Loud and pointless
The Smart Forgigs comes with five amplifiers, 16 speakers, two 11.8-inch subwoofers and 100m of cabling.
In what is no doubt an effort to trick young people into caring about cars, Smart has teamed up with the JBL speaker company to create a car that old people will just complain about — the Forgigs.
What might appear to be a Fortwo with a silly name, the Forgigs hides 5729 watts of audio firepower. Five amplifiers, 16 speakers, two 11.8-inch subwoofers, 100m of cabling and 10sq m of extra insulation make the Forgigs a noisy little machine — 150 decibels, to be precise.
Add in a bunch of ambient lights that the user can control and you have something completely pointless.
By the way, in case you didn’t realise it, the new Smart Fortwo comes with a JBL audio system ... just not this particular one ...
Down to earth
The AeroMobil prototype flying car has hit turbulence.
Flying cars are something we have always wanted. But they have always hovered futuristically off in the distance, despite what The Jetsons promised.
There has been some promise recently: AeroMobil stated that it would have a flying car on sale by 2017.
Fantastic, we thought, soon we will have a bunch of idiots flying around above us displaying the same lack of good judgment and common sense they do on the ground now.
Fear not! A future of falling debris and “drink-flying” is probably not quite as close as AeroMobil hoped. Mainly because their prototype did the one thing a flying car really shouldn’t do. It fell out of the sky.
According to the company, “During one of the test flights that took place on May 8, 2015, the inventor and test pilot, Stefan Klein, encountered an unexpected situation and activated the advanced ballistic parachute system at an altitude of approximately 300m.”
Klein was unhurt and the prototype is repairable, but it highlights the biggest hurdle that flying car manufacturers will have to overcome before they are accepted as a legitimate form of transport — NOT falling out of the sky.
We are the world
■A UK man recently came up with a brilliant plan to transport his sick wife to hospital — dress up as an ambulance driver, stick a flashing light on top of his Renault Laguna and tape an “Emergency Response” sign to the side of it. It worked, but only for a while. When Phillip Lemonheigh was caught by a speed camera doing 73mph in a 50mph zone heading away from the hospital he was forced to admit he was running errands. Oh, and that he had no driver’s licence either.
■Police in China were surprised by the contents of a small six-seater people mover — 51 people. It seems that the rear seats had been removed to fit 49 people in the back while the driver and front-seat passenger sat in relative comfort. They were construction workers desperate to get to a site for work, which is kind of sad. But, hey, it was still mighty impressive.
Become an expert at backing trailers
Do you have trouble backing a trailer? Do you find your embarrassing lack of co-ordination a rationalisation for buying a thoroughly and unnecessarily massive ute?
Well, you probably shouldn’t buy a thoroughly and unnecessarily massive ute. But if you insist on it, Ford has come to your rescue.
The company has added a new function to the 2016 model year F-150 that will be a massive boon to the left-brain deficient — Pro Trailer Backup Assist.
Pro Trailer Backup Assist basically takes that whole incapability to grasp the laws of physics and makes it a little easier by giving you a screen and a mini-steering wheel that allows the driver to “steer” the trailer.
Basically, you let go of the steering wheel and use the screen, turning the knob in the direction you want the trailer to go and the system does the rest. The F-150 also has self-parking.
It’s a worry that anyone who buys something that big can’t back a trailer or park properly, though.
Out of this world
The Jurassic World film also features a Mercedes Benz Unimog, cast as a dinosaur ambulance.
Mercedes-Benz is back on the dinosaur-themed product placement bandwagon with its return to the Jurassic Park franchise. Following its successful launch of the M-Class in The Lost World, the German company is using the latest movie to show off its new weird coupe-y GLE (just think of it as Merc’s version of the BMW X6).
And there are other cool vehicles apart from the GLE. Mercedes is also supplying a monstrous G63 AMG 6x6, a bunch of 4x4 Sprinter vans and — best of all — a brilliant “Mobile Veterinary Unit” Unimog!
That’s right — an ambulance for dinosaurs. That is very cool. And, yes, there is (of course) a Lego set available.
Internet delivers verdict
The BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage is an attempt to echo some of the marque’s classic lines of the 70s.
BMW has outraged styling experts across the internet with the unveiling of its latest “modern interpretation of an old car”, the 3.0 CSL Hommage (nope, we have no idea why there are two m’s either).
While the car is not exactly attractive in a conventional sense, it is certainly aggressive and features some great touches. A blend of modern BMW styling language and the classic 3.0 CSL’s blunt lines gives the wonderful impression of a current M6 wrapped in some sort of 3.0 CSL disguise.
The Good Oil thinks it looks awesome. But then The Good Oil also thinks Maggie Gyllenhaal is kind of hot in a weird “sad turtle” sort of way.
But BMW forgot one thing — to ask the opinion of the internet, where comments on the concept car include put downs like “the old one was way better”.
Number Crunching
21 PEOPLE
Squeezed into a Citroen 2CV in Austria in 2009
25 PEOPLE
Jammed into an original Mini in South Africa in 2013
34 PEOPLE
Wedged into a VW Kombi in Florida in 2010
42 PEOPLE
Crammed into a Jaguar XJ6 in Jacksonville, USA, in 1984