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| GT: 200mph three-wheeler? |
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Car makers spend £billions perfecting their new cars. They spend literally years in development and with the millions of miles that will flow under the wheels of hundreds of prototypes, it's a wonder they have any faults at all.
Happily, while robots now build cars, they're still designed by humans and we still make mistakes no computer is going to pick up. In fact, the entire history of the automobile is strewn with the corpses of cars that came to market complete with a potentially fatal flaw already lurking under the metal.
The latest is Ford's fabulous new GT supercar. It's almost as if no single car deserved so much good press, and after the avalanche of bouquets that showered down on its head from the moment the world first clapped eyes on it, some malevolent force reckoned it was time for at least one bucket of steaming manure. Which is why Ford has had to notify every GT owner not to drive their car another inch until a faulty suspension component, which could cause a wheel to come loose, could be changed. The car credited with getting a good Ford story onto the front pages for once is now attracting attention for all the wrong reasons.
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| A-Class mk1: done in by an elk |
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But for a design flaw to become a really serious headache for a car manufacturer, nothing helps quite so much as the first time they find out about it being when the car is crashed. By a journalist. Such was the fate that befell the Mercedes A-Class. Before it was launched in 1997, a Swedish hack managed to flip one while simulating a dramatic attempt to swerve around an errant moose. Mercedes could have tried to tough it out but, for very good reasons, it delayed the launch of the car, modified its suspension and incorporated an electronic stability programme. They then gave the car back to the journalist who pronounced it cured. Crisis averted, it went on to becoming the fastest-selling car in the company's history.
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