Overdrive David Brown

G’Day and welcome to Overdrive, where we take a populous approach to issues about cars and transport.

I’m David Brown

In the program Paul Murrell from seniordriveraus.com and I deliberate on

• Car sales so far this year - Is it a correction or huge on-going trend
• There’s a new ute on the Australian market and we don’t mean the KIA
• Geographic boundaries and naming your car
• Our young intern discusses the Nissan X-trail
• Are the first Honda motor cars s600/s800 becoming collectable
• And we look at the history of eight sports cars that didn’t really make it

Originally broadcast 20 April 2024

A more detail rundown of the program
Car Sales for the first quarter of 2024
01:42
It is indeed now the FCAI, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, has heralded the results for March this year, saying they surpassed the previous record, which was achieved in March 2018 and in fact year to date.
Could the reason be that Toyota is finally appearing to have some supply to be able to sell.
03:55
Toyota must be very happy with the fact that hybrids are doing well. That is part of their big marketing.
04:21
Full electrics are about 9% of new car sales. Again is this just catching up with the rest of the world which is now showing some caution with electric vehicles
06:24
Federal Chamber of Automotive industries use the occasion to cast doubt about the New Vehicle Efficiency Standards

Another New Ute of the Australian Market
07:50
There's a newcomer to the Australian market and it's not the Kia at this age, although that is coming.
Is it?
10:00
China has many brands there were that we have never heard of.
11: 30
Other brands with utes, such as Great Wall Motors. LDV and SsangYong had a pretty good run but they are not doing as well this year.
12:54
How are the Pickups – the bigger than big utes going.
RAM is down. New playes such as the Ford F150 and some upgraded versions of Chevrolet Silverado are doing well

Alfa Romeo has a geographic name problem
14:11 DB
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet Shakespeare?
Alpha launched a new model and it's sort of a successor to the MiTo. So it's a small SUV, basically.

Nissan X-Trail
19:15
Over the last year, Nissan has upgraded four of its important models. The three SUV's and their sporty Z, and included in the SUV's is their most popular.
One of our young interns has had a look inside it and had.
Very much a prominent front end. So my initial thought was it's a big, big SUV. But as I kind of worked my way from the front to the back, it kind of became more normal. More familiar.
20:27
And the colour the sort of pastel they're they're bringing out rich coloured pastels. If that's not almost a contradiction, it's a very serious paint job, but it's not bright red.

Could The Honda S600 from the late 1960s be worth something
28:44
Haggerty, which is the American Classic insurance have noted that a number of cars cars are showing specific signs of gaining in value.
Some are the very early tiny little sports cars from Honda the S600 and S800.
Paul Murrell owned one. Did he regret selling it?
30:11
It was a delightful little car, a jewel of a car.

Sports cars that didn’t quite make it

33:27
MG VA (1937)
36: 19
Chevrolet Corvette (1953)
40:13
Mercedes-Benz 190SL (1955)
42:13
Porsche 912 (1965)
44:04
De Tomaso Mangusta (1967)
48:09
MGC (1967)
51:59
Ford Capri (1969)
56:25
De Lorean DMC-12 (1981)

G’Day and welcome to Overdrive, where we experiment with ideas and activities to do with cars and transport and their impact on our culture.

I’m David Brown

In the program we are joined by motoring journalist Paul Murrell to ruminate on

1. The gentleman who renovated his house so that he can keep his HQ Holden Monaro in the lounge room
2. The Mazda CX-3 and the image of Mazda that has made it successful but will it continue.
3. Look at executive vehicles and compare the Audi e-tron with the Kia EV9.
4. Discuss the carbon footprint of classic cars.

A more detail rundown of the program

Making an HQ Holden Monaro a lounge room feature

00:01:47
A Queensland man renovates his home and who's put this HQ Holden in his lounge room.
We tend to sort of put cars on a pedestal, both literally and figuratively. If you're in that much in love with a car, you wanna be looking at it more often. And if it's all locked away in the garage, then you probably don't see it as often as you would like.

Mazda CX-3 How does it fit the Mazda Image

00:09:48
Mazda sales o far this year are done a bit, but it has been #2 for a while.
But they have been the quiet achiever in many ways.
They tend to be well put together. Interiors in particular are nice, so people judge them almost on a on an out of date image if you like. They haven't really changed a great deal. They've had their odd issues here and there, but they present as cars slightly better than their price would suggest.
They have the CX3, they have the CX 30 and then they have the MX30 and you and I of course deal with these things all the time and even we get confused about which is which.
Mazda owns the elegant small SUV image if you like.

Kia EV9 versus an Audi e-tron – Which is the best executive car

00:19:54
Driving the Kia EV9. It is a large, some say ugly SUV. All electric with good electric performance and a lot of features to it. Then I hopped into an Audi sedan, a big sedan, the E Tron GT, and it made me think if I was an executive of a large company and wanted to both be pampered and appear to be pampered, I wonder which one I'd take.
You would never normally put those two cars in the same in the same ballpark, in the same sentence. I mean, the Audi E, Tron GT and the Kia EV9 are, on almost any level, very different vehicles.
But the back seat of large sedans are only comfortable when you push the front passenger seat as far forward as possible.
Whereas if you sit in the back of the EV9, there’s a lot of room and the top of the range EV9 has heated and cooled seats in the front AND second row of seats.
The EV9 is well suited for the executive trip to the airport.

