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CARS FULLY LOADED

By Preston Lerner |

I was parked on the shoulder when a car rolled to a halt at the stop sign behind me. I checked the mirror and saw a Nissan 300ZX. Brand new. Bright red. Hood quivering. The Z eased alongside and paused-an unmistakable challenge. So I slipped my car into gear, tugged on my seat belt to make sure it was snug, and nodded at the other driver to let him know I was ready.

He wasn’t paying any attention to me. He wasn’t paying any attention to driving, for that matter. He was too busy fumbling with his mobile telephone. The last I saw of him, he was weaving down the road, steering with his knees, both hands occupied with the phone as he tried to dial a number without pulling over. It was, I couldn’t help thinking, the perfect image for a new era.

Cars are no longer merely modes of transportation. The electronics revolution and the dawn of the Information Age have transformed them into a cross between work stations and homes away from home. Cellular telephones keep us in touch with civilization while we drive through the Panhandle. Laptop computers give us NYSE stock quotes while we’re stuck in traffic on 1-35. Megawatt stereo systems- known in the trade as “groundthumpers”- produce enough volume to rock Reunion Arena. Digitized maps tell us where we want to go. Radar detectors help us get there faster. And to protect these goodies, of course, we install state-of-the-art remote-controlled anti-theft systems that do everything short of saying, “Book ’em, Danno.”

Fueled by a combination of youthful extravagance and baby boom prosperity, the automotive electronics industry has exploded. As recently as twenty-five years ago, a car was considered pretty well optioned out if it had an FM radio. Last year, by way of comparison. Americans spent about $4 billion on car stereos alone. Cellular telephones accounted for another half billion or so, and millions more were spent on various other “aftermarket” gizmos-that is, devices installed after the car leaves the factory. It’s almost reached the point that gas station attendants who check your car’s fluid levels should be trained to examine the toner in the fax machine as well as the water in the radiator.

At $1,300 or so a pop, mobile fax machines haven’t become the national rage. Not yet, anyway. But even without springing for a PortaFax, it’s still possible to spend as much on electronic automotive accessories as it would cost to buy an entire car. For instance, Grand Prairie entrepreneur Mark Baran spent more than $8,000 outfitting his BMW 633i (which he’s since replaced with a more modestly equipped Mercedes-Benz 560SL) with a no-corners-cut stereo and anti-theft system, not to mention a telephone and radar detector. “It was more of a house pet than a car,” he says.

Fooling around with cars has always been a favorite pastime of do-it-yourselfers-the kind of guys who like to window-shop at The Home Depot and get a charge out of hooking up their own garage door openers. For the rest of us, though, our initial brush with aftermarket electronic equipment came during the mid-Sixties, when the first generation of car stereos was introduced. They were crude, sure, but so was the music that came out of them. And remember what the competition was like back then-AM radios with two knobs and five push-pull buttons.

Automakers, who belatedly discovered how lucrative the car stereo biz can be, now offer hard-core sound systems of their own. (Some are designed so they can’t be replaced by aftermarket upgrades-one of the practices that prompted several aftermarket firms to file an antitrust suit against Chrysler last year.) Still, audiophiles generally go the aftermarket route because it offers more options, particularly in high-end equipment. And while it’s possible to buy a bare-bones aftermarket system for as little as $200, there’s almost no limit to how much can be spent if perfect sound is the goal and price is no object.

The most important point to remember while shopping for a car stereo is that you’re buying a car stereo. And, no, that’s not self-evident. Unlike home stereos, car stereos have to take a pounding and keep on sounding. They’ve also got to be tailored to the car. One set of speakers may sound great in the bottom of a door but dreadful in the top. “So you can go out and buy the best components in the world and end up with something that sounds terrible if you don’t install them properly,” says Joe Parker, manager of Earmark Car Audio in Addison. “Installation quality is easily 50 percent of sound quality.”

These days, the cutting edge in car audio is compact discs. Expect to pay at least $600-and probably quite a bit more-for one of these babies. For about $1,200, you can trick out your car with a remote CD system. The CD player, which is kept in the trunk, can be loaded with up to ten CDs. By using a CD changer, you can switch from track to track, and disc to disc, from the driver’s seat. With the exception of certain nonelectronic activities, the remote CD player is probably the ultimate in in-car entertainment.

Cellular telephones run a close second. More than 1.2 million of them are cruising along the nation’s highways. The owners, of course, claim they use them for business purposes. Yeah, right. Says Bill Matthies, partner in The Verity Group, a marketing company in southern California, the nation’s mobile phone capital: “Our research suggests that a fair amount of billing is attributable to their use as novelty items.”

There are four varieties of cellular phones: mobile phones, which are wired to a car battery; briefcase phones, which combine cellular technology and batteries in a single heavyweight package: transportables, which weigh about half as much and can use cigarette lighter outlets as power sources; and portables, which put everything together in a hand-held unit the size of a small walkietalkie. Mobile phones start out at around $400, but the top-of-the-line portable can exceed $2,000.

Most phones offer features nobody really needs. Face it: if you can actually fill a phone number memory with a hundred numbers, your life is much too complicated. Still, some kind of memory function is a valuable asset, since it allows you to dial a number by pressing a single button. A microphone is another sensible option. By enabling you to carry on a conversation without actually holding the phone, a mike frees your hands for important tasks such as gesticulating, shaving, applying lipstick, and, every now and then, shifting gears to keep your engine from exploding.

