“So have you written about it?” He looks at me expectantly.
“Written about what?“
“The car.” Rolls his eyes.
“No.” Returns to reading my new Gordon Ramsay book.
“Why not?”
“I didn’t even get to drive it.” Still absorbed in Ramsay’s use of the f-word in every other sentence.
“But you sat in it.”
Puts book down and explains patiently, “That’s different. You can’t write a review about a car without actually driving it.“
“I’m sure you were thinking of blogging about it when you took so many pictures of it.“
Silence.
“But that’s just showing off.”
“I thought you didn’t write for anyone but yourself.”
Shuts book with unnecessary force.
“Fine.”

I write from a perspective of a woman who sees a car as a mean of getting from point A to point B quickly, safely and painlessly. I don’t look under hoods and spew “revolutionary BI-VANOS fully variable camshaft control“, “258bhp magnesium aluminium composite engine” and “new third-generation common rail diesel technology (that includes piezo-injectors, a faster and more efficient form of injection); power is increased by 12 per cent to 228bhp at 4,000rpm while torque is four per cent higher at 520Nm, developed between 2,000 and 2,750rpm.“

What I do notice is cabin space. Boot space. Leg room. I have a thing for spaciousness, so sue me. And since this is my writeup, this is what I observed:

My grandfather’s 1969 Austin used to have one of these starter buttons. I remember he would stick the key in and pop this button to get the car started. As technology improved, cars were no longer using such buttons and one would turn the key to start the engine. And whaddya know, we’ve gone the entire circle and come back to popping buttons to start cars. Only difference is, in the olden days the engine would roar to life. The engine on this one, is so quiet that one would be tempted to pop the button once more as there was barely any discernible sound to indicate the engine was running.

This I really like. Electronic controls for seat adjustment. You turn the dial to adjust your seat. Press the lower square button to adjust the height of the seat. Press the upper rectangular one to adjust the back of the seat. And the middle ‘L’ shaped one to move the seat forward/backward. No more pulling levers and using your body weight to do the adjustments. Best part is, you can actually set to memory all the different adjustments (buttons 1 and 2)!! When you share a car with someone who is off vast different body size from you and find that your optimum driving position is always being shifted around, you will greatly appreciate this underrated feature.

Just look at the number of buttons and dials on and at the side of the steering wheel!! What in the world are the 2 silver buttons on the top for? Ejecting the driver and passenger in times of emergencies?! He did try them out, but only after he stopped the car. Nothing happened.

Err.. I presume the eye-like picture refers to the left and right signal lights. What’s the the P thingy?? To stick your tongue out at the rude drivers??

Urmm.. to switch off something, I guess. And maybe to adjust the illumination on the dashboard?? You wouldn’t want to be blinded by how fast the speedometer needle is moving..

Aah.. finally something I do know! To control the headlights. Strangely enough, it is not located on the steering column but on the dashboard below the driver side aircon vent. This dial is fun – you have the standard switch off, only sidelights, full headlights and one more, auto headlights. Meaning it switches on by itself whenever it gets dark and switches off when it’s bright or engine is stopped. Initially we wondered, “If the headlights switches on by itself when it’s dark, will it also know how to high beam the idiot who is driving on the wrong side of the road??” D’uh.

And the “P” button next to it is the parking brake. Yup, in this car everything gets done by a push of a button or turn of a dial.

This fancy little handle is the auto gear shift. The usual D-rive N-eutral, R-everse and P-ark, all this with just a slight pull with your fingers. Not unlike what Schumacher does when he goes tearing down the track at 280km/hr.

No idea why I bothered to take a picture of this. Very obviously the windshield wiper control. There is also an automatic function whereby the wiper will turn on by itself at the first sign of rain. But being in a place where rain is about as frequent as hail in KL, we didn’t get to see that in action. I guess I just wanted some balance. Took a picture of the controls on the left, so I had to take a picture of the controls on the right.

Couldn’t resist taking these shots of the side mirror. It doesn’t just fold in, it folds up. So space-ship like..

Now this is a cool gadget! The iDrive is a computer-like system, which allows the driver and front-seat passenger to control such amenities as the climate (aircon and heater), audio, navigation (GPS) and communication systems. The LCD panel is mounted in the dashboard and a controller knob mounted on the center console. I had fun playing with the GPS system – you can opt for a 1 dimensional or 3 dimensional map, with or without the voice navigator.

See the bottom left picture? When you are trying to park, this will pop up and the white area will light up to green, yellow and red depending on how close you are to the next object. Much better than the irritating ‘beep…. beep…. beep..beep..beep.. beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep’!!

And even more buttons. This time for the sunshades in the rear passenger windows. One button for the sunshade on the main window frame. Another button for the triangle-shaped window. And one more for the rear windshield. The kids had a fun time playing with the sunshades.

Little boys and their cars. Look at the smirk on their faces. They can barely contain themselves.

What else did I like about this car? I liked the solid feel of the door. You don’t need to slam the door shut. You don’t need the little car icon to light up on your dashboard to tell you a door is not shut. It shuts by itself. And the leather seats don’t squeak. I dislike leather seats that squeaks when you climb onto. Feels like I’m sitting on a whoopee cushion.

The performance of the car? This car is meant to be chauffeured driven. The leg room at the back seat is virtually endless and once you sink into the plush leather seat, you don’t want to get up. The ride is smooth and glides through speed humps as though they were mere bumps on the road. Most comfortable cruising speed at 140km/hr. It was positively yawn-inducing when going at 110km/hr. Excellent handling – corners like it’s on rails. Barely swayed when going round the bend. You just want the journey to last forever.. (what else can I say when I didn’t get to drive the car.. *sulks* )

Despite all its gadgetry and electronic wonders, I do have some complaints.

The glove box compartment is small. And there is no proper place to put my handbag. For all the money spent on designing this mechanical wonder, you’d think that they could design something to store a handbag.

Price of this Beastly Monstrous Wonder here? Approx USD74K / RM270K. (jamie, this little snippet of info is especially for you.. ). Now that’s worth smiling about!