FIFTY YEARS, AND A LOT OF LAPS

Fifty years ago this month my wife and I got married on the Queensland Gold Coast. The weekend of the wedding was also the inaugural race meeting at the Surfers Paradise International Raceway, designed, created and constructed by Keith Williams.

Keith Williams

I had to explain to my new wife that however important our wedding was, I had made an obligation to Keith to lead the commentary team for the first race meeting.

The opening of this circuit was a big deal in Australian motor racing, and Keith had managed to convince Jack Brabham to bring a Brabham-Repco Formula One car to the track and drive a few demonstration laps, to attract publicity.

Mind you, this was just before the start of the 1966 Formula One season, with the opening round at Monaco in May, so I’m sure Jack was just a bit preoccupied!

Discussing Brabham's 1966 F2 campaign using Honda engines

True to his word Jack arrived at the track with a Repco V8-engined BT19, and in addition to driving demonstration laps of the circuit, he agreed to an interview with me, published in Racing Car News.

I returned to the circuit in August 1966, to join the commentary team for the inaugural 12 Hour Sports Car race, part of ‘Speed Week’ in Surfers Paradise.

Surfers Paradise was also getting national publicity at the time, after the Head of the Progress Association decided to hire ‘Meter Maids’ in gold bikinis to insert coins in parking meters to stop tourists from getting parking fines!

The entry list for the 12 Hour Race was made up of a very strange assortment of cars, including Ferraris, a Ford GT40, some Austin Healey Sprites, a Falcon (!) and a couple of Mini Cooper S, along with a bedraggled list of Australian, home-built ‘Specials’ – which amazingly all qualified as ‘sports cars’ for this inaugural event.

From the top of the control tower, and using a camera borrowed from my mate Stewart Johnson, I managed to snap off four photos of the start of the race.

My starting grid photos show the drivers poised for the Le Mans-style start; sprinting across the track; and a clear shot of Jackie Stewart getting away first, putting daylight between him and David Piper’s Ferrari P2 and Frank Matich in the Ford GT40. The last photo shows the field disappearing under the Dunlop Bridge.

A Ferrari 250LM, entered by my friend David McKay’s Scuderia Veloce team, and driven by Jackie Stewart and New Zealander Andy Buchanan won the race, but only after a lengthy pit stop early in the evening to sort an ignition problem.

(Photo: Stewart Johnson)

My thanks to Stewart for unearthing these photos from his vast collection, because as I was using Stewart’s Box Brownie, I never did get a copy of the photos until recently in this year of celebrating my 50^th year of marriage.

Our marriage has certainly outlasted the Surfers Paradise International Raceway, which continued until 1987.

Keith Williams, and Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen at Hamilton Island

Keith Williams sold it in 1983 to fund his new development of Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef, and the circuit stumbled along for four more years.

In 2003 the entire circuit complex was bulldozed to make way for the Emerald Lakes housing development.

It was a short, but bright star in the firmament of Australian motor racing, and I’m delighted to have played a small part in its success.

POST SCRIPT: THE 1966 FORMULA ONE SEASON

(Chart: Wikipedia)

Jack Brabham scored three pole positions, and won four Grands Prix in a row, winning both the Drivers' and Constructors' Championships! Not bad for the Brabham-Repco's inaugural season!

YOU BOUGHT A JEEP?

The ad campaign has put the Jeep name on the map in Australia. It's clever, focussed, and highlights all the pertinent brand values associated with Jeep. There are several versions of the ad, all of them entertaining and effective, and they all leave the viewer with no doubt about Jeep's capabilities.

Sad to report however, Jeep, which is FiatChryslerAustralia’s cash cow, suffered a big drop in 2015, falling 19.7 per cent from 30,408 to 24,418 sales, after slowing interest in the Grand Cherokee.

This year Jeep has had a very poor start dropping 50 per cent January-March, compared with the same period last year. The Grand Cherokee’s slide has continued falling 37.5%.

So what's happening? Where's the love?

First, Jeep's capabilities. In a word - awesome! The Grand Cherokee featured here is a fantastic performer off-road, it can handle anything Aussie bush tracks can throw at it.

The simple, and intuitive controls for the All Wheel Drive system are thoroughly effective and there wasn't a bog or a grade we couldn't negotiate safely.

The ride is excellent, and the interior is trimmed beautifully, if quite conservatively.

I was delighted to find an intuitive and flexible touch-screen system, but quite surprised to find that this very capable system does not include GPS as standard! 
However, this is not a vehicle you throw at tight corners or roundabouts with gay abandon. At 2950kg it's no lightweight, and mounted on its chunky 295 x 60 x 18 multi-purpose tyres you certainly know you hauling around a lump.

In fact, by comparison with its more sophisticated competitors like Range Rover, Mercedes-Benz ML, Hyundai Santa Fe, and the excellent Ford Territory Diesel, the Grand Cherokee Laredo has the heft and driving feel of a truck!

Needless to say it's very capacious, with excellent load area - and the seats fold flat, which is a great feature. Visibility is generally good, but it has a very, very thick A-pillar which certainly impinges on your view.

As a family wagon it will achieve all you need from it. Picnics, beach trips, the school run and taking friends to dinner can all be easily accommodated, and the driving feel at surburban speed limits is calm and comfortable.

The 3 litre V6 diesel produces 184kW and 570Nm; and is an entirely suitable powerplant, especially mated to the excellent ZF 8HP70 8-speed twin clutch transmission.


