Guiding thieves to your home

Satellite navigation has revolutionised travel the world over and for obvious reasons, it’s at its most useful in large cities where the plethora of streets made old-fashioned map reading a nightmare.  While many cars now come with factory- fitted sat nav devices built into the communications system, more devices still are bought as accessories and almost without exception, these are attached to the windscreen via a goose neck arm complete with a suction pad.
I’m more than familiar with the system and being a fussy individual when it comes to keeping the glass clean, I’ve always been annoyed by the “ring” that’s left behind when the suction pad is removed so as to hide the sat nav device from prying eyes.  It never really occurred to me though, that smart thieves might spend hours patrolling streets looking for the “ring” on the windscreen that indicates a sat nav unit might just be hidden under the seat or shut away in the glove box.
Wherever the unit itself might be concealed, that “ring” is a red rag to a crook and is an open invitation for a break-in.  It isn’t necessarily the sat nav itself that the rogues are after but the information on the sat nav.   How many times do you leave house keys in your locked car?  The thief who’s just smashed his way into your pride and joy first looks for the sat nav and then the keys.  Invariably, your home address is loaded into the memory of the sat nav so the thief knows exactly where to go with the keys that have just been picked up from somewhere in the car.  Simple, isn’t it?   So, the moral of the story is remove the “ring”, remove the sat nav and remove your house keys when you park your car in a public place.
Needless to say, entrepreneurs are already cashing in on this problem by offering a weighted “pad”, complete with a smooth mounting surface for the suction pad, that sits on the dashboard and leaves no tell tale traces of a sat nav device, provided of course that the pad is removed from view in the first place!
 
Down they go
Car sales continue to plummet all over the globe with the latest victim being the slightly oddball GM-owned Swedish manufacturer, Saab.  To all intents and purposes, the company is bankrupt but is buying time by saying that it’s “re-organising”.  The Swedish government is in no mood to offer bailout money so it looks like the already desperate parent, GM, is going to have to do some scrabbling to keep its offshoot afloat.
It seems that in most western markets, sales are down by around a third or more with only Audi reasonably buoyant purely because its sales decline is way below the industry average, a performance which saw Audi outsell Mercedes-Benz and BMW in Western Europe in January when the brand with the four rings increased its market share from 3,9% in 2008 to 5,1% this year. 
Closer to home, the SA  motor industry and associated down stream businesses continue to struggle with depressed sales (see table below).  
Back in the northern hemisphere, the brand that showed the biggest growth in the UK in 2008 was Mazda.  Ironically, Ford sold its 20% stake in Mazda in November for GBP250 million, a mere 100 million less than the shares cost to buy.  I’m on record as stating that Mazda’s current model line-up, led in my book by the diminutive but slick 2 and the more practical 5, is very appealing, offering a dash of brio which is regrettably less apparent in most of its Japanese rivals. 
 
Hottest hot hatch
Ford has announced the introduction of a super-heated version of its dynamically excellent Focus dubbed the RS.  The existing five cylinder 2.5 litre motor fitted to the more familiar ST model has been breathed upon to produce an eye-watering 301 bhp.  Most extraordinary of all is the fact that the RS drives through the front wheels only.  Conventional wisdom tells you that 250 bhp is more than enough for front wheel drive to handle if massive wheel spin and torque steer (pulling to one side under hard acceleration) are to be tamed.  In this case, Ford engineers have employed patented chassis technology dubbed RevoKnuckle to keep the car on the straight and narrow, reportedly with great success.
All this power and technology translates into a 0-60 mph time of 5,9 seconds with the 100 mph mark being despatched in 14 seconds dead.  Only 8 000 units are planned so if you’re looking for a light car to fly over all of Harare’s potholes, this could be your answer, albeit that the low profile tyres fitted to 19 inch wheels will be about as useful as a chocolate tea pot unless you are airborne.
In the meantime, Ford is embarking on an aggressive electric vehicle plan which will see a host of battery-powered models whirring onto US roads from 2011 followed thereafter by global markets.  Ford has not yet advised how anyone in Zimbabwe can re-charge their “electric” Fords given ZESA’s ongoing problems.  One hopes though, that by 2011, the age of darkness may have passed through Zimbabwe.
 
Geneva extravaganza
If you’re going to be in Switzerland between 3-15 March, you could do a lot worse than pay a visit to the Geneva Motor Show.  The 79th iteration of this top-ranked gathering of automotive giants will see the unveiling of no fewer than 85 new models or upgrades, or so the organisers claim.  In these depressed times, it seems amazing to think that so much new metal could be unveiled.  Perhaps the most significant from a local point of view will be the all-new VW Polo, the current version of which has maintained its status as South Africa’s best-selling passenger car right up to its last year of full production.
Government Ministers, and anyone else who can manage to avoid paying duties on imports, will also find the Mercedes stand of great interest as Geneva marks the European unveiling of the new E-Class and its sexy looking offshoot, the E-Class coupe.
Nissan too will be there with a new concept model that continues the odd-ball naming recently adopted by the Japanese manufacturer.  This time, you’ll be able to view the concept Qazana, a smaller version of the very successful Qashqai, destined to take the place of the ugly Micra.
Hollywood’s stars who like to telegraph their green credentials to all and sundry will also be pleased to know that Toyota will unveil the third generation of its petrol-electric Prius which is reported to offer a much simplified and more durable battery pack.

Bye bye Bangle
Chris Bangle, BMW’s design chief, has resigned to pursue personal interests.  Known for his introduction of the controversial flame surfacing design elements which saw creases mixing it with convex and concave panels, Bangle’s work split opinion right down the middle and in my opinion, did BMW more harm than good.  The previous generation 7-Series simply didn’t cut it with its coffin-like bootlid and the 1-Series I rate as plain ugly and dreadfully impractical even if the mechanical bits are as good as you’ll get.  The latest 3-Series (saloon) has been tweaked a bit to reduce the Bangle influence but I’m not alone in thinking that this model lost all the elegance and sportiness that so characterised earler Threes. 
Each to his own, I guess, when it comes to styling, and you simply can’t argue that some of the complex shapes Bangle introduced have made their way onto other cars such as the current S-Class but the totality of the design of this car is so much more acceptable than that of the 7-Series.  And there are few who would disagree that the C-Class Merc, itself not devoid of complex panel shapes, is a much more cohesive shape than the 3-Series, a fact possibly reflected in the SA car sales where the Merc has left the Beemer for dead in recent times.