GM of Canada's plan to give away a Chevrolet Malibu Maxx to Canada's most height-diverse couple gave me flashback fever, shooting me back about 10 years to an event in Phoenix where I drove a split-personality LeSabre.
The point GM is trying to make today through its contest is that the Maxx does an excellent job of suiting drivers of different sizes. Sure, this is a
comfort and convenience issue for the most part, but there's also a strong case to be made that it directly involves safety.
Simply put, if you're short and have to sit too close to the steering wheel, then you're in considerable danger. If you're tall and can't get into a position that allows easy access to the pedals, then you're also at risk. The key to avoiding or at least diminishing this risk is being able to move the steering wheel, the seat and the foot pedals.
It is quite remarkable how many vehicles being sold today aren't at all safe for even semi-short people (which of course means women primarily) because their driver space is set up badly. It is just as remarkable that so many people simply put up with this, even in cars that like to brag about their safety records.
Buick's engineering staff a decade back understood this and created a sedan named Fred and Ethel (in honor of the division's general manager at the time, Ed Mertz) that was essentially two wholly different vehicles, and even if you don't know who Fred and Ethel Mertz are (think I Love Lucy) the point of this story still applies to you.
Buick's thinking was that most vehicles are owned and operated by two people who are different not only in size but also quite likely driving styles and personal tastes, so why shouldn't they create a car to suit two masters?
This idea was probably coaxed into life by the fact that electronic controls had pretty extensively replaced the servo-mechanical kind by the mid-1990s, which made adjusting a car to suit two people possible.
There were at that time some actual commercial efforts to use the electronic controls to customize cars for more than one person, involving the outside mirrors, the seats, the steering wheel and maybe the radio stations. All you had to do was set those features up to suit your tastes and store them in memory and the car set up for at least two drivers.
But the Buick folks took it farther than that and created a LeSabre that had two completely diverse personalities on the road, so that it drove and handled completely differently depending upon whether you used the Fred remote keyfob or the Ethel remote keyfob to open the driver door.
It was quite a remarkable demonstration of how a car could be customized to accommodate two or more people or -- and this was just as exciting -- to suit the road and driving conditions of the moment.
About the same time, Ford's Lincoln division actually launched a production version of this idea in a Continental. This car was designed to set up quite differently for multiple drivers and even had the ability to allow for some driver selection of its ride and handling style.
Unfortunately, the split-personality aspect of this car was ignored by many of my dullard colleagues who only looked at the ride-variation part of the package and found it wanting, so the idea never caught on and was quickly removed.
Since then, of course, lots of car companies are selling vehicles that set up differently depending upon whose keyfob is used to open it, changing the seats, mirrors, steering wheel and radio settings to suit each driver.
But the promise offered by Fred and Ethel of truly bi-polar vehicles never materialized, and that is one of the great disappointments and mysteries of my automotive experience.
It's really not that expensive to set a car up to operate in various ways, and you have to think that a vehicle that changed to suit the personal tastes of multiple drivers would be an easy sell.
As it happens, however, some adjustable features are actually being taken out of cars, as their manufacturers struggle to reduce complexity and/or cost. But there are still companies and cars -- Chevrolet and the Malibu Maxx come to mind -- that are willing to make this stuff work for the greater comfort, convenience and safety of their customers.
For more information about the contest to win the Malibu Maxx and on other vehicles designed with drivers and ergonomics in mind, visit www.longandshort.gmcanada.com.
photo:GM of Canada
The point GM is trying to make today through its contest is that the Maxx does an excellent job of suiting drivers of different sizes. Sure, this is a
 |
Simply put, if you're short and have to sit too close to the steering wheel, then you're in considerable danger. If you're tall and can't get into a position that allows easy access to the pedals, then you're also at risk. The key to avoiding or at least diminishing this risk is being able to move the steering wheel, the seat and the foot pedals.
It is quite remarkable how many vehicles being sold today aren't at all safe for even semi-short people (which of course means women primarily) because their driver space is set up badly. It is just as remarkable that so many people simply put up with this, even in cars that like to brag about their safety records.
Buick's engineering staff a decade back understood this and created a sedan named Fred and Ethel (in honor of the division's general manager at the time, Ed Mertz) that was essentially two wholly different vehicles, and even if you don't know who Fred and Ethel Mertz are (think I Love Lucy) the point of this story still applies to you.
Buick's thinking was that most vehicles are owned and operated by two people who are different not only in size but also quite likely driving styles and personal tastes, so why shouldn't they create a car to suit two masters?
This idea was probably coaxed into life by the fact that electronic controls had pretty extensively replaced the servo-mechanical kind by the mid-1990s, which made adjusting a car to suit two people possible.
There were at that time some actual commercial efforts to use the electronic controls to customize cars for more than one person, involving the outside mirrors, the seats, the steering wheel and maybe the radio stations. All you had to do was set those features up to suit your tastes and store them in memory and the car set up for at least two drivers.
But the Buick folks took it farther than that and created a LeSabre that had two completely diverse personalities on the road, so that it drove and handled completely differently depending upon whether you used the Fred remote keyfob or the Ethel remote keyfob to open the driver door.
It was quite a remarkable demonstration of how a car could be customized to accommodate two or more people or -- and this was just as exciting -- to suit the road and driving conditions of the moment.
About the same time, Ford's Lincoln division actually launched a production version of this idea in a Continental. This car was designed to set up quite differently for multiple drivers and even had the ability to allow for some driver selection of its ride and handling style.
Unfortunately, the split-personality aspect of this car was ignored by many of my dullard colleagues who only looked at the ride-variation part of the package and found it wanting, so the idea never caught on and was quickly removed.
Since then, of course, lots of car companies are selling vehicles that set up differently depending upon whose keyfob is used to open it, changing the seats, mirrors, steering wheel and radio settings to suit each driver.
But the promise offered by Fred and Ethel of truly bi-polar vehicles never materialized, and that is one of the great disappointments and mysteries of my automotive experience.
It's really not that expensive to set a car up to operate in various ways, and you have to think that a vehicle that changed to suit the personal tastes of multiple drivers would be an easy sell.
As it happens, however, some adjustable features are actually being taken out of cars, as their manufacturers struggle to reduce complexity and/or cost. But there are still companies and cars -- Chevrolet and the Malibu Maxx come to mind -- that are willing to make this stuff work for the greater comfort, convenience and safety of their customers.
For more information about the contest to win the Malibu Maxx and on other vehicles designed with drivers and ergonomics in mind, visit www.longandshort.gmcanada.com.
photo:GM of Canada
Article Gallery