In the upper large sedans and it's over $100,000 category, the Porsche Panamera is #1, but don't get too excited about it so far this year (the first quarter of 2024) they've sold 12.
Paul, yes, indeed, David. You should know that by now. I am a great fan of classic cars and.

How much do Classic cars contribute to pollution

00:36:33
You also know that I've objected fairly strenuously to the barrage of PR we're getting about electric vehicles are going to save the world. Well, not perhaps as much as we would have thought. A recent study by Footman James, who is a UK classic car insurer, has claimed that classic cars are in fact greener than E vehicles.
Its all to do with the amount of energy to produce a new car.



More Information


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Originally broadcast 13 April 2024

G’Day and welcome to Overdrive a program that samples as much as it can of the experiences of cars and transport

I’m David Brown

Social Media Feedback
• There has been a suggestion that we do away with the yellow phase in traffic lights altogether – is this a constructive revolution or destructive recklessness

Road Test
• We road test a large Kia electric vehicle – the EV9

Marcello Gandini – master car designer dies aged 86
• He came to prominence with the design of the Lamborghini Miura and went on to other groundbreaking designs.


Some highlights from the program (including times they start in the program)

00:01:46
An “expert” in road safety suggested that perhaps we don't need a yellow phase in traffic lights at all – it should go straight to red.
• There's evidence that the longer the amber time is, the lower the frequency of people running the red.
• The speed limit might be an issue.

00:06:43
A colleague said he went to India and got a taxi from the airport to his hotel. When he got to his hotel, he asked the driver which side of the road do they drive on because he couldn't tell.
00:07:16
The Woonerf proposal. It is defined as a living street, as originally implemented in the Netherlands and in Flanders. Techniques include shared space, traffic calming, and low speed limits. It is a proposal where you have to decide how you should behalf rather than rigidly defining spaces for pedestrians.

00:10:16
Brian has an Ioniq 5 but would he think about going to a bigger electric vehicle such as the Kia EV9?
• The EV9 it is an upper large SUV. It's over five metres long, but then again the big pickups now are about 6 metres
• They have two sizes of battery. There is the large at 76 kilowatt hours and there's the very large at nearly 100 kilowatt hours
• The base model weighs around 2.3 tonne to the top of the line that weighs over 2.6 tonnes.
• It's got great performance at the top of the range. One can do nought to 100 in 5.3 seconds.
• It's not a safe design to have the bonnet so high. It means that, you know anyone you hit with.

00:14:06 DB
The actually bonnet is quite high and underneath it of course there's a storage space with the smaller engine of the electric motor. You could perhaps lower the bonnet at a little. There's surprisingly though, the CD rating, the coefficient of drag is only 0.28
• It does look big and aggressive, although that does depend on the colour.
• Top range model has heated and cooled seats for the front AND middle row.
• Very easy to drive

00:17:32
Tell them the price, son.
• Base model, drive away price in NSW $107,200. The the top of the line GT line will cost you $142,200.
• Toyota Land Cruise between 106,000 to $156,000,
• Nissan Patrol from around $92,500 to about $106,000.
00:19:22
Charging: time and cost

00:23:38 DB
The sad death of Marcello Gandini, who was a person who designed some very significant cars, most notably, to begin with, the Lamborghini Mura.
Where does these low exotic European sports cars fit into our feelings?
• Scissor doors
• A Miura was destroyed at the beginning of the 1969 movie The Italian Job
• A mid engined motor V12 enormously and in 1965.
• He designed the Autobianchi for example, the what the MINI could have become if only the British had not sat on their hands.


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Originally broadcast 6 April 2024

G’Day and welcome to Overdrive a program that samples as much as it can of the pleasures of cars and transport

I’m David Brown

Feedback from social media posts
• The most verbose press release of the year so far – The Kia K4


Are young people still embarrassed by the car that they are driven to school in?

• Is it the car or the parents?
• For my son there were only a few cars that I could drive him to school in. I developed a key measure of the street cred of a vehicle “The Matthew Brown will you drive me to school in that car” factor.

Road Test – Nissan Juke

• It’s classified as an SUV!
• We asked a young intern what he thought the market for the vehicle is and how would he advertise it.

New vehicle efficiency standard
• It is a step in the right direction but compromises by powerful manufacturers have made it a shuffle rather than a stride


Segments of the Program

00:01:34
Understanding the psychology of pedestrians, not just drivers
00:05:48
Looking at transport issues with input from other than just engineers
00:07:04
Pictures of the Kia K4 concept car – the looks and the verbose press release that went with it.
00:12:51
Our young colleague Mitchell Ferguson discusses the K4 and what it may mean to Kia. Plus comments from our listeners
00:19:12
Thoughts from our mechanical engineer Frederick Brain who went racing in an historical event at Phillip Island in his 1969 Monaro last weekend.
00:22:06
Are young people still embarrassed by the car their parent use to drive them to school?
00:24:29
Road test of the Nissan Juke which is classified as a light that's the smallest category SUV
00:28:15
A young person’s view of the Nissan Juke
00:37:04
The federal government’s 00:18:47

00:41:54
Larissa Mirabelli - head of communications for Polestar Australia on an industry perspective of the NVES.


