Whether it's from the www, the latest motor show or the back doors of a carmaker near you, Carsales Network Confidential features the good oil other sources either won't publish, don't care about or don't know. Heard an automotive rumour or new model tip? Then let us know at editor@carpoint.com.au
Smells like an oily rag
The World Solar Challenge has been run and won. Next year, we'd like to see new Greenfleet categories -- for vehicles driven by centrifugal force or powered by bovine manure. That's 'spin' and... Well, never mind...
A reputable source informs the Carsales Network that Audi Ambassador Ian 'Thorpedo' Thorpe drove the second-placed A3 1.9e barely 3km of the 3000km journey from Darwin to Adelaide. Obviously Audi didn't want 'the Thorpedo' placing his great big dinner plate-sized 'plates of meat' where they weren't wanted -- like on the accelerator pedal.
Still, 3km is probably at least twice the distance he has covered competitively in the past.
Our source thinks that Audi 'head driver' Peter McKay had a cushy job, nursemaiding Thorpe and footballer Warren Tredrea, but Mr McKay would have driven the balance of the journey -- by our calculations, possibly 2994km of the 3000km trip.
Benz was represented by a city car, the smart fortwo. This particular car was running a three-cylinder petrol (not the diesel which isn't available in Australia) but at least the car was being driven in a more or less 'real world' scenario -- if you could call taking an inner urban runabout for two people into Central Australia 'real world'. Non-professional drivers were operating the smart at speeds of up to 130km/h and it returned a figure of 4.61lt/100km.
Peugeot too, settled on operating 207 and 307 diesel entrants with non-professional crews and abiding by a less 'competitive' regime, taking side trips to Uluru with the 'aircon' running and enough luggage for the crews' needs. Sounds very altruistic, except that the Puggy crews were using cruise control to keep speeds at or below 95km/h -- and sometimes as low as 80km/h.
The winning Hyundai i30 was driven by a 'professional' crew of two. One a former mechanic for Alan Jones' F1 campaign and the other John Cadogan, well-known motoring journalist. Cadogan was reputedly on a strict diet for the month leading up to the event. Anything to reduce kerb weight.
Who would have thought that a fuel economy run might lack the real life validity of a V8 Supercar win at Bathurst?
Hybrid hype
At the recent E-Series Maloo R8 drive day, Scott Grant, Managing Director for HSV, happened to mention the 'HSV hybrids' story that figuratively pushed everything else off the front pages of Australia's automotive media a few months ago.
"I didn't actually say there'd be hybrids in our future. I think someone asked me words to the effect of when it might be possible and I said 'anything's possible'. I think that was then reported as 'everything's on the table'.
Simon Frost, HSV PR manager, followed up by saying "A [well-known media organisation] journalist took a liberty with that and then produced a graphic of a GTS with a power cord coming out of it."
Must have HSV...
In his role, Frost looks after the company's 'media centre', which is web-based.
"I have to approve anyone who accesses our media centre. They get sent to me. Over 50 per cent of requests for access at the media centre are international publications.
"[They're] mainly UK and American. There's also some Eastern European and some Russian...a couple from France and Italy.
"[There was one] from Russia today, but it was actually a lady that wanted to marry an Australian gentleman -- came through our website."
Mutual detraction
Frost's colleague, John Clark, is HSV's Chief Engineer. Clark has been with the company since its inception in 1987 and has seen a lot of water under the bridge.
In recounting the Holden traction control system that was introduced with VT Series II, Clark said "We used to have a traction control system which was a cable-operated throttle, so it went through a throttle relaxer that then pushed your foot up when you did it.
"When you got wheelspin, it would push you back, but it was a little bit over the top. It didn't enhance the driving thing. You'd leave it off if you went on a track day or something."
Sometimes it's easier to view technology objectively through the clear mists of history...
Automatic for the people
In commenting about the old supercharged XU6 models, Clark -- in an aside -- ruminated on the manual versus auto argument.
"We never had a manual version of that car (XU6). It's interesting, a lot of people want to have a manual version -- they want to know the car's got a manual version. Would they ever buy a manual car? Probably not, but they want to know that it's there."
