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BEWARE the FOREIGN Auto – it’s HOTApr 02 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Well this one particular day the weather was absolutely perfect for touring.
It will probably come as a surprise that I am an authority on the pitfalls of foreign autos, but then, to be honest, what aren’t I an authority on? When I noticed this topic my mind flashed back several years to the funniest thing I ever saw. Well, really it was sad, but it made me sort of laugh. By now everyone should know that Victoria is Australia’s smallest Mainland State. They are so desperate for land one look at the boundary and you’ll see it’s all over the place like a mad woman’s breakfast. Admittedly the coast has something to do with it, but that’s no excuse. Anyway because of Victorias highly irregular shape, South Australians have to suffer driving through the North West corner when heading for say Sydney or Brisbane. Now it’s only about a hundred and fifty miles but it’s just about the best stretch of road in the country due to Victoria’s inferiority complex. The only trouble is the speed limit in South Australia is a bit over seventy miles an hour and since Victorians don’t drive so good there its only sixty. So you know don’t you! Yep, there are more Victoria Police Highway Patrol cars on this one road than LAPD in all of Los Angeles! Still it pays for the road I guess. Well this one particular day the weather was absolutely perfect for touring. At eight a.m. it was about ninety degrees and by nine it was past the century. Around a hundred and fifteen glorious degrees was forecast, no wind and quite seriously the dry heat like that just keeps you nice and warm. Well being a good, lawabiding but mostly broke little black duck we were cruising along at the sixty miles per hour limit. No David Murries – they weren’t going to get us. All of a sudden I notice a car in the rear vision mirror gaining fast, real fast and he went past us like we were standing still. It was a very near new Rolls Royce and I said to the boss “we’ll see them again”. Sure enough we did. Not stopped by the gun toters as I suspected but hood up in the first gas station in Mildura. Well I just had to have a look…………er………lend a hand. I climb out of the trusty Australian built ford, still reading cool on the guage and there is the Roller boiling it’s head off. Well the owner seemed a decent bloke so I figured he had stolen it but he assured me it was his. He had bought it in that little reef off Europe…er…England, that’s it, because he knew there was a three year waiting list here. Well naturally I asked him if he had had it converted and he gave me that Martian look. Well dear reader it works like this – Cars built in the Northern Hemisphere are built with cold weather in mind – in the Southern Hemisphere it is the opposite. They can be converted easily enough but unless they are my car for instance would totally expire at about 25 degrees but can run cool all day at 140 plus kilometres an hour (85 - 90 miles an hour). That is because we have much larger radiators, transmission coolers, heat deflectors all over the “hot” bits and often slightly bigger wheels and many other modifications. Now my little mate with his Rolls Royce was in heaps of strife. The motor appeared to be destroyed, the mechanic refused to touch it so really his only option was to have it put on a truck and taken four hundred miles to Adelaide to a Rolls Royce specialist. This wasn’t the cars fault at all, but a perfect example of what can happen. The big four vehicle manufacturers in Australia are Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford and General Motors. All export cars all over the world but each company is run basically autonomously of it’s parent because in most cases Australian built cars go to all the “hot countries”, especially Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The Toyota Avalon and Camry are built in both Australia and the USA, one a “cold version, the other “hot”. The Mitsubishi Galant (USA Name) is built here in Adelaide on a separate production line for left hand drive “cold” countries and another line for Right hand drive “hot” countries. I have carefully researched for many seconds these differing hemisphere vehicles and performance changes are negligible. At a recently non-publicised meeting between the chiefs of the four manufacturers here, an attempt was made to make a common vehicle that could handle both climates. However talks broke down rather rapidly. Mitsubishi’s Mr. Aussisun said it best when he said “ru ringyten yonrin yon ran”. Toyota’s Mr. Frwrrdosun said “Arso” so progress was being made. But both the Ford and GMH bosses reckoned they couldn’t understand. Despite Mr.Aussun’s offer “ Ringrish? Re rork ringrish rand rake ra rar” the meeting was called off. Oh well, maybe in the future when Toyota and Mitsubishi don’t have Americans in control. People all over the world can hardly ignore the lure of an Australian made car. So it is hardly surprising we sell more dollar value of cars than wheat, beef and wool. The Saudi Arabian’s would give their sheets for an Aussie car and they are the biggest single M.E. customers. Overall the USA is just in front of the mob. . GMH's Commodores (re-badged as Chevrolet Luminas and Caprices) are also sold all over the Middle East. The efficiency of their air-conditioning in coping with 50 degree-(125F) plus summer temperatures is a major selling point, plus near total reliability. Ford’s Falcon range meets the same levels of desirability and both give larger car options. With an export motor vehicle industry growing at near forty per cent per year everything possible is done to ensure you get the vehicle you want in trouble free condition right from new. And playmates, have I got a surprise coming for you!! Just watch this space…..well, ….er….. a new space about here in a few days. You lucky little lizards!  |
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