McLaren dashboard comes to RunKeeper March 17, 2010
Posted by richard in : Technology, What I learned today , add a commentRUNKEEPER seems to have now done it – installed live tracking so joggers can stream what McLaren F1 now streams!
On Sunday, I ran the Silverstone Half Marathon. The RunKeeper profile this generated at the end is staggeringly fascinating for running geeks like me. And those who like to see wiggly maps of F1 GP circuits (like me again, then).
What I was trying to do, though, was let people watch my run live. When I started, they would see my GPS plot, and then track my pained progress as I hobbled around the course.
Alas, the functionality wasn’t quite there: the report was only generated once I’d finished.
Would you believe, 2 days later, RunKeeper launches this exact facility! This video explains all: more briefly though, it basically does what the genius McLaren dashboard does.
Sure, my runs are waaaay less interesting than a F1 car in action – but it’s still a really cool feature that YOU can integrate into YOUR fitness schedule.
So, if you were wowed by the McLaren F1 dashboard over the weekend, now’s your opportunity to do the same. Next event I run, I’ll be sure to try it out…
McLaren F1 dashboard on the cheap
Motorsport and Twitter aim for Groundswell February 7, 2010
Posted by richard in : Motorsport, What I learned today , 4commentsTWITTER as a networking tool is developing fast. Once again, I found out how useful it can be this week.
Trusty ol’ twhirl lit up green one morning: an @ reply to a Tweet! Exciting – particularly as it was from someone I didn’t know.
@JoshBensonGV picked up on some random price list musing I was Tweeting – that Volvo only fits heated seats as standard to the sportlich R-Design variant of XC60 compact SUV – with a smiley ribbing.
Smiley back from me: but who was this chap? Turns out, he’s a Brit FFord racer, who’s using social media in some very canny ways.
Typically, being British, he has little money to go racing. Typically, too, he’s pretty good. Just as Anthony Davidson should be in an F1 seat*, Benson’s stats show a fair turn of speed when he’s actually able to race.
So, he’s solving his cash quandary by being innovative. With the aid of Lesley at oneplusonemarketing, he wants to do for motorsport what the Arctic Monkeys and MySpace did for music.
Namely, create a Groundswell. Become the people’s driver. Gain a following, a community – level the playing field, ensure that talent gets you the seat, rather than the plain power of the corporate dollar.
‘The control of what we hear is over,’ reckons Lesley. The motorsport intent here is similar: to enable the good guys, who just so happen to be pretty good, get their chance.
Things hopefully kick off for Benson on 1 April up at God’s own motorsport garden, Oulton Park. I’ll try to be there – but, even if I’m not, Twitter will mean I’m as good as.
It’s certainly one for us social media devotees to follow. Now, who’s going to be the first to develop a motorsport section for MySpace?
* Little Ant may not be in an F1 seat, but if we’re being selfish, we can say he’s doing something even better: once again pairing up with Crofty on 5Live. They cover pretty much all the track action of F1 throughout the weekend, for the commentary pairing of your dreams. Tune in, stream it, podcast it, Tweet it, do anything to listen when the racing kicks off in Bahrain. It’s brilliant.
Why Japanese cars are square December 28, 2009
Posted by richard in : What I learned today , 1 comment so farWHY are Japanese cars so often the shape they are? Embracing the square, the angle, the straight edge?
I discovered why when visiting the Tokyo Motor Show back in September. Absolute magic dream, it was, to spend a few days in busiest Tokyo.
My, though, was it different. A bigger culture shock than any other country I’ve visited. Two examples: navigation is impossible, as all the signs are in Japanese. And you can’t expect, as we Brits usually do, that someone will speak English to help out. My walk, one afternoon, was thus eventful. And long.
Most striking discovery, though? That the whole of suburban Japan embraces the straight edge.
Square spaces, gaps, walkways and, indeed, holes. Into which round pegs just don’t work. Land prices, building regulations, plain lack of space – whatever the reason, square is the shape.
