Home
Brazil Scores A Gol – Possibly
I might not be the world’s biggest soccer/football fan, but I’m still vaguely interested in the latest FIFA world cup held in São Paulo, Brazil. Now, if you’re at all interested in cars, Brazil means two things: biofuel (honestly, these guys are keen on their their ethanol!) and Volkswagens. Brazil has their very own VW factory, which explains why Beetles and Kombis are some of the most commonly seen vehicles on the roads throughout South America. There’s also a car that the Brazilian VW factory produces that doesn’t make it over here but has a name that reflects the Brazilian love of “the beautiful game”: the Gol. You’ve heard those Latino sports commentators? If you have, you know exactly what “gol” means, although it usually comes out “goooooooooooooooool!”
So, in honour of the current FIFA World Cup, here’s the low-down on the surprisingly popular VW Gol (not to be confused with the VW Golf , another vehicle with a sporting name). Thankfully, I’ve got enough Spanish to get the info off the Mexican and Argentinian websites.
The Gol is a rather popular hatchback that has been in production since the 1980s, although it’s gone through a few upgrades and updates since then, like most cars. Similar to the Golf and other small hatchbacks, it’s got a smallish engine (1.6 litres, in-line four-cylinders, 101 horsepower at 5250 rpm, 143 Nm at 2500 rpm) and it’s got a 5-speed manual transmission. It’s designed to run on flex fuel, which isn’t surprising, given the Brazilian taste for ethanol biofuel. It’s got a few bells and whistles like Bluetooth preparation, a decent stereo system, air con, fog lights and electric windows (part of the exterior trim on the Argentinian versions of the Gol Cup include a decal of the national flag!) It’s also pretty cheap.
The Gol comes in a number of versions, with the Argentinian VW site listing the Gol Trend and the Gol Cup (I wonder what this crossover/light SUV is named after), and the Mexican site listing the plain Gol and the Gol sedan. It seems to be pretty popular.
So why aren’t we seeing the Gol on Aussie roads? It’s the safety. The Gol is cheap because they cut costs in the safety department (thankfully, this isn’t true of the VWs we get over here). It got one star in the Latin American NCAP tests, at least according to one source. However, the Gol Cup does boast airbags and ABS brakes (something the Mexican site for the Gol didn’t mention – nothing turned up on the safety/security page at all). Three-point seat belts of the ordinary kind, are listed as a “feature” of the base model.
From my own memories of the cars on South American roads (Peru and Bolivia in the late 1980s in my case), even ABS brakes and airbags is pretty good going. As far as I could make out, the only roadworthiness test was whether or not the car started and could run. Seat belts were optional and squashing several people to one seat was considered sensible (I’ve been one of eight people crammed into a Beetle – three in the front, four in the back and one (me) in the boot). Buses would trundle along with holes rusted out in the floors where you could see the road passing underneath. Scary stuff, although we took it all in our stride, like the other quirks of life over there.
Safety may also be the reason why other Brazilian-made WV models don’t make it over here. There are quite a few of them that are unknown here. On the Mexican and Argentinian sites, alongside familiar names like the Beetle, Passat , Amarok , Polo, Touareg, Scirrocco , Tiguan and Jetta , you’ll also find exotic names like Fox, Crossfox, Suran, Bora, Sharan, up!, Nuevo Vento and Saveiro. But who knows? If they are decent safety-wise, we may yet see them over here.
Pink Parks for the Ladies?
Who finds parking an easy task? I don’t mean the parking one does on a secluded country lane or in a quiet town. I mean parking in busy city streets; the parallel parking manoeuvre that, perhaps, is on a slope. Even some of the shopping mall car parks are quite tight to get in and out of. It’s one of the facets of driving that often is the least liked. Parking can be many drivers’ worst nightmare. Are women better drivers than men? Can men park better than women? I really don’t know the answer to that. I do know some very capable drivers from either gender, so I sit on the fence on this one. South Korea appears to have not-so-subtly suggested that some car parking spaces be left for the men and other parks be women-only!
I’m not sure that designating car parks by gender is all that popular, however South Korea has introduced parking spaces for women-only. Yes, they are different to car parks that the men can use; these women-only car parks are, in fact, longer and wider. They are also frillier and prettier with their pink outlines. Another feature of the women-only car parks is that they are labelled with a figure of a person wearing a skirt. That can only mean that these car parks are for South Korean women, and I suggest female tourists who hold a car license.
Do you think that this is a great idea? Who actually thinks that men are better drivers than women, or at least park better than women? I do find the every-day car parks around the shops are very narrow at the best of times – but that’s the same for everyone. Maybe those on the city councils, and shop owners themselves, are trying to create more car parking by narrowing the parks down, even more. New cars do seem wider than ever, even with smaller engines under the bonnet.
This is a fascinating topic. South Koreans have also resurfaced the pavements areas around the women-only car parks with a spongier pavement to make it easier to walk on in high heels. Also, these women-only parking areas a placed closer to the shops, receive better lighting, and I think have toilets for ladies close at hand. Men caught parking in pink women-only car parks receive a hefty fine.
Is this something we need to look at in Australia? It’s certainly a very gallant and endearing way of charming the ladies!
