down the drain, GM, Chrysler and Ford going after governmental help, BMW dropping models in in-existent niches, besides many other events.

Motoring in 2000-2009 - what will we remember in 20-30 years?

The Decade 2000 to 2009 was influenced by a rapidly increasing oil price towards the end of the period (for example the ratio between the highest and the lowest price per barrel was 5-6, peak was reached in 2008), by the inconvenient truth of a changing climate and global warming, by terrorism, tsunamis and hurricanes. Towards the end of the decade the whole world suffered from the consequences of the financial crisis and a global recession. At the same time the digitization of the world has continued and we couldn't imagine a life without mobile connectivity, Internet and flat screens.

So what where the motoring highlights of the years 2000 to 2009?

A Decade of Extremes
Super and Hyper Cars got faster and faster. The climax has been reached with the Bugatti Veyron, a car that really showcases what is feasible today. Whether anybody needs 1001 HP and 400 km/h top speed is another question.

The reinvention of the cheap car
Tata introduced the Nano, a really cheap car. But already before Renault has proven with the Dacia that there is a market for cheaper cars.

Supercar performance on a budget
When Nissan announced the GTR it was an instant success. Fast laps on the Nurburgring also helped to establish the image of a supercar on a budget. And the interior is designed for the PS3 generation. Four seats even make the car suitable for a small family.

The Hybrid Decade
With the Toyota Prius a new technology became both fashionable and consumer-ready, the hybrid car. While the Prius may neither have been pretty nor ecological it was sold very successfully thanks to Holywood and a brilliant marketing and it certainly proved that people can be motivated to save fuel.

Retro retro
The new Mini is a success, but the Fiat 500 was even more loved by the crowd thanks to its affordability and the really cute design. Revitalizing the Abarth brand at the top end of the 500 has also proven to be a clever move.

Electrical cars that actually are attractive
Tesla built a Roadster on top of a Lotus Elise chassis and loaded thousands of laptop batteries. Despite some getting quite hot this cars proved that performance and electricity don’t need to be opposites in the motoring context. Since the Tesla many manufacturers (i.e. Audi, Mercedes) and tuners (i.e. RUF) have followed and presented electrical sportscars.

In a next post I will talk about the ones that didn’t make it and why I think that from a motoring perspective the 2000 to 2009 decade was a disappointment after all.

Why do you really need a 4WD car?

Recently we had a discussion on how superior 4x4 (4WD) cars (regular road cars, we don't talk SUV here) are in bad weather conditions. This is certainly true. But is it really worth the extra iron and engineering these days? As I just returned from the mountains where barely nothing else seems to be "en vogue" I thought it's worth some further investigations.
Besides the fact that I didn't have any issue at all with my RWD (rear wheel driven) BMW there's a lot more speaking against 4WD cars. Look at the comparison table where I listed two BMW and Audi, both existing in 4WD and RWD/FWD configuration. The 4WD models are clearly heavier, 105 kg in the case of the BMW 330i, 75 kg in the case of Audi A4 Avant 2.0 TFSI. But even worse, the 4WD cars consume at least 10% more energy and therefore emit more CO2 too. Even the performance suffers, mainly because of the extra weight I would assume. When I bought my current car I switched from a 4WD 5 series BMW to a RWD 3 series. I so much more love to drive the RWD 3 series car. The reduced weight makes a hell of a difference. While the 5 series felt almost like a truck the smaller 3 series convinces with a good handling and is a joy to drive. Now of course I will lose a drag race on snow and I might have an issue with a steep hill under ice conditions from time to time, but looking back, this has really rarely been happening. So why to carry 100 kg extra given all the electronics (DTC, PASM, etc.) on board? I don't see the point.

Comparing cheap sportscars in 1969 - Fiat 850 Coupé wins

Imagine living back in the 60ties, actually in 1969 to be specific. You had saved some money, let's say DM 7'000 (€ 3'500), which probably was quite a lot of money at that time. You were looking for an affordable sportscar, a Coupé. Well this could have been your choice:
Fiat 850 Coupé
Ford Capri 1.3
Opel Kadett Coupé 1.1
Daf 55 Automatic
The cars couldn't be more different. The Fiat 850 Coupé was really a sports car outperforming all the others with 18 seconds from 0-100 km/h (0-62 MPH). The Daf was following with 22 s, the Carpi with 22.7s and the Opel was the slowest with 26 s. Top speed was 148 km/h for the Fiat, 130 for the Kadett, 138 for the Daf and 133 for the Capri. Interesting the weight (empty): Fiat 749 kg, Opel Kadett 755 kg, Daf 55 795 kg and the Ford Capri 920 kg. The test in Hobby 10/69 revealed the Ford Capri as the family price winner, but the Fiat 850 was really the best sportscar in this round. An uncle of mine owned one at that time I was really impressed by the performance and noise of this car.

Good Bye Saab

Today GM has decided to close down Saab it seems. They haven't been able to sell the brand, while the engineering/construction rights for the 9-3 and 9-5 obviously have been transfered to a Chinese car manufacturer.
I have never owned a Saab, but I admire the older models such as Saab 96 or Saab 900 Turbo for their purity, partially the design and certainly for engineering quality. Lately GM has done everything to lose this spirit and character. The design got spoiled and the engineering was outsourced to Opel. But what is good for Opel doesn't have to be good for Saab. But the biggest mistake certainly was to not cherish the brand and the passion for individuality.
For us who love oldtimers this is not really a problem. The 900 Turbo soon will appear at rallyes and other events and owners will profit from the good build quality and the long term reliability.
The advertisement shown here is from 1982 and it says "Saab, one car length ahead". Well, if they hadn't been two car lengths behind recently we probably wouldn't discuss the end of Saab today.

200 - exciting, impressive, and ....

Let's celebrate, this is the blog entry 200 in 2009 I am doing. But 200 was also an important number when I was young. Most cars at that time actually had a top speed lower than 200 km/h, so when a car was faster it was really fast. And almost every time it would help you win in "Super Trumps". Cars like a Triumph TR3 for example had 200 km/h marked as their top speed on the speedometer, but rarely were able to reach it. So, that's why 200 was such an important in the past and that's why it feels a bit special to post blog entry 200 for me.

If Aston Martin needs a Mini, is this the answer?

It has been around for quite a while, the small city car from Aston Martin. Now they have published "official pictures". Well, it hasn't changed much it seems, it's still a Toyota IQ with some Aston design elements. Now, I somewhat do like the IQ, as it's a clever package and offers some interesting engineering features. But if I like it for € 12'000.- or so it doesn't mean I would pay twice that money to have an Aston badge on it. Car history is full of such failures, remember the Austin Allegro Vanden Plas? So, my advice to Aston is, forget it.