In Boyd Coddington's show room. If only we could've driven this for the rest of our nav trip. | | |
When we think of the South we associate it with hot weather, NASCAR, the Bible Belt, the Confederate flag, "Gone With the Wind", blues and country music and, at least in Texas, big oil. The South has always been easy to pigeonhole and maybe even make fun of, but like any region, especially one that vast and multi-faceted, there's a lot more to it than our well-worn notions and old stereotypes. For instance, we know there are a lot of people into car audio in the South, so clearly you have a bunch of sharp people in the area.
Up north people still like to think anything really important happens above the Mason-Dixon Line, but the truth is that culturally this country wouldn't be even half as interesting without the contributions of the South (e.g. Faulkner, Williams, McCullers, Welty and so forth, literary-wise). And they're into more than twangy, backroads music down there. Beyond Tennessee and Louisiana, you have Florida, Texas, Virginia and Georgia. The latter has been especially fertile the last couple of decades. Back in the 80s it seemed every third rock band in the state was being signed and getting radio airplay (thanks to the success of R.E.M.); and now it's become a hip-hop hotbed. It's no longer an East or West Coast thing. Some music fans may look down on it still, but acts like the Neptunes, Timbaland, the Goodie Mob, Outkast, Lil Jon, Missy Elliot, Lil Flip and David Banner, among others, are changing all that. If you're into the genre then you're listening to someone belonging to hip-hop, south.
Beyond the arts we may be starting to see another shift as well. You already have a business powerhouse in Wal-Mart, headquartered in Arkansas, but a demographic change might lead to more big business in the South. Recently a study was published about the migration of Californians (who've made small fortunes just by selling their homes) to places like Texas, Arizona, the Carolinas, etc. Some of the people who are leaving are talented engineers who played a part in the new economic developments in the state. Apparently they would willingly sacrifice the beach and year-round sunny dry weather for more land and a lower cost of living. Talk of a "brain drain" is already starting. With the median price of houses skyrocketing to about half a million and more in the Golden State you need some serious coin, preferably the platinum kind, to buy four walls and a roof. I don't see a whole lot of brainy new college graduates willing to reside in a place that requires them to be among the wealthiest 10 percent in the country to have a watered down version of the American Dream: a house, two cars and the ability to pay your child's way through college. No, I figure they're going south, to places like New Orleans, Lousiana, incidentally, Wynton Marsalis' hometown, and where Jack Cali runs Drivesoft. The company seems poised for a successful major launch of its product. It has already been seen by millions of people on MTV's Pimp My Ride.
Everyone has a general idea of what an in-car computer system is, or should be. It seems just intuitive that something like your laptop should allow you to do everything from taking care of business to working on creative projects to managing your entertainment in your car. Manufacturers have tried and failed to push some variation on the concept and a lot of installers have taken their own PCs and incorporated it into systems in their vehicles. But a consumer version that has been embraced--no, not yet. Drivesoft may be the one; see for yourself. Our resident in-car computer expert, Derek Lee, takes a closer look at the product that many of us glimpsed on the TV show. It may be just what many car audio enthusiasts and computer geeks have been waiting for.
Finally, this month we're running the first part of our navigation comparison featuring systems by Alpine, Eclipse and Pioneer. For me navigation isn't simply a luxury but an absolute necessity--we waste too much time in traffic as it is without getting lost on top of it. So the question isn't if... Rather, it's which one... With the different features and price points, it's not an easy decision.