I think the problem is that the ad worked too well! Once the campaign established that Jeep was a vehicle you took into the wild, traversing creeks, bogs and trackless desert, you are simply narrowing the field just to the macho men and women who see themselves as rugged, outdoor types.

So, apparently the rest of the large SUV market went out and bought a more domesticated animal.

Nice headlight detail, tracing Jeep's history, 'Since 1941'

DAIMLER CHAIRMAN SAYS AUTONOMOUS DRIVING A 'LONG WAY OFF'

In an exclusive interview with Australia’s leading automotive news publication, GoAuto News, Chairman of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz, Dr. Dieter Zetsche, has said whilst committed to developing autonomous driving capabilities in Mercedes-Benz cars, the practical application was quite a long way off.

Dr Zetsche said open freeways and clearly defined areas such as housing estates were relatively easy places to achieve full driverless car travel.

He said that while Mercedes-Benz was committed to achieving accident-free driving from its cars within a decade, safely navigating crowded city streets could take years to master.

“On freeways, this (autonomous driving) is a relatively easy task,” he said. “We will soon – perhaps first with trucks – make it possible.

“Certainly the downtown area is the most complex and challenging, even though speeds are lower. There, driverless cars without restriction is certain to take a little more time.”

Dr Zetsche said some forms of autonomous driving should be ready by the end of the decade, and that his company was taking two parallel routes in the development of self- driving cars.

One was evolutionary, with Mercedes- Benz fitting successively more sophisticated driving assistance systems such as lane keeping assist and adaptive cruise control to its cars, he said.

“The other way is to go full autonomous, but only in clearly defined areas,” he said. Dr Zetsche gave an example where drivers could get rid of their home garages and park their cars at a nearby central location.

“When you leave your house and push your smartphone button, your car arrives fully autonomously, but in a very defined environment,” he said. “In these initial steps I definitely see this happening towards the end of this decade.”

But he cautioned that taking the step to “everywhere, anytime” autonomous driving would take “quite a time gap”.

Dr Zetsche said car companies needed to be careful to manage expectations and fears associated with such new technologies.

He said that on one hand, governments around the world “seem to be in a competition to have a test run of autonomous vehicles”.

On the other, many drivers were suspicious of autonomous driving, concerned that the fun aspect of driving would be taken away and that cars would become “like a shuttle bus”.

“What is surprising to me is, especially in Germany, when you talk about new technologies, 90 per cent of the people talk about the risks and the downsides and the problem it can create,” he said.

Dr Zetsche said that to be fully accepted, autonomous vehicles would need to be capable of “reducing accidents by a factor of 10 or something like that”.

JEEP DRIVING - A BIT LIKE ITS PARENT'S MARRIAGE!

In 2011 Chrysler climbed out of bankruptcy protection (Chapter 11), thanks to Italian-born Canadian Sergio Marchionne, CEO of FIAT Group.

 By 2015 Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) had plunged into a debt load estimated to be around USD$11 billion!

That’s the bare facts, now the background.

Marchionne, born in the Abruzzo region of Italy in 1952, moved to Toronto, Canada with his family in 1966. He has a Bachelor of Commerce degree, a law degree, and an MBA. He’s a pretty smart guy.

From 1983 until 2002 he held a number of senior executive positions in Canada and Europe, and in 2003 he was elected to the FIAT board in Italy. By 2004, he was appointed CEO of FIAT Group.

Marchionne is widely recognized for turning around FIAT Group to become one of the fastest growing companies in the automotive industry, returning it to profitability in 2006, less than two years after taking the helm.

In 2009, he was instrumental in FIAT Group forming a strategic alliance with the ailing US automaker Chrysler, with the support of the US and Canadian governments and trade unions.

Less than two years later, following its emergence from Chapter 11, Chrysler returned to profitability, repaying all government loans. In 2014, FIAT and Chrysler merged into a new holding company, FIAT Chrysler Automobiles.

Fine so far. However, to get there, and to realize his ambitious product plans for both FIAT and Chrysler takes a lot of money. So, currently FCA has a net debt load of more than USD$11 billion!

Whilst many Chrysler products, and FIAT Group products, have both increased sales and market share in the past couple of years,

the forward plan, based (hopefully) on continually-increasing sales and market share growth, plus realizing  synergies that exist within the Group, Sergio can only get there by one path – debt!

The savvy New York finance guys have looked at this scenario and see it as representing more risk, than rational thinking.

Never mind the Chinese high-rollers in Macau, Sergio may be the biggest gambler in the world right now.

Markets remain volatile; the auto industry likewise, and all of this debt has to be refinanced!

Most Americans, in fact most of the global community, rarely understands progress using debt. Sure, FCA is a big international conglomerate with global operations, but today its cash position, relative to most of its competitors is very shaky.

Borrowing money is a great way to grow your business, but to succeed you have to be sure of several things.

Maintaining  overheads at a manageable level; increasing sales; reducing interest charges; and managing positive cash flow. It’s a very complex game, in fact it’s just a balancing act; and even though Sr. Marchionne sleeps only  four hours a night, it’s going to be a huge pressure on him; and his minions, to achieve the outcome they are seeking.

Just his plans to elevate Alfa Romeo to a premium image in the car business is at risk, let alone all of the FIAT Chrysler marques.

I wish them all well (?)


In 1859 Charles Blondin successfully walked a tightrope across Niagara Falls, between Canada and the USA.

Is this what Sergio is doing? Hope he makes it!