Nissan’s Self-Cleaning Car
Nissan has already tried to bring us the self-driving car. Now the Japanese manufacturer is trialling another innovation that may spell the end of spending Saturday morning out there in the driveway with the chamois leather and buckets of soapy water. Yes, Nissan has unveiled the prototype self-cleaning car.
The self-cleaning property of these Nissans is thanks to the paint finish, so, in theory, it can be applied to any vehicle. Nissan’s paint boffins have worked with a company from Florida to develop the new paint, with the company from Florida having already put in the hard yards for developing self-cleaning this and that.
The paint finish uses a patented substance called Ultra-Ever Dry. This stuff has chemical and physical properties that make it “super-hydrophobic”. This sounds like it’s something to do with mad dogs with rabies but “hydrophobic” in a chemical sense means that this stuff absolutely hates water. It repels water. This means that water doesn’t cling to it and it just rolls off like… like water off a duck’s back but even more so.
What has this got to do with self-cleaning and how is it better than the wax we already put on our cars? Well, water just can’t settle on the surface and neither can anything that contains water. This includes mud, which always contains water. The same applies to bird crap and most other things that get splashed onto cars (including wet concrete, according to the manufacturers). Thanks to the fancy paint finish, all these water-based things just roll off and don’t linger on the paint. Ultra-Ever Dry also repels some oils as well, meaning that the majority of oil-based substances won’t stick on the paint either.
They have put this finish through its paces. This sort of torture test involved driving through a whole bunch of mud puddles of various consistencies at various speeds and seeing if the mud stuck or not. In the promo video created by Nissan Europe, you can see mud the consistency of porridge being splattered onto the car. It sticks on the half without the finish but just rolls off the half with the finish (watch it here). You won’t see it in the clip but they also put it through rain, snow, frost and sleet with the same effect.
The finish does more than just keep paint looking good. It also helps protect against rust and corrosion, which nearly always involves water lingering on the metal.
It is possible that the self-cleaning paint finish will be available as an option on some Nissans in the future, although the Nissan Europe clip mentioned above seems to suggest that it may be standard on some new models.
However, even with the self-cleaning paint, the days of soapy water may not be totally at an end. The manufacturers of Ultra-Ever Dry state very clearly that their product can’t be used on glass, especially not car windscreen glass, as it doesn’t dry clear. So we’ll still need to wash the windows.
Ultratech, the people who make the Ultra-Ever Dry, have more information about their and some more video clips showing what you can make their product do. It’s not just for cars – it’s got a lot of potential.
Those who aren’t into Nissans needn’t despair. It is possible to buy a paint protector containing Ultra-Ever Dry that you can apply to your car but it is not cheap. It’s also not clear if the distributors of this product ship to Australia at the moment.
Any Colour As Long As It’s Black…
There’s a persistent story circulating around the automotive world that Henry Ford said that the original “Tin Lizzie” (Model T Ford) could come in “any colour as long as it’s black.” Certainly, if you catch a glimpse of a lovingly restored (or maintained) Model T at a car show or in a museum, you’re probably going to see a black one.
But did Henry Ford actually say this? Was black really the only colour that traditional Ford cars came in? Sorry to bust everybody’s bubbles of belief, but this is more or less an urban legend. Model Ts didn’t just come in black. Mostly black, yes. But all black, no.
According to one fairly well researched book on automotive history I came across lately, Ford used a number of different colours throughout the years. These days, you get several colour choices for your model, with slightly different colour choices for each different model in the marque. For example, the current line of Ford Fiesta comes in light blue, cobalt blue, white, black, orange, silver, medium grey and red. The Ford Territory, on the other hand, comes in dark red, bronzy brown, three different shades of grey, black, white and blue. Ford used to do this sort of thing right at the start of its production history. In 1909 to 1914, Fords came in red, green, grey or blue.
However, from 1915 to 1926, only one colour was available, mostly as a cost-cutting exercise. Hands up who can think what might have happened in 1915 that required businesses to cut back on costs? Well done to those who answered World War I and extra bonus marks to those who mentioned the influenza pandemic. After these global crises were over and people had a bit more money to burn – and when Ford’s competitors started offering a few more colours – colour came back to the Ford factory floor in Detroit. In 1926, green came along. In 1927, a veritable rainbow rolled off the production lines, with two shades of maroon, four shades of green, brown, blue and grey being on offer, alongside a colour that experts call “moleskin” – which sounds like a sort of black.
The reason why the story about Tin Lizzies coming in “any colour as long as it’s black” is because the main production years for the Model T was in the 1915–1926 period. Model Ts may have been basic black but they were cheap, which made them very, very attractive in the postwar period. They were probably a real godsend for the various social workers of the time across this tricky time: doctors could rush to seriously ill patients quickly with the motor car; vicars, district nurses and the like could do the rounds and bring aid to the folk they were responsible for more efficiently.
As to whether old Henry Ford actually said the thing about any colour blah blah blah, this book I got hold of is silent. He may have done during the black period of the Model T. But it wasn’t company policy or part of the image of the Model T. It wasn’t born to be black from the beginning. And if you’re very, very lucky, you can come across some of the gaudier models out there.
Level 2, 9 Help Street