When you work with car technology all day, your conversations tend to turn to cars even if you weren’t explicitly talking about them. For example, when Mad Max: Fury Road came out recently, a few of us started talking about how much we liked the movie, and then our favorite drivers. This inevitably led to: “Alright, who’s the better driver: Batman or Mad Max?”
Naturally, we proceeded to nerd out: “Mad Max is a way better driver than Batman! He’s driving with super low tech in the middle of a desert!”
“No way! Batman can drive any type of vehicle, and he has to do it in claustrophobia-inducing Gotham whilst avoiding civilians!”
“I think you’re missing the point, which is OMG FURIOSA.”
You get the picture. We’re huge nerds around here.
While we’ve decided to settle this debate by sharing these matchups on social media, it made us wonder how some of our favorite characters from TV and film would use Automatic. We presented this question to some Automatic teammates: “Who is your favorite fictional driver, and which Automatic feature would be most useful to them?” Here’s what we got.
Frank Bullitt – Ladan Mahini, Partner Marketing Manager
Frank Bullitt from Bullitt. Um, have you seen that car chase scene? Need I say more?! Plus, it features my favorite car, the 1968 Mustang GT Fastback.
Frank could potentially use all of Automatic’s features, but most importantly he could use the audio feedback on his driving habits. If Frank were to be notified every time he hit the brake too hard while swerving around a corner, or how much gas he’s been wasting chasing the bad guys, then maybe his drive score wouldn’t look too shabby. If Frank were to take the feedback from his Automatic and be a safer driver, he could save on gas and maintenance costs (braking too much wears on your tires!). Who am I kidding, Frank probably wouldn’t listen to the audio cues and would still drive like a maniac through the city.
(Editor’s Note: If you want to be more like Frank, you can turn driving feedback off in Settings. We cannot, however, recommend the use of Automatic in high-speed car chases, no matter how cool they look on camera.)
Ricky Bobby – Buckley Slender-White, Head of Marketing
Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights. I imagine that he’d like to use the Nest integration. While he might have trouble with most technology—“Where do I put my hands?”—he knows how his car works (arguably) so he might be able to figure out how to set the temperature in his house with Automatic. “If you’re not first, you’re last!”
Batman – Lisa Yu, Director of Program Management
Who’s my fave? Batman! When the Batmobile’s out, it owns the road. It’s got so many gadgets, very fitting for its tech-savvy owner.
Batman could benefit from using DashCommand, because when the Batmobile’s out racing and he’s saving lives, he needs to be in control. DashCommand assists him in checking his engine health, tracking his horsepower, torque, and acceleration to make sure he’s catching up with the bad guys, and monitoring gas mileage and fuel consumption to keep the car running!
Richard “Dick” Milhous Dastardly – Nick Lambourne, VP of Hardware and Firmware Engineering
Dick Dastardly is by far the best of the drivers in the Wacky Races and all around misunderstood villain. His car, the Mean Machine, outstripped all the other competitors with raw speed, yet Dick cared more about his villain credibility than winning the race. These are morals I can get behind!
Every well-funded villain needs to track expenses. Enter our heroes, Automatic and Xero! Now at the end of every unsuccessful race, Dick retires to his castle licking his wounds, pours an inch of Rogue’s Rum, and files his day’s trips for next year’s tax season.
Marty McFly – Ljuba Miljkovic, Designer
Easy: Marty McFly from Back to the Future. It’s easy to lose track of your car through space and time and the DeLorean is no exception. Marty needs the parking location feature to work for him in overtime. If he could integrate Automatic’s parking locator with Doc Brown’s flux capacitor…great Scott, he’d never lose the DeLorean again!
Speed Racer – Cori Johnson, UX Designer
The whole Racer family would use Automatic! Speed obviously would practice his races with Harry’s LapTimer, and Pops would use that data to fine-tune the engine on the Mach 5. And while Trixie keeps an eye on his races from the sky, I bet she and the Speed’s parents would appreciate his being protected by Crash Alert.
When Speed’s little brother Spritle is old enough to drive, they’ll definitely want him using License+ so he can grow up to be a great driver and one day beat Racer X. And when Spritle gets an allowance, Speed can use UnMooch to get him to cough up cash for all the times he got a free ride by stowing away with Chim-Chim in the trunk.
Nerd Out With Us!
Those are some of our favorites. (Me? KITT, from Knight Rider, hands-down. The Hoff, on the other hand….) Who or what are some of your favorite fictional drivers? Which feature do you think would be more useful to them? Sound off on Twitter or Facebook.
The post Pit Stop: We Nerd Out Over Our Favorite Drivers appeared first on Automatic Blog.