Gizmos, Gadgets and Goofy Stuff From L.A., Vegas Shows
If you were among the 860,000 or so folks who attended the recent Greater Los Angeles Auto Show, you saw an entire hall turned over to new, fun and some just plain goofy products. Many of these parts and accessories were at least as interesting as the brand-new cars and trucks on display elsewhere in the L.A. Convention Center.
Retail sales in 1997 for products like these totaled almost $20 billion (yes, with a “B”). With that in mind, here are some of my favorite new automotive aftermarket products for 1999 from the L.A. show and from last November’s Specialty Equipment Market Assn. trade show in Las Vegas:
Computers and Navigation: Electronic gizmos are all the rage, and here come the Windows-based in-car computers.
Clarion has one of the first, called AutoPC, available at a starting price of about $1,200. You talk to AutoPC, and it talks back to you. The machine fits snugly into your vehicle’s instrument panel, can recognize your voice over ambient noise (even with the windows down) and can dial your phone, tune the radio, fetch traffic and weather reports and remind you to order gifts for your wife or husband (or other significant person).
If your car or truck has the OBD II on-board diagnostic system, AutoPC can even tell you what’s wrong with the vehicle before you take it in for service.
As more and more cars come equipped to receive digital radio signals and make full use of them, the seemingly magical things AutoPC can do will increase dramatically (most cars receive digital signals now but process them into analog, except for some new Blaupunkt models, which can do it all).
Transonic of Diamond Bar, which demonstrated the system in L.A., is among the local dealers; information: (909) 594-4633.
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Navigation systems are available from a variety of suppliers for as little as $750, and that price will drop quickly this year as more competition hits this growing field.
Perhaps even cooler than a mere satellite nav system, cell phone and on-board computer, however, is something called BART. The system from Bartizan American Communications (I have a feeling they may be hearing from Bay Area Rapid Transit’s attorneys sometime soon) is available locally from Haas Auto Stereo in Culver City, (310) 641-4700.
BART, based on proven Motorola components, employs a lot of the same concepts behind the General Motors OnStar and Ford RESCU communications systems but makes them available in one package for any make. Complete pricing is not available yet, but the BART folks say their system makes it possible for you to talk with a living, breathing human in a central dispatch office to get route, traffic and weather information as well as directions to restaurants, hotels and such.
SUV and Pickup Gear: In 1998, the second-best year ever for new vehicle sales in the U.S., light trucks accounted for nearly half the volume. Which means an awful lot of you bought pickups, whether you really needed one or just wanted to look cool when you dropped your kids off at school.
You’ve probably noticed that when (or if) you’ve actually used that pickup bed, you invariably have two kinds of loads: so small you have to tie the stuff down to keep it from rattling around the bed or so large that you have to open the tailgate and let everything hang (and maybe fall) out the back. So now, Mr. and Ms. Urban Cowboy, what are you going to do?
AMP Research of Laguna Niguel has one answer. Its Bed X-Tender, a compact aluminum cargo holder, mounts easily in the rear of the bed and can be used to hold small loads in place. It can also be mounted on the tailgate itself, in effect allowing you to extend your pickup bed by more than a foot, safely and easily.
The Bed X-Tender costs about $200, weighs less than 10 pounds and is strong enough to be removed from the bed and used as a bench. It’s just one of those products that makes you say, “Now, why didn’t I think of that?”
Information: (949) 461-5990.
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The idea of trying to jack up a pickup, or especially a sport-ute that may tip the scales at almost 6,000 pounds, does not appeal to us at all. But unfortunately, as a result of manufacturers’ continuing attempts to cut weight from their vehicles, many jacks these days are, well, wimpy.
So along come Air Jack of Fresno and WWT of Richmond, Va., with similar products that do the same job: use air pressure to fill a rubber bladder that can lift a corner of your big truck to help you change a tire or provide other necessary service. The units cost about $300.
Using a small air compressor that plugs directly into your truck’s 12-volt accessory outlet (these used to be called cigarette lighter plugs), both Air Jack and WWT’s SuperJack appear to do the job safely, quickly and without a lot of wear and tear on you. Both are available at area auto products retailers.
Other Items We Liked: Toto, the giant Japanese company that specializes in bathroom fixtures (and not Dorothy’s little dog), is marketing a new product called Hydrotect. These are plastic strips that are said to keep water from beading up on a vehicle’s side rearview mirrors. No pricing yet; the product has just been introduced to dealers and won’t be available until later this year.
Finally, from PulseTech Products of Irving, Texas, comes the Solargizer battery maintenance system, a contraption that uses both sunlight and the firm’s patented pulse technology to keep your vehicle’s battery fresh and charged. It too plugs directly into your vehicle’s accessory outlet. You can visit PulseTech’s Web site for dealer locations and pricing information: https://www.pulsetechproducts.com.
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Bottom line: Outfitting that new or used car or truck with the latest accessories has become a huge industry in itself. Take your time, shop around and listen to lots of word of mouth before you decide to jump into the marketplace with your hard-earned cash.
Steve Parker is the auto expert on KCBS-TV Channel 2 News every Tuesday and Thursday mornings and host of “The Car Nut,” a call-in program airing Sunday from 7 to
9 a.m. on KXTA-AM (1150). He can be reached via e-mail at steve@steveparker.com.