This geometricity somehow becomes natural, obvious, sensible. To see cars with curves thus becomes wrong. How one earth are they going to fit THAT easily into a parking back? Think of the wasted metal on display in THAT. And so on.
And this is thus why Japanese cars are square.
How to do motor industry PR brilliance November 9, 2009
Posted by richard in : What I learned today , 1 comment so farBANGERS4BEN is Car Dealer Magazine’s big money-raising car rally for the automotive industry charity.
BEN provides benevolence to those who need it, which takes serious funds. Hence, the Car Dealer Magazine challenge. MkII.
Plan? Buy an old banger, for £250, then drive it to John O’Groats. And back. No, it doesn’t sound at all simple. Despite this, a record 30 teams entered the challenge this year.
Including Hyundai’s PR office. And, having bought a ‘classic’ £250 Hyundai XG30 – aka Hyundai’s Rolls-Royce – the crew decided a little tweaking was called for.
Result? Brilliance. Utter genius. A triumph.
What? The Hyundai Hy-Roller, that’s what. This is not just any Hyundai XG30. This is a… Hyundai Hyundai XG30.
It’s been given:
• 2-tone paint
• Silver ‘chrome’ grille
• ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’ (or, for pedants, a spray-painted Barbie)
• Smart alloy wheels off a Hyundai Motor Show car
• Ribbons on the bonnet
• A be-capped driver and top-hatted ‘groom’
• A bride in the back (don’t fancy yours much, Mike, etc)
Yes – Hyundai’s PR top man Tom has turned it into a wedding express! Complete with Hyundai badge for his cap, and the grizzliest-looking blow-up bride you ever did see. Total magnificence.
Detailing, from the Rolls-style silver bonnet, to the chrome stick-on frames for the frameless (!) doors, is exquisite.
Where are they now? Somewhere north of Inverness, en route to John O’Groats.
There is no missing them. Meaning that Hyundai, in one fell swoop, shows the entire country its human side is a blimmin’ funny one.
Question is, are they coming back via Gretna Green?
Advice from Ford’s Walter Hayes
How Ford put the boot into the Sierra
Zen and the art of chucking out November 8, 2009
Posted by richard in : What I learned today , add a commentCAR industry chaps have done me a massive favour, by switching to online press packs and USB stick image files.
See, I’m rubbish at throwing stuff away. Great at hoarding stuff, mind. Bad state of mind for a motoring journo – gorgeous press packs, lovely images, books, boxes, nice things, all sorts. Delivered every day. And so very keepable.
Throw in magazines, books, leaflets, partworks, this, that and everything else, and you’ve one bulging house full of stuff. Indeed, TWO houses: I’m selling my gaff, so am at my parent’s place, filling this up, too. Not good. So, inspired by Zen Habits, I’ve started – shock horror – throwing away.
You read right. Throwing away.
All was going well, until last week. Sorted stuff for the recycling dump, and left a complementary pile of must-absolute-dead-cert-keep alongside. Rubbish taken to the dump, I then, err, forgot about the life-changingly-important stuff. Went to the Tokyo Motor Show for a week. Came back today, and found it had… gone. This, too, had been chucked.
Filled with dread, as I discovered this, my life flashed before my eyes as I stumbled, staggered, swooned and succumbed to shock. For half an hour, I felt the world had plain come to an end.
Then it struck me. I hadn’t, actually, looked at that stuff for, maybe, five years. Yes, some of it was interesting, but would I really use it ever again? See, there is a Zen argument: got too much stuff? Put it in a box. If you then don’t look at it for six months, (or feel the need to in that time) throw it. No messin’. Just bin it.
I’m not quite at such an advanced stage yet, but maybe there’s a lesson there.
I kinda like keeping stuff because I think it’s knowledge and insight on file. And, thus, stored learnedness. Really, though, it’s nothing of the sort. If I’m not doing anything with it, for years on end, it’s next to useless. It’s not in my head, but instead there, waiting, redundant, useless.
