Is this the ultimate fuel miser?
Hyundai, a company which is currently
going from strength to strength, has announced their
LPG-hybrid, which almost equals Toyota’s Prius
gasoline-hybrid for consumption, but LPG costs much less
than gasoline at the pump.
Hyundai
Elantra
After being clothed in secrecy for some time, Hyundai
Australia executives visited South Korea to evaluate a new
hybrid LPG version of the Elantra that could use as little
as $10 a week in fuel. Senior Hyundai research engineer Dr
Sungho Lee says the company’s hybrids are typically
achieving roughly 5 liters per 100 km. That compares with
4.4 L/100 km for the Prius, but with LPG selling for much
less than petrol, the small Hyundai’s annual fuel costs
would be less than half those of a Prius and much lower than
the ubiquitous Toyota Fortuner, for example. The Hyundai
could travel close to 300 km on $10 worth of fuel and would
probably have the lowest operating costs of any car in the
mass market.
Hyundai Australia executives visited Korea three weeks ago
to see the vehicle and to be briefed on technical
specifications. Hyundai’s director of sales and marketing,
Kevin McCann, said “The situation is that while we would not
like to be announcing that we are definitely bringing it
here, it is under serious consideration. There are a number
of things to be clarified. We need to weigh up things like
the cost and how it would be accepted by consumers, but it
looks like a very viable alternative.”
Since Australia already has the LPG distribution
infrastructure, through the petrol service stations, this
hybrid would certainly make sense down under, but with the
poorer infrastructure here, introduction of such a vehicle
could be premature.
The launch date of the new car in Korea has been brought
forward by several months to the middle of 2009. Hyundai has
already put roughly 100 hybrid LPG prototypes through
performance tests and is in the process of final validation
of the system.
The Elantra hybrid is believed to use a 1.6 liter
LPG-powered engine, backed up by a 15 kW electric motor,
driven through a continuously variable transmission. The LPG
hybrid car has a lithium-ion battery supplied by LG Chemical
Ltd
The Elantra hybrid is fitted with the first of three new
hybrid systems the Korean manufacturer is developing. The
second hybrid system, with a larger electric motor, is
expected to be launched in the mid-sized Sonata in 2010,
while the third hybrid system is a plug-in hybrid (which can
be recharged from a regular power point) that can operate on
the electric motor alone over certain distances.
With vehicles like this Hyundai, the need to bring in oil
from overseas will fall, as well as all the greenhouse gases
which are (said to be) the main culprits in global warming
(which the people in Vladivostok are, however, looking
forward to).
Car collectors wanted
After being invited to the opening of John Richardson’s car
collection in Ban Chang, it made me think of collecting cars
and two interesting ones have come up this month. The first
is Steve McQueen’s famous Porsche 908 Spyder which is up for
sale in the US.
Porsche 908
camera car
Fresh on the heels of movie legend James
Coburn’s Ferrari fetching a world record $11 million at
auction now it is Steve McQueen’s Porsche.
Fans of McQueen’s 1971 movie Le Mans, based around the
famous 24 hour race, will be watching the auction in the US
in August with great interest.
The 1969 Porsche 908 Spyder sports car is the one that
McQueen and F1-racer Peter Revson finished second in at the
1970 Sebring 12 hour race before it became the world’s
fastest camera car in the Le Mans race the same year. Two
cameras were mounted on it to produce footage for the Le
Mans movie.
The 908 Porsche Spyder is expected to bring between
$1.5-$2.1 million. Dig deep.
The second collectible is another race car, this time in
Australia. It is the MG which British Leyland called in
1971, “The world’s fastest MGB” has just been offered for
sale.
The advert runs: MGB Super Bee 2 as raced by Dr Iain Corness
for Young Lions British Leyland race team. In storage for 30
years and needs restoration. Has 160 hp push rod engine,
close ratio gearbox and limited slip diff, all engine
internals are British Leyland race parts. 5 magnesium
Minilite wheels. Also a 1500 MGA twin cam engine with MGB 5
bearing block crank and rods to build up a 2 liter MG twin
cam engine which was in car when raced by Iain Corness.
$25,000 for complete package.
Now this race car I know very well, because this is the one
I built and developed and raced 1969-1970-1971 for British
Leyland. For the 1972 season, it was outlawed by the motor
sport authorities in Australia as being “too fast for the
(Prodsports) class” saying I would have to run in the top
class against CanAm McLarens and the like, so I stuck it in
the garage in disgust and went motorcycle racing instead. In
1974 it was bought by twins Peter and John McCabe, but they
never raced it. Peter was killed in an accident at the
Lakeside circuit in Queensland (not in the MG) and their
mother extracted a promise from John that he would not race
it, and it was stored under the family home in Murwillumbah
in Australia. When John died last month from cancer, he had
just advertised it for sale. In its final guise, with the
two liter twin cam engine (the first MGB twin cam in the
world) it set lap records at every circuit it ever raced at,
but unfortunately had a finishing record of only 50 percent.
