Media post: A Few Intriguing Car Tales

The 1957 Cadillac had a mini bar built into the glovebox

The 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham was commonly referred to as “the Frank Sinatra car” because Sinatra loved them. Perhaps one of the reasons was that the Eldorado Brougham had a factory-installed, magnetized minibar in the glovebox. That’s right storage for bottles and stainless cups. How can this be possible? Well, as www.kingbgmc.com reminds us, this was way before drinking and driving laws were enacted!  Back then, it certainly wasn’t suggested that one drink and drive but it wasn’t illegal either.

Obi-Wan Kenobi predicted James Dean’s death

The death of Hollywood actor James Dean occurred on September 30, 1955, in Cholame, CA.  Dean was an amateur racer who had previously competed in several racing events and was traveling with his mechanic in his new Porsche 550 to another competition when his car crashed at the junction of California Route 46 and Route 41. While his mechanic was thrown clear of the car and survived, Dean was crushed in the car and died shortly thereafter.

The eerie part of this story is that another Hollywood icon, Sir. Alec Guinness (also known as Obi-wan Kenobi), heard about the Dean’s purchase of a Porsche 550 and reportedly said that “He’ll be found dead within a week”. This, tragically, became the case.

Bond got a free Aston Martin

The Bond movie franchise is enormously popular and James Bond drives a highly customized Aston Martin sportscar in several of the films. In fact, Aston Martin cars are so intertwined with the Bond franchise that the company donated a free midnight-blue Aston Martin Vanquish (Serial Number #007) to Daniel Craig when he was playing the Bond character. Can you imagine, a free Aston Martin Vanquish!

BMW had to recall its GPS system because it had a female voice

Stereotypes are tricky stuff, especially when they involve genders. We all know that these stereotypes are wrong, but they unfortunately exist. Take the story about German male car owners and the female voice used in BMWs GPS systems. Reportedly, BMW had to recall thousands of their built-in GPS systems because their default voice was female. According to the phone calls that BMW received from thousands of German drivers, they found it annoying to take directions from a female voice. Of course, they were really taking directions from a machine, but that didn’t seem to matter; They didn’t like it.

The Dubai airport is loaded with abandoned supercars

Dubai is a nation stuffed with rich people and many of them they love their supercars. So much so that the police drive Lamborghinis. However, due to a quirk of Dubai law, it’s very difficult to declare bankruptcy in Dubai. So, what do the rich do when it all goes bust? They escape prosecution by leaving the country and when this happens, they often leave their cars behind them at the airport. Don’t believe us? Go Google it and you will find hundreds of photos of dusty, abandoned supercars at the Dubai airport. Wow.

BMW had to recall its GPS system because it had a female voice

Gender stereotypes are tricky stuff. We all know that they’re wrong, but unfortunately they exist. Take the story about German males and the female GPS voice. Stanford University’s communications professor Clifford Nass reported that BMW had to recall thousands of their built-in GPS systems. Why? Because their default voice was female. According to the phone calls the BMW help desk received from German drivers, men found it annoying to take directions from a female voice. Of course, they were actually taking directions from a machine, but that didn’t seem to matter.