Theodore Roosevelt was, apparently, a great speed-reader: he, though, devoured info, soaked it up, maybe made a few notes. He certainly didn’t keep everything. He chunked it then chucked it.
This, Ricardo here needs a new mindset. Don’t lazily keep stuff. Do something with it. Indeed, the very title of this blog tells me what to do.
In the future then, here’s a commitment. To really tell you what I learnt today. Rather than leaving it sitting in a cupboard, gathering dust.
So, if anyone has any advice on how I should adopt this new soak-up-and-chuck mindset, please share it with me; I’ll reflect on it, and do the same…
The Maestro of the instruments
Wake up with the sun October 11, 2009
Posted by richard in : What I learned today , 1 comment so farSUNROOFS in cars have really fallen out of favour in recent times. Little wonder, now air con’s de rigueur.
But I had a revelation last week, that made me realise they still have their place – as lifesavers.
One test Renault Grand Scenic. Dynamique spec, with a few choice options, including the whizzy electric sunroof.
In the style of the Peugeot 205, this slides outside the vehicle, rather than inside, so looks super-cool on the move.
But, as well as popping ‘up and over’, it also tilts upwards, like the roof of every 1980s company car driver’s dreams. Tilting sunroof, at the turn of a knob rather than the crank of a handle. Majestic.
I did this, randomly, one morning. Know what happened? I immediately felt loads more awake. Why? Because all the stuffy air that was unknowingly rising within the cabin had an instant route to escape. There was now airflow in the Renault, from fresh in the vents, through me, and out the roof.
The carbon monoxide levels in the car plunged, I felt a million dollars and Renault had someone closer to justifying the heinous cost of electric sunroofs nowadays.
Far from being frozen out by air con, the sunroof still has a place – as a safety aid. Hot air rises. Here’s its escape route… meaning that bit less risk that it’ll be you relying on a lucky escape.
Of course, they probably knew all this in the 1980s already. Again: to learn, first you must look back…
Why Ford Econetics break the rules
RenaultSport past to inspire turbo future
How motoring writers used to do it October 7, 2009
Posted by richard in : What I learned today , 2commentsI don’t remember when car launches were for real men. Wish I had been about, though, back in 1983, when Peugeot launched the sacred 205.
A small airfield in the middle of bleakest Morocco, reported Car Magazine from the scene. Throwing it down with rain, it was. Within a Spartan hangar, PSA bosses were telling our man all about the 205.
Before sending him out to, over two days, drive 650 miles of the world’s worst roads. Now that’s a launch drive.
So, what were his surely slightly daunted first impressions? Well, he loved the looks, even if the rear end did look like an Austin Allegro (aye, what, etc).
He reckoned the heating and ventilation were ‘excellent’ (so wasn’t fazed by supermini air con being 15 years away – like I say, hardy souls), and deemed the ‘sufficiently precise’ four-speed gearbox passable.
His favourite model was the 60bhp 1124cc engine finding it the nicest and most well balanced of the lot. He didn’t like the GL trim, mind, finding it austere, and grumbled the GT had overly hard suspension, plus a noisy and relatively uncivilised 1360cc engine. Which wasn’t that fast, anyway.
The balance of typically French soft ride and near-Teutonic firmness of handling and roadholding made him happy. He wasn’t’ wrong there, either – the 205 was exceptional in both regards. The steering was also light and precise, brakes were progressive and the ride, he reinforced, could only be described as tres bon. Pity the soft seats spoiled his 650-mile epic.
Sure, it rolled. It also understeered a fair bit. But, by the end, our man nevertheless seemed to like it, even if he didn’t realise what an icon it in fact was. Maybe he was knackered from his 1000km epic across Moroccan deserts? Makes the 120km I’ve just done in a BMW 760Li seem like small beer…
Mind you, bet he didn’t have my 18-minute deadline for copy at the end, either.