It was only after the final blow-up that we found the cause,
and the reason remains in my head until someone makes a
replica of that engine!
Now before you start working out the exchange rate between
baht and Aussie dollars, the import duty getting it into
Thailand is 1.8 times the value placed on it by the Thai
Customs department - not what you might have paid for it!
Ouch!
Super Bee in
1971
Autotrivia Quiz
Last week I mentioned that two speed rear axles are
common in trucks, but not so common in cars. Voisin had them
in 1928 and Auburn had them in 1932, but two speed rear
axles were used even before then. They were used in 1909 in
a British car. I asked what was it? Clue - the name became
well known in a British racing car in the early 1960s. The
answer was the 1909 Cooper; this was a two stroke, and the
company was not related to John Cooper of the Cooper F1 and
Mini Cooper cars (I believe).
So to this week. The film The Graduate and Guidobaldi
Trionfi of Brescia had much in common. Guidobaldi won an
Alfa Romeo which starred in the movie, after giving the
model its name. What did he call it?
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be the first correct
answer to email [email protected]
Good luck!
What did we learn from
the Canadian GP?
Well, the first thing we learned was that it was
not worth staying up to 2 a.m. just to watch it. It was a
travesty of a race - in fact it was not a “race” at all, but
rather a lottery as to where you were when the safety car
was deployed. Hard fought advantages became nullified
immediately and in the resulting jumble that followed we had
the sight of Barichello in the uncompetitive Honda leading
the race.
Having said that, the race winner deserved the top step of
the podium. Robert Kubica in the BMW did not put a wheel
wrong anywhere. Having started from second on the grid, the
safety car did him no favors either, but he was able to
build up the buffer needed to win, while other drivers were
just winning walls. Kubica is now ‘hot property’. Nick
Heidfeld, BMW’s second driver (and he is the ‘second’ driver
these days), was in the right place at the right time and
gave BMW their first 1-2. He needs a few more podiums, or
else he will be replaced by Sebastian Vettel next year.
Lewis Hamilton (McLaren Mercedes) showed that he had the
speed being 0.6 seconds quicker than Kubica in qualifying,
but still lacks maturity. He was disadvantaged by the safety
car period, but was so intent on getting back out into the
race when both Raikkonen (Ferrari) and Kubica went past him
while he was being refueled, that he did not see the fact
that both of them had stopped at the pit lane exit red light
and drove straight through and into Raikkonen. (Perhaps he
has been taking lessons in Thailand?) Kubica in the post
race interview even thanked Hamilton for choosing the
Ferrari, rather than his BMW! Hamilton also received a
penalty of a 10 place relegation in the next Grand Prix.
Another driver who displayed red-green colorblindness was
Nico Rosberg in the Williams, who had been up with the
leaders when the safety car came out, dived into the pits
and then drove into the back of the Hamilton-Raikkonen duo
at the exit of the pits. He also picks up a 10 place penalty
for the French GP. His team mate Nakajima managed to trip
over his own front wing coming into the pits and careered
straight into the pit wall entrance. Bad day in the pits for
the Williams team. Sir Frank would not have been pleased.
Renault’s sulky Spaniard gets rattled too easily these days.
His attempts at passing Heidfeld became more and more
ragged, until he eventually spun out and hit the wall. His
tardy team mate Piquet also had his share of spins, despite
his slow pace, and eventually retired with brake problems. I
think he had them on from the start!
That Red Bull mixture must be the elixir of life, giving
veteran David Coulthard enough energy to catapult him into
third by the end of the race. Coulthard hasn’t seen the
podium for so long, it was a wonder he knew what to do when
he got there. His team mate Mark Webber was in the wrong
place all day and finished miserably out of the points.
Vettel in the Toro Rosso did have a good day and finished in
the points after starting from the pit lane, whilst his team
mate Sebastian Bourdais dribbled round at the tail of the
field and even admitted that he could not drive the car. He
did not have to apologize, we could see that already.
So that was the Canadian GP. A shambles, run on a track that
was breaking up so badly the drivers were five seconds a lap
slower at the end than they were in the beginning. Kubica
may have enjoyed it, but the rest of us did not.