Jil McIntosh

Safety first!

In today's Toronto Star, I have a short piece on seven tips for vehicle safety. You can find it by clicking here.

Those were the days ...

That's me, age 13, on my mother's new car, a 1972 Plymouth Scamp. (She just about had a bird when the photos came back from the drugstore.) I learned to drive on that car when I was 17, and not long afterwards, it became the first car I owned. Less than a year after I learned to drive, believe it or not, the city of Toronto gave me a taxi driver's license.

I was thinking about that Plymouth the other day, and the cabs I drove in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when I was assessing a brand-new car and marking against it because it had very few storage cubbies.

How times have changed. My Plymouth had a glovebox and an ashtray, and that was it. With the cabs, we'd sometimes buy plastic consoles that sat on the transmission hump. They could be a pain if someone wanted to sit in the middle, though, because most cars had front bench seats.

Cars didn't have cupholders back then, save for the inside of my glovebox's metal lid, which had a couple of indentations to hold a mug if you stopped at A&W for a root beer. I don't remember people drinking anything when they actually drove. We did in the taxis, because there wasn't time to stop. Coffee shops used styrofoam cups, not paper, and we'd wedge them between the dash and the windshield. Some guys bought cupholders that hung off the windowframe, but they were more trouble than they were worth. We'd put a lid on the cup and then tear out a hole so we could drink on the go, and sometimes passengers would marvel at such a great idea. Now the lids come with the holes already scored.

Cars didn't have door pockets. They didn't have a mirror on the passenger door, but they did have vinyl roofs that were definitely not the stylist's finer moment. If you ordered a rear defogger, it was a fan in the parcel shelf that blew warm air on the window, very noisily. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven the day I got a taxi that had air conditioning, power windows and power locks. It was like driving a Cadillac. And those were back in the days when the only thing better than a Cadillac was a Rolls Royce. Good heavens, I feel old.

A discussion with GM's Larry Burns

On Canadian Driver today, I have an interview with Larry Burns, vice-president of research and development at General Motors. A fascinating man, and with quite a bit to say on the future of transportation, including the work his company is doing in that direction.

While the issue of oil dependency and future technologies comes with as many opinions as there are molecules in hydrogen, he presented a number of issues I hadn't considered before. I don't know if I came away sold on all of them, but I'll say this -- I'm putting a lot more thought into the total effect that any form of transportation will have, even when it's one that I think is a solid one. I'm still a fan of diesels, for example, but Larry gave me a lot to think about when he told me that they may not be the way to go. There are a lot of people who'll tell you that "this" is the answer. I'm more interested in those who say this might be it.

The story's available here.

Premium fuel: yes or no?

This was the sight that greeted me at the gas pump today when I filled up a vehicle. Fortunately, my ride called for 87 octane, which was "only" $1.25 per litre. The premium stuff represented a jump of 12 cents a litre. That would have added about eight bucks to my total.

The Internet's awash in articles on whether most cars really need premium. Few will come out and actually say you can run the lower-grade stuff, liability being what it is, but the general consensus seems to be that if it isn't turbo- or supercharged, the lower grade should see you through.

Things were different way back when, before cars had computerized fuel management systems and knock sensors, and using a lower grade could damage a higher-performance engine. Today's cars can make up the difference by dialing back a little, which shouldn't be too much of an issue to the average driver. I don't know about you, but I doubt I'd be able to tell if my car was producing 300 horsepower instead of 302.

I have another unproven pet theory, and it has to do with prestige and image. Many of the premium-brand manufacturers call for high-test across their entire product lines, regardless of engine size or horsepower. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you will, but I wonder if the thinking is that premium fuel = premium car ... and a car that takes "regular" fuel is, well, just a regular vehicle. In other words, it ain't the car that needs the expensive fuel, but the owner's ego.

Gas pump advertising: make it stop!

As if it isn't bad enough that I'm paying $1.25 a litre for 87-octane fuel, I now also have to listen to a television commercial while I pump my gas.

