I read in USA Today that Chevrolet offers an AC vent designed to cool your cellular phone. The idea is that heavy users (hands free, of course) encounter overheating from use and sunlight. I wouldn’t pay for it and it it was a standard feature, I wouldn’t use it. What do you think? Are there any other unusual options you can think of?
My car can be setup to announce my birthday. (Forester)
In fact you can set several birthdays or anniversaries, and 7 pages of the manual are devoted to this function.
My wife’s Nissan Sentra has a glove compartment that was designed to carry a laptop computer and is cooled by the AC system. I keep my Hershey bars there when I travel.
It’s not a new car by any means but my 1974 Chevy Monte Carlo came with swivel bucket seats. I never used them but I showed off the feature to my friends and family. That’s about all they were good for.
I drove a new Cadillac Escalade that had a camera on the front so you could see the car your about to whack.
It isn’t an option, but Tesla’s door handles come out to greet you and retract back into the door skin. I assume it’s to create an aerodynamically clean surface, but I’ve never read and explanation from anyone official at Tesla. I could be a gimmick.
Some of the new GM cars that have reverse sensors will vibrate the outer seat bottom when you are getting close to another vehicle.
First time I experienced this I thought my legs were having muscle spasms. ( ;
All that a/c for the phone requires is a little vent above the phone tray. Extra cost must be minimal. Cheaper than the ‘crotch cooler’ vent under the steering column on some GM cars.
That Tesla option, really it is standard on all of them, is the single most unreliable part on the whole car!
Not a new car, but our Saab has a cooling duct in the glove box. Not the center console storage, the passenger side storage box. To keep your lunch cool, I guess? It can be turned on and off.
Unusual new car option, self-parallel parking. I would never use it except to show it to friends. I can parallel park the first try, first time. I don’t need this.
What I’d like to see is the outside mirrors retract into the car body when the car is turned off. I’ve several times had the mirrors trashed while parked, once by vandalism, once by a passing car.
THat would be a good option @BillRussell. Also gives a little extra room for a person to walk between the cars without accidentally whacking a hip on one.
Wow crotch vents and vibrating seats…what a selling point. That’s all I’ll say to keep from being banned from this board.
Yosemite
“Wow crotch vents and vibrating seats…what a selling point.”
I can recall riding in my uncle’s brandy-new '64 Imperial LeBaron, and–among other things–hearing him brag about the A/C vent underneath the steering column that he dubbed his “crotch cooler”. I was only about 16 years old at the time, but I can recall thinking…Why does he need a crotch cooler?
Yes, I led a very sheltered existence…
The whole car is one ridiculous option, but check out the retractable hood ornament on this Rolls Royce. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jo5g0t0a54
About that crotch cooler. I’m glad it’s late or Carolyn might throw me off for some of the wise cracks I want to make on that option. Good night Carolyn…
I guess the retractable hood ornament on the Rolls serves a purpose. It can keep some comedian from heisting it and I’m sure RR charges a bunch of quid for a replacement.
A better option would be to have the emblem insulated and wired into an on-board fence charger.
That will learn somebody not to lay hands on it.
My memory is a bit hazy on this but I seem to remember many years ago that stealing Benz and VW emblems became popular due to the Beastie Boys.
I I could record birthdays or other messages on the CRT of my rivieras way back. BMW and others have the mirror retract. Back in 74 one of the options I could have ordered with my olds was are waste basket. I didn’t do it.
@BillRussel Many European cars have those. We rented a family size Renault in France last year and yes, when you run the key off the mirrors retract flat against the body. Parking spaces are very tight in Europe and we welcomed this feature.
One of the mirrors on my Toyota got bashed by a careless person in the Walmart parking lot.
Do VW Beetles still have a place to put a vase w/ a rose?
Nope, newer model designed to appeal more to men than before.
The old hard-mounted RR “Spirit of Ecstasy” hood ornaments used to get stolen fairly regularly. Ergo, the disappearing ornament!