IT HAS been said that, in the past, all a luxury car needed were plush leather seats, heaps of legroom, a mini-bar, enough wood-panelling to feed a colony of termites for the next decade and a driver named James who wore a funny uniform and drove you everywhere.
Nowadays, thanks to the lovely Japanese and German car makers out there, luxury is all of the above and more electronics than the North American Air Defence Command uses in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. This brings us to the new BMW 750Li, the Six Million Dollar Man of the automotive world. Yes, the likes of Lexus and Mercedes have flagship vehicles that have more gadgets than the Death Star but the 750Li is the vehicle that those lovely Bavarian engineers pour all their latest gadgets into.
Depending on which variant you get, the equipment list can include. night vision, dynamic traffic avoidance, lane departure warning, a head-up display, sat-nav with topographic maps, rear-seat entertainment and audio systems, and even a refrigerator. Take the top of the line and you get all the above. Nice.
Competition, they say, brings out the best in people and the 2009 Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG comes with all the mod cons. A 14-way power seat system comes with plenty of adjustable bolstering to hold the occupants in place during turns, there's a front-seat massage option for the driver and every passenger gets an individual climate control setting.
Other gadgets in the S63 include blind-spot assistance that warn of approaching cars in your blind spot, Distronic Plus adaptive cruise control that won't let your car get too close to a car in front of it and night assist, which turns the speedo area into a video screen that shows what's ahead in the dark of night ... in glorious black and white.
Of course, this being the ICE segment of this wonderful motoring section, we would be remiss if we did not mention that the Mercedes S63 AMG comes with a Harman Kardon surround system, a CD/DVD changer and a sat-nav to make sure you can get from A to B via C and D in comfort and style.
Another car that comes with some lovely gadgets pre-installed is the Audi Q5, which is apparently the first Audi with the latest Multi Media Interface (MMI), a screen-based system that allows the driver to control the sat-nav, ICE system, climate control and other systems.
The best part of this new MMI is its ability to view two layers of information at one time, for example, if you need to adjust the A/C whilst using the sat-nav function, the temperature readout becomes a transparent overlay over the GPS map you were using to navigate your way around.
Readers of this column will remember that the new Jaguar XJ would come with a Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) audio system. Now, with the launch of the new Jaguar in Europe and other markets, it can be reported that the new audio system marks the first time the Audyssey MultEQ XT tuning system will be used in a car.
What's an Audyssey MultEQ XT you may ask? It's a system that digitally corrects audio imperfections in the source, allowing for, theoretically, of course, the best possible sound system out there ... on four wheels or at home.
On top of that, the XJ also comes with Dolby Pro Logic IIx, which means that every seat in the car will benefit from 7.1 surround sound. Most home theatre set-ups at home come with 5.1 surround. Nifty, no? Pioneer is pioneering a portable media player for the car dashboard that's unique because it will make use of WiMAX to stream TV shows, films and music stored on a home network.
No need to pop in an SD card as in existing systems but the system is hamstrung by the need to have WiMAX in the area that you're driving through. No confirmation yet when the technology will be released into the market, though.
And lastly, tired of car thieves breaking in and stealing the gadgets in your car? A couple of police forces in the United States have come out with the perfect solution - bait cars. Bait cars are vehicles that come equipped with hidden cameras and microphones. More advanced bait cars even lock engines. The moment a thief breaks into the cars, he's on thief-cam and the police are on him like a tonne of bricks. Smile, you're on bandit camera. Until the next time then.