If you haven't seen one of these things yet, count your blessings, but trust me: it'll be coming to a station near you. It's a screen atop the pump that comes to life as soon as the pump turns on and gets ready to dispense fuel. While $62.83 quickly drained from my gasoline card to fill a Volvo tester, I got to listen to extremely annoying ads shilling pizza, bottled water, and something to do with the Olympic team.

Enough already. I can turn off my radio or television if I don't want to listen to an ad. The same courtesy should be extended when I'm at the pump. If I want to know about the price of pizza or whatever the Olympic team is doing, I'll make an effort to find out. In the meantime, I'd like the gas companies to shove these infernal advertising devices up their pipelines. Hard. Oh, and considering that these advertisers have paid Esso good money for the privilege of annoying me ... why isn't the gas any cheaper?

No dogs allowed ... for safety's sake

In the news: there's a bill pending in California that would make it illegal to drive with a dog on your lap.

I don't have a dog -- I live in a house owned by a cat -- but while I think it's sad that we have to legislate common sense, I hope this one passes swiftly, and then spreads rapidly to other jurisdictions.

I've seen plenty of dogs, both small and larger than expected, wedged in behind the wheel in the driver's lap, and I have to wonder what people are thinking. Collision avoidance can require rapid wheel movements that these drivers simply can't make because Rover is in the way.

Beyond that, an unrestrained dog is unsafe for both pet and people. If the airbag deploys and a dog is in the front seat -- whether on the driver's or the passenger's lap -- the airbag will undoubtedly kill the dog. In the back seat, the dog will be thrown violently about, either injuring itself or becoming a projectile that injures human passengers. In short, the safest place for a pet is in an approved car harness that locks into the seatbelt, or in a pet carrier.

Many people complain that their dogs don't like being confined that way in an automobile. So what? I'm sure there are plenty of children who'd love to stand up on the seat unrestrained. Would you let him have his way just because he doesn't like the seatbelt? Or do common sense and safety trump the wishes of someone incapable of comprehending the danger? Do everyone a favor -- when you buckle up, buckle up your dog as well.

Dodge, Mercedes and Mother's Day

I feel like I wrote half the Toronto Star's automotive section today. First up, because tomorrow is Mother's Day, I did a piece on my mother's love of cars. (She's the one sitting on the '51 Ford at left.) You can find it here.

I've got a review of the Mercedes-Benz C230, the entry-level C-Class sold only in Canada, which is here.

And finally, you can find my opinions on the Dodge Caliber by clicking here.

Writing about cars: it's all about the audience

Every now and again, I do a Google search on my name, just to see what's there. (C'mon, admit it, you do it too.) It seems I'm frequently a topic of discussion: I have a fairly sizeable fan club which, as the saying goes, wouldn't walk across the street to spit on me if I were on fire.

They're enthusiasts, and their basic complaint is that I don't write what they want to read. It's one of the major quandries of the profession: what audience are you trying to reach?

When it comes to automotive work, I find there are generally two types of readers. The first are people who aren't all that familiar with automobiles, and they're using reviews as a tool to help them make a buying decision. The second group consists of very knowledgeable drivers, who usually aren't buyers, and who read the reviews mostly for entertainment. My anti-fan club comes from this latter group; their main complaints are that I'm not technical enough, and that I talk too much about aspects of the car that don't interest them, such as wasting word count on cargo space and interior appointments.

Long ago, I decided that I wanted to focus on the first type of reader. I like helping people; I like explaining things to readers. I think the tone of my writing is suited to those who want to be walked through a car from bumper to bumper. The bulk of these readers will never take a car on a track, or feel the way it handles when tossed around a switchback. I respect the enthusiasts who do, but I'm not writing for them.

When I first started reviewing, the newspaper put me strictly on economy cars. I took a ribbing from some of my colleagues, who asked when I was going to start writing about "real vehicles". It bothered me, until one very wise writer said to me, "Someone who's spending $75,000 on a sports car doesn't give a damn what you think. But someone who's only got $16,000 to spend does, because she's depending on you for guidance."