Speaking live on City Radio FM
How to read a torque curve September 5, 2009
Posted by richard in : What I learned today , 2commentsTORQUE is all-important to the drivability of a car. if you want manic high-rev fun, you’ll get an S2000. Bags of bhp. No torque.
But if you want something that’s quick when you’re not, too, bag a Golf GTI. Decent power – but no shortage of Newton metres, either.
This was brought home by a drive in Renault’s Clio TCe. The 1.2-litre engine is lost in the bonnet, and it’s easy to miss the tiny turbo. But it’s this that turns it from languid to lugubrious.
The torque curves show why. Here, on the left, is the torque plot for the teeny 1.2. On the right is that for the teeny 1.2, plus turbo. The shape tells you what you need to know: on the left, it’s peaky. On the right, it’s flat.
For torque, peaky is bad. Flat is good. It means, with the TCE, you’ve got 135Nm NM from 1800 rpm – so it’s responsive in normal running. Has guts. At the same engine revs, the non-turbo is muscling out just 90Nm.
In other words, at the same engine speed, the TCe has 50 percent more muscle!
As most drivers both don’t like revving engines all the time, nor continually changing gear, this means that, everyday, the TCe is the more pleasant car. easier, punchier, more refined, nicer. Confirmed by a charge on the road; it’s a peach.
But this torquey profile made me realise that, actually, I could have garnered all this simply by looking at the torque curve. There was my evidence – merely confirmed by a test drive.
There’s something else, too. Weight. The Clio is a heavy car – 1080kg. So it needs a hefty slab of torque to counter this. A Peugeot 107? That’s got just 93 Nm of torque overall – but weighs just 800kg. So, doesn’t feel as torque-deficient as a Clio 1.2 non-turbo.
There’s a fair bit to all this – I’m looking forward to investigating more in the coming months.
Why Ford Econetics break the rules
RenaultSport past to inspire turbo future
What I learnt this week: 04.09.09 September 4, 2009
Posted by richard in : What I learned today , add a commentMG nearly launched an SUV
ARONLINE has come up with a real gem – a prototype of an MG off-roader!
Based on the SsangYong Rexton, it shows the genius of Peter Stevens; his restyled bit, the front end, really is properly smart, I reckon.
It was to be called MG due to licensing issues over the Rover name, and would most certainly have enraged MG die-hards.
I, for one, can maybe see the merits, though – despite the mediocrity of the base vehicle. What sort of benefits could a tie-up with SsangYong have brought, for example? Yes, the firm’s been in trouble recently, but it also has a very promising new contemporary Qashqai rival waiting in the wings.
Imagine if MG Rover had been able to get in early on a co-development, Honda-style, with this? Coupled with a Fiat Stilo-based mid-range hatch, and perhaps a Renault Espace-derived people carrier? Even a tie-in with Lotus-owning Proton? We can but dream…
Twist-beam rear suspension is fundamentally flawed
My obsession over rear suspension on front-drive cars continues. You’ll no doubt be delighted to hear.
Latest view? That of a chassis suspension contact. His view is that twist-beam rears can never be as good as the far superior multi-link alternative.
This is because of two fundamentals. They lack lateral stiffness. And they allow the wheels to far too readily camber-steer when cornering. In journo-speak, this is the difference between and floppy and stiff rear end.
Tuning is still a massive part of how a car will turn out, he says. But the base multi-link engineers have to work from is that much better to start with, so they stand a better chance…
Fuel is going up
FUEL has risen by 2p a litre. With VAT, that’s 2.3p a litre. For the average tankful, it’s £1 a shot up.
One fuel retailer is trimming the rise for another week. But surely, as fuel has been bought in advance, they all should, until current stocks run out? One to watch.
Even so, I’m filling up today.
Saloons are dead in the UK
RENAULT for years went against the grain and offered saloon versions of its mid-range Megane.
Not anymore. It’s just revealed the tidy-looking Fluence, which is built in Turkey and based on the excellent current Megane platform.
But there are no plans to bring it into the UK. Proving that family buyers want family hatchbacks, not fuddy-duddy saloons.
