A Tasmanian champion of car design

A Tasmanian has designed one of the showcase cars at the recent Detroit Motor Show – the new Ford GT.   This was one of three headline grabbing cars revealed at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this month which were designed by Australians.

While Holden’s design studio in Port Melbourne was responsible for the design and construction of two of General Motors’ showpieces, over at Ford, the creation of its stunning GT supercar was overseen  by Tasmanian Todd Willing. 

The 'Tasmanian designed' Ford GT, unveiled at the Detroit Motor Show

Hobart born and bred, Willing managed a team of just six designers under a shroud of secrecy to create the mid-engined Ford GT in a secret location in the US.  He was reportedly not permitted to tell his family or friends what he was working on for more than 14 months!   

Willing told reporters at the car show ‘It’s every designer’s dream to work on a car like this.  A once-in-a-career opportunity.’

The car has special significance to Ford as the original Ford GT40 won the LeMans 24-hour race four consecutive times from 1966-69 after being defeated by Ferrari in the previous six years.

This new car controversially runs on a twin-turbo V6 engine rather than a V8, but Ford says it makes more power than its predecessor without burning as much fuel.

Willing has heard and seen the car being tested but as yet has not driven it.  And although it’s a ‘global car’ it will be manufactured only in left-hand drive and not sold in Australia.

Having managed the top-secret supercar project he has now returned to Australia as the head of Ford’s Asia-Pacific design studio in Broadmeadows.

It is the first time Australian designers have played such a significant role on the world stage and shows that we can still have some input into the worldwide automotive industry while the local manufacturing industry comes to an end. 

And it just goes to show the talent that comes out of Tasmania!

Manager Profile

It's time to put Invermay in the limelight, this month starring Mark Kruse, the service centre manager. Let's find out a bit more about him!

Favourite food:
Steak

Favourite football team:
St Kilda

How many years working on cars:
37 years (OMG!!!!)

And with Cooper Automotive:
2 years

Best thing about the work:
Satisfaction in carrying out good repairs and having the same clients coming back.

What makes Cooper Automotive the place to go?
Honest, reliable, fair pricing.

Most interesting car every worked on? Why?
The Triumph Stage V8 - British ingenuity at its very best.

What car would you buy if money were no object?
A Triumph Stag V8 - would have to win Tattslotto just to keep it on the road!!

Any gripes when on the road?

Drivers that sit in the right hand lane on a dual carriageway when not overtaking.

What's your top tip for keeping a car safe on the road?
Regular servicing and periodic checks of tyres, lights and fluids between servicing.

Is it safety, or just ‘Big Brother’ watching you?

We’ve talked before about technology advances leading to cars that drive themselves. Now we’re hearing the talk in the automotive world about a system to improve road safety that some say is a little bit ‘Big Brother’.

Many governments have attempted to introduce safety measures to reduce road collisions, with the majority of these initiatives tending to focus on enhancing road infrastructure. Japan, for example, reduced fatalities by 25% between 1970 and 2008 by improving street lighting, sidewalks and traffic flow at intersections.

Now a pioneering European emergency-call system for vehicles that aims to bring rapid assistance to road traffic incidents via a GPS tracker has attracted the interest of the automotive industry around the world.

In 2009, the EU launched its eCall initiative, a pan-European, in-vehicle machine-to-machine emergency call system designed to bring rapid assistance to drivers involved in collisions. In the event of a serious road incident, an eCall-equipped car automatically dials 112 (the Europe-wide emergency number) and gives emergency operators information relating to the incident, including GPS coordinates, the time of the incident and the vehicle identification number.

Operators can then dispatch appropriate assistance, which will speed up the response times of emergency services by 40% in urban areas and by as much as 50% in rural locations.

By enabling qualified and equipped paramedics to get to the scene within the crucial first hour of the incident, the eCall system has the potential to save about 2,500 lives in the EU each year and reduce the severity of injuries by 10% to 15%.

Now, countries around the world are waking up to the possibilities presented by technology as a means of improving road safety. Having pioneered the approach, the EU has ruled that from October 2015 all new car models in the EU will have to include an ‘eCall’ device.  The device, a little bit like an aeroplane ‘black box’ contains a phone-like SIM card which tracks a drivers’ movements. 

We have yet to see this system in Australia, although some global manufacturers already include the eCall devices in their latest models.

Some car manufacturers already include eCall devices in their latest models.

There have been concerns about cost as having the device will add to the cost of a new car without providing significant safety improvements unless the car has crashed.

The other major concern is privacy, as people fear that the technology could also be used by police or insurance companies to monitor motorists every move. The possibilities for technology to be used in this way are plentiful, and could certainly move that way in the future.

For the time being we’ll just keep an eye on what’s going on in Europe and see how much they’re keeping an eye on their motorists!

Cars that drive themselves

Many of us have dreamed of automated cars since watching Knight Rider in the 1980s.  But the thirst for such technology goes further back than that when a ‘drive-by-wire’ system was being tested by the UK government back in the 1960s.  See here the man reading his book at the wheel of an elegant Citroen DS19!

Look no hands!!

Now we’re well into the 21^st century and it seems that cars that drive themselves are not too far away.  Last year Mercedes-Benz and Nissan announced they will be selling a self-driven or ‘autonomous’ car by 2020. And the race to be the first is clearly on with Audi, BMW, Ford, General Motors and Toyota also developing technology that would allow cars to steer, brake and accelerate with little or no input from the driver. 

Nissan is reportedly working with universities around the world to develop the technology, and has invested in a test track in Japan that will replicate real life conditions for the self-driven cars being worked on. 

Meanwhile Mercedez-Benz stole the show at the Frankfurt (Germany) Auto Show in September last year with its S500 Intelligent Drive research vehicle. This vehicle had just retraced the first road trip of 103kms taken by the first passenger car (also a Benz) in 1888.

Watch a couple of videos here:

But it’s not just the automakers involved, as of course the need for advanced technology is a large part of the progress. Companies such as Nokia, IBM,  Continental and needless to say Google are just some of the players involved in the push for autonomous driving.

Many cars already have short and long range radars front and rear, and front-facing stereoscopic cameras to detect objects and distances.  The Mercedes vehicle seen at Frankfurt has added colour to the front facing cameras to deted traffic lights, a backwards facing camera to recognize and verify landmarks for more precise vehicle location and lane positioning, and additional front facing radars to better track oncoming traffic.

So while cars get increasingly more computer controlled and technology is advancing at a rapid pace it may just be the nervousness of authorities and insurance companies that are the largest hurdle to self driven cars.

Commuters can dream of being able to legally be on the phone or laptop while travelling to work in their own car. But will the roads be safe with no hands on the wheel?  Or will there be less accidents? What do you think?