New year, new model

If I'm not mistaken, Mercedes-Benz is the only carmaker offering brake-by-wire technology--make that was. Brake-by-wire is a system wherein you stomp on the brake pedal, and it tells a computer to stomp on the binders for you. Frankly, it scares the hell out of me, and apparently, it scares Mercedes-Benz buyers as well. The company has canceled the Bosch-designed computerized braking system, officially saying it was too expensive. But I hear plenty of stories that there were software bugs causing the braking computer to fail over to standard hydraulic operation with an unnerving change in brake feel--right when you prefer a feeling of confidence. Better to drop the system than develop waterproof upholstery, if you get my drift. Some things need to remain simple and mechanical.  . . .   And while the company keeps putting on a brave face at the big auto shows (and usually shooing CNET video crews away from its cars), can Mercedes-Benz's ultralux Maybach division be long for this world? Maybach's 70 dealers sold an average of two cars each last year. My local Mercedes-Benz dealer actually told me the plug has already been pulled.  . . .   

If you ever wonder why OnStar boasts so frequently of its remote-unlocking technology, here's why: The fastest-growing roadside problem for U.S. drivers is the lockout. AAA reports that we are getting locked out of our cars 12 times more often than a couple of decades ago. Each year, OnStar gets 5 million calls, requests from people to be let back into their cars, which makes for roughly 17 percent of all assistance calls. Today's overly "intelligent" central-locking security systems are to blame.  . . .    TomTom just announced a deal with Seat (Volkswagen of Spain) to include a free TomTom navigation device with the purchase of certain models of Seat cars. It's not integrated, just included. That's a tempting offer, but what I really like is the way TomTom and Toyota took a first step toward creating a dockable in-car nav unit on the Aygo in the United Kingdom. The car has a built-in mount for a TomTom 500 that can be sourced as an option on the car. It's not the most ambitious integration they could have come up with, but it's a start. The car industry has to realize that we not only want nav units with in-dash slickness while we're driving but also portability when we're not. It helps us choke down that $2,500-ish price point.  . . .   Speaking of nav, Thrifty and Dollar now offer a GPS unit to rent with their cars. They'll set you up with the Garmin StreetPilot c330 for $9.95 a day. Our editors like the c330, but if it's your own money, buy a TomTom GO or a Lowrance iWay 500c instead.  . . .    Let me guess: Your car is silver, right? I'm not stealing tricks from Jeane Dixon; I'm just thumbing through the latest stats from PPG, the big automotive paint maker. PPG tells us silver was far and away the most popular car color for 2005, covering about a quarter of all cars sold and far more popular than the perennial favorite, white. After that comes gold, copper, red, blue, and black, in that order. The hot new trends? You'll see silvers that look even more like actual metal, as well as blues, greens, and reds that have new kinds of sparkle or shimmer elements mixed in. Sounds disturbingly like the pearlescent craze of the '80s and the early '90s. And why is it no longer possible to find a carmaker offering a nice, rich dark brown, a color that was once de rigueur for any luxury car?   . . .   It suddenly hit me as I drove past the local Porsche dealer the other night: Cayennes are ridiculous. They are antithetical to everything that is Porsche. I understand it's the vehicle that saved the company when the Boxster and the 911 were both getting pretty stale, but there sure are a lot of Cayennes just sitting on the lot at my dealer--for weeks. SUV sales are nosing down, and you have to imagine a Porsche SUV might be right at the front of that unpleasant curve. There will come a day when you'll be thumbing through a circa-2004 car magazine with your grandson, and he'll look at you with incredulity and say, "Porsche used to make a truck?" You'll tell him what a bizarre time you lived in.