Components of cars

The other day, I had a chance to drive a Crown Royal Saloon, one of the most prestigious cars manufactured by Toyota. In Japan, the cars were advertised on TV sometime ago as “One day, I will own a Crown…”. Targeting a rich middle age population in the country, Toyota was persuading them to purchase the most luxurious cars at the time by planting the image of the “dream car” in people’s minds through TV commercials for a long time. Then because they gave Celsior the status of the flagship sedan (which is now Lexus) Crown was not the most prestigious sedan any longer and the chance of seeing the commercial on TV has got less and less.

However, Crown still had it. First going on the market in 1955, this car has been capturing thousands of fans for more than half a century. Its design, interior, performance and components are all carefully planned to be best suited to the environment of Japan to flaunt Toyota’s high level of technology.

Among the components I quite like is its radar cruise control system which exerts its power on the motorway. It is done by the detection device installed behind the grill that catches information from milliwave radar, etc. and recognises the preceding car and the driving lanes to assist with safe driving. When the car in front of you changes its speed, without you pushing the accelerator pedal, you can follow the car keeping a safe distance within the set speed limit.

Say, you set the cruise control at 100km per hour. You catch up with the preceding car and it is only doing 80km/hour, your car just follows it at the same speed of 80km/hour while keeping a safe distance. If the preceding car changes lane and disappears from the radar, your car speeds back up to 100km/hour. Such a system to assist the driver like this is very useful especially for a long distance drive on a motorway. If you find a driver with good driving habits, just put your car behind him/her and activate your radar cruise control system. You can keep driving without pushing the accelerator pedal and this is great. Your fatigue will be reduced a great deal. Toyota started to install this device to their luxury range of vehicles and now not only Crowns but some new Corolla models have them.

So what sort of new things are installed on cars lately? A Japanese car magazine did a survey on the components drivers think “unnecessary”. The top 10 were as follows:
1. Speed metre which goes beyond 180km/hour
2. Ash tray
3. Cigarette lighter
4. Cigarette socket at the rear seats
5. Plastic which covers all the seats when you purchase a brand new car
6. High engine displacement over 3 litres
7. Dome lights other than white gleam
8. Turbo charger
9. 2 window washers
10. Keys on the petrol caps

For the top one: “Speed metre which goes beyond 180km/hour”, I totally agree because I have never, ever, driven a car anywhere near that speed in Japan. You know, Japan only has a small land mass and there is no long straight motorway like Germany’s Autobahn. There are speed limits on every single road, so if you really do 180km/hour and get caught, you will not only get arrested on the spot or even if you can escape from an arrest, you will lose your driver’s licence straight away. When you think about this, why does a car need a metre like that? Number 2 to 4 are reflecting current tendencies of non-smoking. Less and less people smoke in Japan and in Tokyo and other prefectures you are not allowed to smoke in a taxi. Many people now think “Ash trays” and “Cigarette lighters” are unnecessary. Recently, it is getting more common not to put an ash tray as a standard component for compact cars and mini vans whose target is ladies and families. From 5, unless you are a driver with peculiar tastes, these things are not needed. The results are mirroring society’s view of not manufacturing unwanted things. What do you think?


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