Editorial: OEM AUTOMOTIVE STUFF GOING A BIT ‘˜A-TEAM’ at TALK STUFF.
It’s funny how some cultural references almost enter the language in their word pattern and lyrical lilt. Like the famous line, ‘I LOVE it, when a plan comes together!’ Always famously uttered by George Peppard as John ‘Hannibal’ Smith in all five seasons of the TV show, the A-Team.
And I have had a long term, thin-end-of-the-wedge plan come to a lovely fruition. For in a world of shrinking aftermarket audio and one where increasing options of better equipment are being offered by car makers as OEM offerings, I need to be ‘˜the’ expert on the OEM car systems out there as well.
In order to do this, I need access to cars. Doing so by chummying up to a local car dealer is the norm for the average YouTuber but that is not my style. There may be little left to use in my brain as ‘˜Presenter’ when I am thinking about the videography and sound as well as the direction and coaxing the subject, so I come across as a character I call the ‘˜Amiable Buffoon’. Be not deceived, for like, Buffoon Boris, I ain’t! For I always seem to be hooked up rather well. In the Audi Bang & Olufsen system review in the A7 Sportback, I am at VAG HQ in Milton Keynes and have top bods from Audi in the car. That video has gone to 113,000 views and when I asked again, my executive contact has become boss of digital marketing for Audi and was happy to arrange for me to go to their HQ again and this time to drive a Q model around a two-hour course they have devised around HQ. And this time I want to get some more of that amazing reception atrium/car museum area on video.
I haven’t got a fixed date for that, so I do hope I haven’t given my Guardian Demon enough data to jinx it, for he does stuff like that. Like when I brag on Facebook about doing a bit of booked wireless work for the BBC. But I do have a date for the second Volvo. The first was an XC90 with the new Bowers and Wilkins audio system. I took that Volvo Car UK press car to the HQ of B&W, or rather, their research establishment in Steyning. There, parked in an area to the front of the building where you can’t normally park, the Amiable Buffoon made the clip that is now performing in views at least thrice as well as my regular ones. I think a new audience is starting to find me, which is nice.
But I am getting the new V90XC, which is the true replacement for my XC70, now a true Unicorn-grade rarity as so few were ever sold and this is the new product. What’s really cool is that Volvo head hunted the interior designer that worked for Bentley and he has designed a new trim level that is cementing Volvo in the True Luxury bracket, with Jaguar and top end BMW. It is within their Inscription trim programme and looks very posh.
Then, I am getting a KIA Sportage KX-5 for a week. As well as the infotainment to asses, both cars have elements of driver-assist technology that is part of the edging towards the true era of self-driving cars. Finally, there is a true exotic that I won’t tempt fate by mentioning again but which has some rear-seat autonomy over the navigation system via the rear screen. The passenger can direct you to the funny little Italian pizzeria on the way home, without the driver being asked to do more than just do as they are told.
All this and a mojo-back quantity of kit coming your way. Oh, and I never watched the A-Team.
Drive carefully and do avoid the old Boomph Tinkle
Adam Rayner, OnLine Editor