World of Wheels

FIRST PORSCHE PANAMERAS TAKE FLIGHT

The first 31 Porsche Panameras are in the air and on their way to the car’s North American debut. The public will see the all-new four-passenger Porsche for the first time at a series of major events during the Monterey Peninsula Automotive Week, from August 9 to 16 inclusive.

The cars were airlifted directly from Leipzig, Germany, where they are produced alongside the Cayenne SUV,  on a 747 cargo jet.  The cars will make appearances at historic and high-profile events that include the famous and elegant Quail Lodge, the 36th Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca – where Porsche is the featured marque – and finally, at arguably the most famous councours in world, the Pebble Beach Councours d’Elegance.

The Panamera will go on sale at Porsche’s 12 Canadian dealers on October 17, 2009.

Jaguar Heritage Museum Re-Launched

The famous Jaguar museum in Coventry, England has been re-launched. 

This follows the renaming of the Trust that owns it and the reopening of the famous gates on Browns Lane to the public.

The Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust founded in 1983 as an independent educational charity, has been restructured and renamed Jaguar Heritage. 

The museum holds a small but unique and valuable display of cars from the Jaguar collection. This collection boasts more than 100 vehicles. The display of famous cars from the Jaguar Heritage collection, together with improvements in the museum’s facilities, is the reason for the re-launch of the museum. 
It will now be open to the public five days a week, and the last Sunday of every month, so that many more people will be able to admire the collection.

The link between Jaguar Cars, the Trust and the activities that it carries out around the world are an important part of the future of the company. The provenance of the famous museum is its unique collection of Jaguar cars, which tell the story of the company. These range from the Swallow sidecar, with which the founder of Jaguar, Sir William Lyons, began his career. 

The museum’s gallery contains a bronze sculpture by Dame Elizabeth Frink, paintings by Peter Blake and Roy Nockolds, trophies from the 1950s and 1980s, and original posters.

– Jim Robinson

VOLVO’S LEADING SAFETY INVENTION CELEBRATES ITS 50th ANNIVERSARY

This year marks 50 years since Volvo first introduced the three-point safety belt, an invention that has saved more lives in traffic than any other technical feature.

"Following its invention, Volvo immediately gave free use of its patent to all manufacturers and today the safety belt is a natural feature in virtually all trucks and cars. That is why we can say that there is a bit of Volvo in every vehicle on the road - irrespective of make and model," said Volvo Trucks' traffic and product safety director, Carl Johan Almqvist.

Although the three-point belt has been around for half a century, its use is still worryingly low among truck drivers in some countries. For example, on Swedish roads, only four out of ten truck drivers use the belt, while France, owing to tough legislation, has recently boosted safety belt use to 80 per cent.
The consequences of not using the belt are well documented in Volvo Trucks' own accident research. For example, of 15 truck driver fatalities on Swedish roads over the past three years, only one driver was wearing a safety belt.
"The human being does not have a built-in speedometer, so we do not perceive speed as dangerous, especially not when we sit high up in a large vehicle," said Almqvist.
"On a global perspective, a large number of drivers die every year while not wearing a safety belt and their lives might have been saved by the truck's most obvious safety feature. This is something we must rectify in a challenge that is as big as the development of new technologies for accident avoidance."

The world's first vehicle with a three-point safety belt fitted as standard was a Volvo PV544, delivered in Karlstad, Sweden on August 13th 1959.

– Jim Robinson