That advice is as fresh today as when I first heard it. Decide who your audience will be, and then write for it. There's a large market for the entertainment articles, and I very seriously admire the brilliant work in publications like Auto Week and Car and Driver. But there's an equally large demand for bread-and-butter stories, and that's the direction I chose. First and foremost, it pays the bills, and secondly, it gives me satisfaction to know that my articles can be helpful to people. And third, it gives my anti-fan club something to talk about each week.

Drivers: we're all getting older

I spent the morning at a symposium on aging drivers, and it certainly opened my eyes. I'll be putting together a full article on it, but even before I get into that, it's given me a lot to ponder.

I watched my grandfather lose his license, and my father-in-law, and it was not an easy experience for either of them. The symposium touched on a lot of issues, such as restricted licensing rather than simply taking the license away; how to realize when you're no longer able to drive, and the need to self-regulate; issues surrounding alternatives, such as lack of public transit, especially in a rural area such as where I live; and whether elderly drivers are overrepresented in crash statistics.

Time catches up to you before you even realize it's there. Yesterday, I was 25, or so it seems; the reality is that I'll be 50 next winter. I like to think I'm as sharp as I ever was, especially since I've had the opportunity to take numerous driving and racing instructions thanks to my job. But when I stop and look at it with an objective eye, I do notice that I don't drive as fast as I used to, and I tend to wait a couple of seconds longer to be sure that traffic has cleared before I make my turns. I also find that I make more "final checks" than I used to do -- and I know it's because I'm making sure I haven't misgauged the speed of oncoming cars.

So given that, will I know when the time comes? Will I be smart enough to say that I'm not fit to do this, or will I be the senior citizen who needs intervention before I'll give up a license I no longer deserve to hold?

It's a tough thing, this getting older, especially since we all feel that we're the first people to ever go through it. When my grandfather was 95, he was interviewed by a magazine, and he said that he didn't recognize the old, wrinkled man he saw in the mirror. I was 33 at the time and didn't understand what he meant. It was a bit of a shock the day I looked in the mirror and did.

Why I don't like car auctions

Last year, at a cruise night, someone came up and looked at my 1947 Cadillac. "That's worth about $80,000, right?" he asked.

That's about four times its value, but rather than give him a deal at $65,000, I asked what made him guess so high. Well, he said, one went at Barrett-Jackson the other night for that.

I don't like car auctions. They're too big, too noisy, and after a half-dozen go over the block, far too monotonous. But what I really don't like is that I think they're detrimental to the old-car hobby. Just as celebrity chefs have sent trendy fish to near-extinction, car auctions have sent otherwise ordinary vehicles into the stratosphere, from which they seldom return. Instead of people driving their cars to shows and cruise nights, piling in the family to go for an ice-cream run, and having fun with the old-car hobby, buyers have become speculators. They treat these machines like mutual funds, storing them away until the next sucker pays $150,000 for a 1958 Chevrolet and they bring them out in the hopes of getting rich.

Look around you: old-car owners are old. When I ask what it'll take to keep this hobby going into the next decade, the answer's always the same: "We need younger people to get involved." But if you're determined that your hot-rodded '32 Ford won't change hands for less than $75,000 -- because that's what they're all asking in the National Street Rod Association's classifieds -- what younger person do you think is going to buy it? And if they do invest that much into it, where do you think they're going to drive it?

I saw it in the money-soaked 1980s, when cars ran on cash instead of gasoline; it wasn't uncommon for speculators to buy and flip them without even seeing them. In 1982 I turned down a 1959 Cadillac at $5,000 because it was overpriced; five years later, they were trading at $60,000. Not every car that crosses the auction block is ridiculously priced, but these are soft-porn TV shows, and they're going for the money shot. If you can get someone to pay you eight times what your car is worth, well, good for you. But then don't complain when you go to a "classic" car show, and a Chrysler K-Car is the oldest thing there.