Falcons in a dive
An acquaintance at a rival publication recently speculated that the replacement for next year's Orion project Falcon will happen along in "2012/13".
We've been thinking about the life cycles of Falcons -- yes, yes, slow day at the office and all that -- and it occurs to us that Falcons of the Ford variety typically live and die over an approximate ten-year life span.
XD was introduced in 1979 and that platform remained in production until the EA replaced it in 1988. In fact, as the XG and XH commercials, the platform ran for virtually twenty years, but if you're talking about the mainstream sedans and wagons over the past thirty years, there's XD to XF from '79 to '88, EA to EL from '88 to '98 and AU to BF from '98 to '08.
Now there are people out there who will say that the AU and BF are very different vehicles -- and that's true to an extent. But the hard points and the platform are -- if not quite interchangeable -- very, very similar.
In fact, the AU wasn't that much different from the EL model that preceded it. It was different for sure -- Ford had raised the H-point with changes to the floorpan -- but it was an evolutionary development of the EL's floorpan.
Similar situation with the EA-ED and EF/EL and -- before that -- XD through to XF, transverse Watts link rear end or not.
So with Orion, we're entering a brave new world. We're unlikely to see the Orion platform last ten years when it's rumoured there'll be a global platform well before 2018. And of course, all of this speculation is contingent on Ford even building Falcons after 2012...
Focus on the sums
By then Ford does say it'll be building Focuseseses... err Foci, however... But the decision has some people scratching their heads. Indeed, more than one high-placed Toyota crone recently expressed the opinion to CN Confidential that Ford's four-cylinder production plans don't add up.
The Toyota 'machine' is an interesting 'animal' (see below) but there's little doubt in our mind the opinions they were espousing were genuine -- rather than mischief making.
Reportedly, Ford's announcement actually saw the Camry company pull out its 'Corolla in Oz' sums, dust them off and have another look at them. The result?
"At the projected retail prices Ford would have to sell the car to achieve the volumes it has projected, we simply can't get the numbers to add up," one high-placed Toyota exec told CN Confidential on the basis he/she would not be named.
"They [Ford] must know something we don't."
Working well
Ever walk into a meeting and think you've been set up? That was the feeling of the assembled Aussie media on the occasion of Toyota's traditional media dinner at the end of the Tokyo Motor Show's two press days last week.
The evening at Tokyo's most famous hotel, The Imperial, sees mostly unfettered access to the very upper echelon of Toyota Motor Company's management. It's a first-in-best-dressed media scrum with all but the big boss, Watanabe-san (the Aussie contingent got a scheduled seven minutes with Toyota's President). And, in contrast to the rest of the year, the big guys are relatively free of minders.
That doesn't mean they are not ready with their own "To do" list. Indeed, clearly the message that needed to be sent via the Aussie media contingent this year was get the government to pull its head in on tariff reductions.
Watanabe-san kicked off the process when he said the Australian "tax system [read: tariffs] may affect our business" and the rest of the execs followed suit. Global planning chief Uranishi-san continued the tenderising process, lamenting the situation in which the strong Aussie currency had placed Toyota. A change in tariffs could be the straw that broke the camel's back it seems.
Interestingly, Uranishi-san was not as eager to talk about the positive affect the currency had on the price of Toyota imports, nor the extra yen a strong Aussie dollar produced upon the repatriation of profits from Toyota Australia to the mother company...
Anti-pollution plants...
You have got to hand it to Toyota's white coats, however. Not content with building whacky concepts (more here) and continuing their work on new combustion technologies (everything from fuel cells to better batteries to make hybrids cheaper and more efficient), Toyota's gone gardening...
Indeed, the company's own green-thumbs at its Biotechnology and Afforestation Laboratory have come up with a better plant. That's 'plant' as in grows in the ground plant... Not houses production line to build cars plant.
The plant is a variety of Cherry Sage and, in Japanese tradition, it flowers in a decorative spray of pink and red blooms. What's special about it is its ability to absorb a "considerably greater amount" of nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide than 'normal' cherry sage trees.
No prizes for guessing which blooms decorated Toyota's Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles display at the big Imperial bash described hereabouts.
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