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Originally broadcast 30 March 2024

G’Day and welcome to Overdrive, where we mull over issues to do with cars and transport.

I’m David Brown

Feedback from social media posts
• Car of the year
• An art installation that has a rock crushing a Tesla

Road Test - Great Wall Motors Ora
• Electric car
• Comment from one of our Interns - a young persons perspective
• Comments from Dean

Phillip Island Classic
• Chat to Fred about the major historic car racing event last weekend at Phillip Island
• At the event there was a 1946 Maybach – a racing car that was made up from a World War II scout car – a great example of building something from what was available


Highlights from the program

00:02:39
The BBC, The British Top Gear have given their car of the year to the Ionic 5 in an electric vehicle. Times have changed a bit since Jeremy Clarkson was there. I don't see him as being one who would normally award an electric vehicle.
• Are car of the year awards definitive or at best indicative
• They are still making an Australian version of Top Gear - Why

00:05:46 - The motor vehicle in art.
A sculpture of a large stone head crushing a Tesla
Art can mean different things to different people. Is this a comment about:
• electric vehicles,
• a general problem with Tesla cars or an anti Musk statement? I
• It might even be lament that ancient stone headed traditions can squash project or. It might also be a cry to reject modern civilisation and a longing for ancient culture, because the head was one in the style of the old mech civilization which developed in the lowlands of South.
• Kim Bow wrote in and said it is a “New high visual impact, no parking signs”
• Brett McGrath said “I'm surprised it being the Tesla didn't catch fire”

00:08:26 – Great Wall Motors Ora Electric vehicle
• The Great Wall Motors Aura is a little-ish electric car. Now we have tested one in the past, but with this one we got was a long range. It had a bigger battery.

00:11:12 – Ora road test from a young person’s perspective
• First drive of an electric car
• Regenerative braking needs getting use to
• New technology with the interface with controls is certainly different
• Different look: How would your peer group react?
• Electric vehicles might suit young people because they need less maintenance

00:18:51 – Car looks and being driven to school
• Is it the car or the parents that are an embarrassment?

00:20:12 – Artist Deal Oliver talks about the Ora design
• Electric cars mean we are in a post radiator aspect of design
• The Ora looks a bit like a Mr Potato Head car

00:27:26 – The Phillip Island Classic Festival of motorsport.
• The biggest historic racing meeting in the Southern hemisphere
• 1946 Maybach – cobbled together from a German WW2 Scout vehicle
• 50th anniversary of L34 Torana (a GM sedan muscle car in Australia). Were there more on display than were ever made?

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Originally broadcast 23 March 2024

G’Day and welcome to Overdrive a program that samples as much as it can of the delight of cars and transport

I’m David Brown


Interview
Recently there was an article in a major media outlet on whether the amount of yellow light time at traffic lights is enough.
The article had some one-dimensional comments so we thought we would here from an export and in doing so raised issues of real behaviour change, a lack of corporate memory in government departments and can a technical expert survive if he has a testy attitude.

We are then joined by Brian Smith and discuss

Social Media Posts
Some listener feedback on our social media posts:
• The Chevrolet Impala from the early 1960s – An icon and large design
• The 1948 Wolseley that has been in the one family since 1952.
Driving a huge ute

And the driving experience of a very big ute. Chevrolet Silverado. What’s it like to drive and is it a perfect car for towing or simply an environmental disaster.

Some highlights from the program

03:40
The technical research behind changing the length of yellow time at traffic lights in NSW. In the late 1960s, the first section of the Sydney to Newcastle Freeway was constructed between Berowra and the Hawkesbury River, but the Hawkesbury River Bridge was still the old bridge, only two lanes wide.
The merging of the traffic needed lights at the bottom of a steep hill. The three second yellow timing was not enough especially for trucks.

06:05
The technical person who led the research was a bit feisty, but was technically right and had a very strong sense of morality and duty in spending public money. Could such a person survive in the public service of today.

11:09
Was there an all-red period in the signal operations and what does that mean for driver behaviour

13:01
The suggestion of increasing the yellow time is like chasing your tail to solve one issues but creating many others.

20:45
There is a desperate need to do more than look at academic research. We need to have some corporate memory of what has been done in the past so we understand the present and so that we do re-work the same issues over and over again.

22:10
How do we detect traffic and make sense of what we think is happening? Some of the technology has been around for a long time but modern possibilities have yet to prove cost effective.

33:58

Feedback from listeners and social media. A 1948 Wolseley that has been in the one family since 1952. Was part of a television documentary about General Macarthur

36:02
Feedback about some pictures of the Chevy Impala. Brians favouite toy car when he was a child

39:18
The Chevrolet Silverado Pickup. David got to drive the new one while Brian hates the very thought of it.

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Originally broadcast 16 March 2024