A biweekly roundup of automotive news, good, bad and just plain weird:
Meet Rolls-Royce’s SUV: Project Cullinan
Thomas Cullinan was a South African bricklayer-turned-diamond-magnate; he made his fortune at the dawn of the 20th century. The largest diamond ever found was discovered in one of his mines, a 3,106.75 carat monster that was cut into several smaller diamonds, including the Star of Africa.
So, a name that seeks to establish a heritage with the Crown Jewels themselves, attached to a gargantuan SUV with styling like the Cliffs of Dover. Rolls-Royce isn’t run by idiots – they’ve taken one look at the profitability of the Bentley Bentayga and decided to have a go at building their own luxury-utility whatever. Dubbed Project Cullinan, this mega-diamond in the rough can currently be seen running around in camouflage, working out the technical kinks.
In the plus column, there is no way the Cullinan will turn out to be worse than the Bentayga, which is uglier than an inside-out rhinoceros. The Bentayga looks bad in pictures, but I am happy to report that in person it’s even worse.
The Cullinan at least has the proper dimensions of a Rolls, with a lengthy front end. The rest is basically the Rolls-Royce Range Rover, and you can expect both an eye-watering price tag and seats made out of minks and leprechauns.
If they make one with dual belt-fed Lewis machine guns, I will tip my cap to the Cullinan, in light of the armoured Rolls-Royces. Otherwise, it’s just the world’s biggest cubic zirconium.
Dodge Challenger gets all-wheel drive
Care to dispute the clumsy muscle car image with a little frolic in the snow? The new Dodge Challenger GT has a trick up its sleeve: power to all four wheels.
Like the related all-wheel-drive versions of the Charger, the Challenger GT is only available with a 305 horsepower V-6, and you can’t get it with a manual transmission. It also rides higher than the standard car, and it has to be said that the wheels aren’t the most attractive pattern out there.
So what? Rip ‘em off and slap on some steelies with the most aggressive winter tires you can find. Then, drive up to the North Pole so you can deliver your wish list to Santa in person.
DOT eyes mandatory V2V communication
Ideally, we’d all do a better job of talking to each other in traffic. People wouldn’t forget to use their turn signals, drivers and pedestrians would remember to make eye contact, you’d always wave after a merge; basically, you’d try to make sure the lines of communication were open.
But if people can’t manage to talk to each other, maybe cars can instead. The U.S. Department of Transportation announced earlier this week a proposal to make vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications equipment standard on all new passenger cars and trucks by 2023. At this point, it’s still just a proposal, but the results would be far reaching.
Currently, semi-autonomous features rely on cameras, radars, and lasers to detect other cars. However, if both vehicles were actually feeding information back and forth, you wouldn’t need line-of-sight. Your car could literally know if there was another car around that bend, and be prepared to take action if need be.
Of course, such a rule would also mean that your car was broadcasting information about where you were going, and how fast you were going. The insurance companies would probably be pretty happy about that, but anyone who’s ever read any George Orwell might not be in such a rush to adopt the technology.
Rinspeed Oasis is a gardener’s delight
When the autonomous future arrives, all sorts of previously silly ideas will become possible. Without a human driver, we’ll have everything up to and including a mobile pub that picks up customers as it drives along. Hang on, I’m patenting that idea.
Rinspeed, the wacky Swiss firm known for building a Lotus that turns into a submarine, along with other oddities, has decided that what the autonomous car really needs is a garden.
The Oasis is a fully electric wheeled pod that looks a bit like a minivan, a bit like a greenhouse, and a bit like a shuttle from Star Trek. It’s got room for two passengers, there’s a rear box that opens to fit pizza boxes for some reason, and there’s a little garden in the nose of the car.
It all sounds pretty weird, even for Europe. However, the Oasis does at least point out an important point. Once cars don’t need to be designed around the driver, they’ll have to turn into mobile living rooms – the interior designers of the future will be working on cars.
Watch this space for all the week’s best and worst of automotive news, or submit your own auto oddities to [email protected].
