What has a Pandan/Mengkuang Mat have to do with the interior of AC Schnitzer's 5 series?

Alot. If you're a cheapskate and cannot afford real carbon fiber trimming. I may have come up with a novel new idea. Should I copyright it? hmmmm.....

Read here for what I think about AC Schnitzer's upgrade of the F10 BMW 5 series. Especially the interior.

What You're Actually Missing If You Travel By Highway All The Time

Travelling by highway in Malaysia is convenient, but at times utterly boring. This is especially so during festive holidays and long weekends. The traffic gets congested, if not jammed and you cannot really cruise at the 110km/h speed limit in peace, or it becomes a 100km/h car convoy of a few thousand cars. And then you fall asleep at the wheel.

This was what I think happened to a Proton Gen2 driver on a trip back from Muar, Johor recently. We were 2 cars behind and for no apparent reason the car veered off to the right and into the crash barrier in the middle of the highway. Luckily, the car just hit the barrier, bounced off and the driver managed to recover and pull over to the side of the road. It was most probably festive fatigue that set in, and I have to say, the utter monotony of highway driving. Note that the scenery is pretty bland, unlike the secondary routes where sometimes you can find gems in the middle of nowhere.

Click here to see what classic cars that surprisingly, were being sold in the small town of Bagan Serai, Perak.

A New Take On Rear Doors

I fancy this automotive designer's interpretation of what a new De Tomaso should look like. I hope his design, which is a pitch for him to work for the reborn De Tomaso car company, will be chosen as a new De Tomaso. The rear doors are pretty fresh looking and looks workable in a real car.

This was part of a short piece of news I did for MyAutoblog.org recently. Click here to look at more pictures and more of the story on the design study.

Lorinser Mercedes 450SEL 6.9....How They Did It Those Days

A Lorinser bodykitted 450SEL 6.9. It is quite interesting to see the press photos and write up on this old Lorinser Mercedes. This car integrated the bumpers of the twin chrome bumpered W116 450SEL 6.9. It looked like an early prototype of the classic W126 S-Class. Slightly weird as we know where it came from but quite an upgrade from the original. It's like those old Mercedes and what ever older car we see going around Malaysia that their owners have put newer bumpers in place of the original's chrome bumper.

Remember the trend where every other car you see was running the Proton Iswara bumper? You used to see that car on a Datsun 120Y, Mazda 323 (like the one above), Ford Econovan (Yes, I saw one using such a bumper before) and various other old Japanese cars. Of course, the Iswara owners had moved on and bought those super modified BMW M-technic or Nissan  GTR look bumpers.

 I wouldn't say that this is the same thing as it was from a time when chrome bumpers were the norm. And THIS was really something unique in the late 1970s. This was posted on MyAutoBlog. Click here to read more about this.

Mazda photo:mudah.my

2010 Peugeot 308 VTi 1.6 Automatic - The tame, slightly toothless French Lion

 I posted this review I did on the 2010 Peugeot 308 VTi on MyAutoBlog.org. I somehow do not like how this car handles, but from a Malaysian point of view, the only thing that makes this car a worthy purchase over its RM100k price range competitors is that:

• It's French. Therefore it is the cheapest continental car you can buy at this price range.
• It's pretty well built and the interior looks good compared to the Honda City, Toyota Vios, Altis and whatever in the price range.
• It is really a whole lot of car for the price. The looks are very modern and nothing's conservative about it when it comes to styling. Compare this to a Nissan Latio sedan or a Nissan Syphilis or a Corolla Altis (the latter two are more expensive than this car) and you know you've got a winner here.
• While I know I mentioned that the handling's a little sad (at least the 308 Turbo has more grip and more power to play around with - but it isn't a good handling example also as it does the same hop, skip and jump over undulations and mid corner bumps ), the car allows some sense of class into a category that's limited in choice. If you're not into driving, or a car for the wife to ferry kids, it'll do that just fine. And you'll look better doing so than in any of the cars stated above.

Please do not throw resale value in here. If you start thinking about resale value, you lead a very dull and uninteresting life. Really. Start living a little.

Click here to read more about it and what I really think about the car.