G’Day and welcome to Overdrive, where we mull over issues to do with cars and transport.

I’m David Brown

Feedback from social media posts

• Car of the year

• An art installation that has a rock crushing a Tesla

Road Test - Great Wall Motors Ora

• Electric car

• Comment from one of our Interns - a young persons perspective

• Comments from Dean

Phillip Island Classic

• Chat to Fred about the major historic car racing event last weekend at Phillip Island

• At the event there was a 1946 Maybach – a racing car that was made up from a World War II scout car – a great example of building something from what was available

Highlights from the program

00:02:39

The BBC, The British Top Gear have given their car of the year to the Ionic 5 in an electric vehicle. Times have changed a bit since Jeremy Clarkson was there. I don't see him as being one who would normally award an electric vehicle.

• Are car of the year awards definitive or at best indicative

• They are still making an Australian version of Top Gear - Why

00:05:46 - The motor vehicle in art.

A sculpture of a large stone head crushing a Tesla

Art can mean different things to different people. Is this a comment about:

• electric vehicles,

• a general problem with Tesla cars or an anti Musk statement? I

• It might even be lament that ancient stone headed traditions can squash project or. It might also be a cry to reject modern civilisation and a longing for ancient culture, because the head was one in the style of the old mech civilization which developed in the lowlands of South.

• Kim Bow wrote in and said it is a “New high visual impact, no parking signs”

• Brett McGrath said “I'm surprised it being the Tesla didn't catch fire”

00:08:26 – Great Wall Motors Ora Electric vehicle

• The Great Wall Motors Aura is a little-ish electric car. Now we have tested one in the past, but with this one we got was a long range. It had a bigger battery.

00:11:12 – Ora road test from a young person’s perspective

• First drive of an electric car

• Regenerative braking needs getting use to

• New technology with the interface with controls is certainly different

• Different look: How would your peer group react?

• Electric vehicles might suit young people because they need less maintenance

00:18:51 – Car looks and being driven to school

• Is it the car or the parents that are an embarrassment?

00:20:12 – Artist Deal Oliver talks about the Ora design

• Electric cars mean we are in a post radiator aspect of design

• The Ora looks a bit like a Mr Potato Head car

00:27:26 – The Phillip Island Classic Festival of motorsport.

• The biggest historic racing meeting in the Southern hemisphere

• 1946 Maybach – cobbled together from a German WW2 Scout vehicle

• 50th anniversary of L34 Torana (a GM sedan muscle car in Australia). Were there more on display than were ever made?

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Originally broadcast 23 March 2024