When one of the market stalwarts leaves the sector, you know it’s now of minimal importance. Which is what makes it such a tragedy that Chevrolet’s fantastic Cruze is saloon-only.
Give this baby a hatch (for which there are no plans, given its world car status – what, with the rest of the world preferring saloons), and it could be the bargain-buy family hatch of choice.
Alas, we’ll never know. But at least it ensures there will remain a future contender for the Star In A Reasonably Priced Car.
Why do people hate the Lotus Elan?
Advice from Ford’s Walter Hayes August 30, 2009
Posted by richard in : What I learned today , 4commentsFORD had an inspirational boss in Walter Hayes. The man who retired from the top job in 1989 rose to the top of the company through ‘exceptional vision and shrewd mind’.
Mark Hughes paid praise to him in Autocar. He explained how Hayes, more than anyone else, had masterminded a change in the public’s eyes of Ford. Fuddy-duddy to motorsport icon, performance master and, well, the exact opposite of the firm its name was once similarly joked about: British Leyland.
He was a former newspaper man, we learned. He used to work for the Daily Mail – and, when Ford decided it wanted a PR-led approach to rejuvenate itself, UK boss Sir Patrick Hennessy asked a pal of his who would be suited. That pal was Lord Beaverbrook…
Hayes subsequently jumped at the change, finding a firm, explains Hughes, packed with young talent. And one willing to listen to his public affairs ideas; after all, it was bred into the company.
Henry Ford, he explained, got it from an early age, and helped transform the company. And, what exactly is public affairs? ‘An all-encompassing external activity,’ one that covers much more than simple PR. It extends to long-term strategy, government relations, employee communications, motor sport, even the performance car strategy.
Hayes was the man behind the Cosworth DFV F1 engine. The Lotus Cortina. The Escort Mexico and RS2000. Formula Ford. Sierra Cosworth. You name all the fast Fords we idolise – and they were his doing. Surprising, for a man who admitted he didn’t like motorsport… maybe that’s why he admitted not to ever spending more than $1m a year on it?
It was because of Hayes that Colin Chapman became linked with Ford. Why? Because Chapman used to write a motoring column for him, while editing the Sunday Dispatch. Can you believe?! Proof that motoring journos do sometimes know stuff…
Former newspaper men do, too. ‘The Mini is a notorious example of a car which lost money through most of its life,’ said Hayes. So, how to approach Ford’s first-ever supermini, the Fiesta? Start in 1969 – seen years before it was launched. Spend four years taking every small car in the world to pieces, analysing every component. Then, massively research new manufacturing techniques. Result: the Fiesta made money ‘all the way through’.
He even predicted something back in 1989 that is now starting to occur – an ageing population Visionary thinker indeed: Hayes predicted that there will be a time where there is one retired person for every two in work – ‘with huge implications on car buying patterns’.
Once, the average couple had 2.2 kids and a Cortina, he said. By 1989, it was 1.7 children and an Escort. ‘This is why a changing market must be understood’.
‘If you have a good idea and the wit to sell it,’ reckoned Hayes, ‘you can do anything.’ This is what made him one of the most remarkable fellows in Ford history. Next time you hear mention of the Sir Walter Hayes Trophy, now you have a taster of why it, and he, are so highly esteemed.
Business acumen from Hayes? Includes:
• The importance of good mainstream models: There are far more poor people than rich people
• On harmonisation of legislation: ‘It does the baker a huge favour if regulations say that all cakes must have green icing and little red snowmen – he can get on with making nicer snowmen’.
• On Fords internal jingle: ‘perceived customer value,’ for appeal to customers who ‘have an almost instinctive ability to recognise good value for money’.
• On his approach to challenges: ‘I am an inveterate brain-picker; assimilating every idea that comes my way.’
• On business methodology: ‘The secret of success in the motor industry is not what you do, but who you are smart enough to get to work for you.’
How Ford put the boot into the Sierra
Why Ford Econetics break the rules