Now the bad news: first of all. cellular phone service isn’t cheap, and you can run up some outrageous bills if you intend to use the phone to actually call people rather than merely impress your passengers. Second, sound quality isn’t what you’d expect from a phone installed in your home. A relatively tinny aura and occasional interference are almost unavoidable. More serious problems sometimes arise from the nature of cellular technology.

Cellular telephones function via a network of low-power radio antennas known as cells. As you move past the boundary of a particular territory covered by one cell, your phone signal is “handed off” to another cell. The ensuing click often obscures a word or two. And if you’re using a modem when the hand-off occurs, says Patrick A. Mayben, executive vice president for marketing at Spectrum Cellular Corp. of Dallas, “it’s perceived by the modem at the other end as hanging up.” That means the end of the transmission and the beginning of some serious frustration.

To combat this problem, Spectrum created a cellular modem called The Bridge, which retails for $595. Of course, a modem by itself is about as useful as a clock without hands, so Spectrum also packages The Bridge with a laptop computer and cellular phone. (This so-called LapPak weighs a scant twenty-two pounds but costs a hefty $4,950. This is not a misprint.) Although the laptop in the LapPak happens to be a Toshiba, almost any laptop computer can be used in a car.

If data transmission’s your bag and many hours of driving are your lot, a mobile fax machine may be in your future. Although local dealers report that only a handful have been sold in Dallas, the PortaFax III is sizzling in New York City and Los Angeles. Cheryl Hollins, executive vice president of the Car Audio Specialists Association, says that fax machines will probably be the next big automotive accessory, as more and more of us blend our work and our driving.

Elsewhere on the ultra-high-tech front is The Navigator from Etak Inc. of Menlo Pork, California. Tired of driving around in circles or getting headaches from trying to focus on the tiny lettering on street maps? The Navigator displays a detailed portion of a map of Dallas (and most other major U.S. cities) on a seven- by seven-inch monitor. As you move, so does the map, constantly shifting position to make sure you get from Point A to Point B without a single detour. The $2,000 Etak system also is being tested in a federally funded pilot program in southern California as an alternative to radio traffic bulletins. Everybody on the system passes traffic reports along to a central computer. This enables the computer to provide up-to-the-minute information on which roads are empty and which are congested.

Let’s say your Navigator tells you where you are and shows the coast is clear. One way to make sure you can exploit those open roads is to equip your car with a radar detec-tor. These speeding aids vary in price (from about $50 to $500) and dimensions (from pocket- to shoebox-size), and their quality fluctuates just as wildly. A few caveats: radar detectors don’t make you invisible, just harder to nail. So-called instant-on radar, in particular, is capable of defeating radar detectors because it gives little or no warning. Also, radar detectors have an irritating tendency to start beeping when they confront signals from automatic supermarket doors, garage door openers, and even other radar detectors.

If your need for speed goes beyond simply avoiding the cops, your car’s electronic armament ought to include at least one of two especially nifty boy-racer-type devices. The Vericom VC-200, which carries a suggested retail price of $429 but often sells for as little as $300, specializes in measuring straight-line acceleration and deceleration. This is the gadget that many of the car magazine test drivers use to clock zero-to-sixty and quarter-mile times. More intriguing is the g.Analyst, which Valentine Research sells for $379. Although the name refers to its ability to measure the lateral G-forces developed during acceleration, braking, and cornering, the g. Analyst also can help determine the best shift points for your engine or develop the best braking techniques for your car.

By this point, assuming that you’re taking advantage of all the electronic opportunities available, you’ll have so much money invested in your automobile that you may be afraid to leave it unattended. Either that or you’ll probably decide to spend a few hundred more dollars on a security system to safeguard your mobile investment.

Prices start at about $150 and zoom past the $500 mark when you hit bells-and-whis-tles territory. Although many automakers offer their own factory-installed anti-theft systems, the most sophisticated equipment is found in the aftermarket. “The OEM [original equipment manufacturer] systems are of the cookie-cutter variety,” Bill Mat-thies explains. “By definition, for it to be an effective alarm system, there has to be some customization.” One feature it pays to include is remote control-giving you the ability to arm and disarm the system from a safe distance, and your system the ability to alert you when your car is being tampered with.

Picture this: you’re sitting in your high-rise apartment. The phone rings. You answer it. A synthesized voice says. “Your securi-ty system has been tripped.” Looking out the window, you see that one of your car doors is open. You punch a button on the receiver. This activates a microphone inside the car and lets you listen as the thieves argue about how to shut off the alarm. You call the police, then punch another button to disarm the system and lull the hapless thieves into a false sense of security. You’re still watching the show-and your car is still there-when the cops arrive.

Sound futuristic? Actually, Alpine Electronics of America introduced it last month-it being, of course, the Model 8125 Digital Remote Control Security System with Pager. “The key is integration,” says Jim Wunderlich, director of public relations for the company’s Car Audio Division. “Eventually, we’ll have a panel that controls the cellular telephone, stereo, security system, and who knows what else.”

Okay, so now your car’s safe. What about you? Is it safe to drive around with all these gadgets vying for your attention? “We see that there is a possible problem with a cellular phone, but as far as having any data on accidents that are directly attributable to them, we don’t have it,” says Frank Hall, a Highway Patrol inspector in the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Inspection and Planning Division. “It should go without saying, though, that anything that distracts you from paying 100 percent of your attention to driving is a potential hazard.”

Not so, says Dr. James Quick, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Texas at Arlington, who believes the distractions created by accessories are “a real benefit” because they keep our minds sharp. “Driving a car, when you really get good at it, is a routine, boring kind of job,” he says. “We have enough mental capacity to do more than drive a car.”

So drive friendly. Texans. Call a friend.

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