Magic Body Control by Mercedes...

[martine]

One of my daughters is a graduate engineer at JLR and sent me these links...

Mercedes have recently run a viral advert for their 'Magic Body Control' system showing a chicken 'dancing' along to Diana Ross. To be fair it's a pretty good ad:



The Jaguar USA Team have just released this in response:



Both made me laugh.

Happy Christmas!

[jameslb101]

This video was doing the rounds a few years ago - I'm still surprised that is hasn't yet found a production application...



...especially when you consider it does this!

[trashbat]

i was waiting for a punchline to the Bose one, and it never came!

[Horse]

I remember seeing a Volvo test car which had a system designed to counteract cornering body roll, which would pump up the suspension so it 'leant' into a corner slightly, like a bike. Very comfortable for the passengers!

But . . .

Without the feedback needed, the driver would, apparently, be far more likely to throw it off the road by cornering, overcoming the grip available.

[trashbat]

I should add that Citroen had a pretty insane implementation for its time, in the form of the Xantia Activa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09-C33Sr ... ata_player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v1CF_fY ... re=related

[jameslb101]

I should add that Citroen had a pretty insane implementation for its time, in the form of the Xantia Activa.

Beat me to it. Apparently the flat cornering caused them eat through tyres. On my list of cars to own though.

[martine]

I see the Merc advert in my post above is now on mainstream TV...will JLR follow it up with theirs?

[waremark]

Were any chickens harmed in the makng of these ads?

The journalists say it is pretty magic. I did not know that Bose had worked on active suspension. Lotus also got quite a long way with it a long time ago. The Merc solution is the first time that I have heard of a car reading the road visually for input to the suspension system.

Magic Ride (great name by the way) is an expensive extra on the expensive S Class. I wonder how far down the car food chain it will come over the next few years.