From a $20,150 Ferrari to a $61 nodding dog, Christmas is sorted

How to spoil the petrolhead/e-bike enthusiast/RC modeller in your family without putting too big a hole in your pocket.

Tony DavisMotoring writer

Nov 30, 2022 – 5.00am

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Another Christmas, another chance to find something to surprise and delight a loved one. Or to drop hints, subtle and un, as to what might delight (if not surprise) you. Here’s our 2022 grab-bag – or grab-stocking – of Christmas suggestions on wheels.

Treadlie softly

The BirdBike, currently available as a V frame, left, will eventually be available as an A frame too.

It’s a bird … it’s a bike, no it’s a BirdBike. If the name seems familiar, it’s because Bird Global Inc has put sharable e-scooters and e-bikes in hundreds of cities around the world. Now this BirdBike-assisted cycle is being offered for sale in Australia.

The company reckons the global total of e-bikes is expected to surpass 300 million next year. We’ve always been a big fan of them at Life & Leisure, and this one is fun to ride, well-equipped, comfortable and very sturdy. The last point makes sense; a company used to making rental bikes must have a “simple and bulletproof” mantra. With that, though, comes an official weight of 23 kg, and it feels every kg of that, particularly when hauling it up stairs.

Only a jockey on a billiard table is likely to achieve the claimed range (100 km on the lightest assistance setting), but such range optimism is almost universal when it comes to anything with a battery. Importantly, this will still get a person to work with no sweat (literally), and home again with the leanness and greenness that’s hard to achieve while pushing around two tonnes of car-shaped metal. Parking’s a breeze too.

As long as you don’t have to haul the 23kg BirdBike up the stairs, there’s everything to like.

A choice of V-frame (step-through) and A-frame BirdBikes will be offered, both at $3699, though only the V-frame is ready so far. Both have a 250 watt rear hub motor governed to a top assisted speed of 25 km/h, as the law requires. The BirdBike also has integrated LED lights, built-in Bluetooth and alarm, an app to control some functions, a backlit dash recessed into the handlebars, seven Shimano gears and other goodies including puncture- resistant tyres.

Available through Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi and other major retailers, as well as online. See birdbike.com.au

Bob’s your mascot
There I was thinking that the most iconic motoring accessory, the parcel-shelf dog with the head that bobs with the movement of the car, had gone the way of the quarter vent window and vinyl roof. Which would sort of make sense because in most modern vehicles, the parcel shelf has itself gone the way of the quarter vent window and vinyl roof.

This retro nodding dog is the perfect gift for Benz owners. Obviously.

But salvation is at hand. The Nodding Dog has been revived by no lesser company than Mercedes-Benz. There are no sensors to allow the canine noggin to lean into corners, nor gesture control to allow it to shake its bonce on command, nor other high-level Benz tech. This is very much an analogue dog, albeit with a blingy three-pointed star on its collar.

Available through MB dealers (RRP $61), along with Benz-themed clothes, watches, electronics, even AMG Monopoly. See the full collection at mercedes-benz.com.au/passengercars/being-an-owner/collection

Step on it

A sneaker from none other than McLaren Automotive and Athletic Propulsion Labs.

Some shoes make a big statement and McLaren’s Hyspeed, whether in the race team’s Papaya hue or other near-fluoro colours, should get most people’s attention. The unisex “running trainer” was apparently co-developed by the McLaren and APL design teams. APL stands for Athletic Propulsion Labs, which sounds like an offshoot of NASA but probably isn’t.

Still, the shoes are made of a lightweight knitted material inspired by the seats in the McLaren Senna supercar and are apparently packed with other tech.

From $816 a pair: athleticpropulsionlabs.com

Remote-control kicks
The revived Ford Bronco 4x4 has been a huge hit in the United States – and it’s now here, at least in one-tenth scale, remote-control form. This supercool, 60 cm long “RC rock crawler” from Traxxas has four-wheel drive, sophisticated suspension, dual range transmission and remote locking differentials. Seeing it in action is the stuff of wonder.

It sure looks like the real thing... the Traxxas RC Bronco.

If you’d prefer a British solution to the problem of surmounting tenth-scale boulders and ploughing through tenth-scale mud, there’s an equally fetching Land Rover Defender version.

From $949 to $1045. See frontlinehobbies.com.au

Hood wink

If you need a stocking stuffer for the car lover in your life, a Blipshift T-shirt might be just the thing.

There’s always a T-shirt, or singlet or hoodie to consider. A vast and fast moving selection of all three can be found at Blipshift, from rallying Lancias to Le Mans-ing Porsches plus Deloreans, Kombis, famous racetracks and copious homages to the three-pedal layout. Even paddle-shifts are for wimps, apparently. Grab it if you like it; Joe Oh, co-founder of Blipshift, warns us: “Since our crowdsourced designs are available only for a limited time and we have one to four new tees daily, our back catalogue is in the thousands.” He sent us some “past hits” nonetheless.

blipshift.com

Small but perfectly Ferrari
Amalgam was founded in Bristol, England, nearly 40 years ago to make models of proposed buildings for Foster & Partners and other leading architectural firms. About 10 years later it began making Formula 1 scale models. It has since set up partnerships with major race teams and road car makers. Hence this officially endorsed SF90 Stradale in 1:8 scale.

Amalgam’s SF90 Stradale model is definitely adults-only.

It used Ferrari’s digital scans of the original car to reproduce the V8-and-three-electric motors plug-in superdupercar with a level of detail that is simply breathtaking. Don’t give one to the kids, though. Amalgam says its 1:8 scale cars (this is one of many) take “thousands of hours to develop the design and tooling, and hundreds of hours to build each model”. That probably accounts for the price of $20,150.

See the full range of Ferrari merch at store.ferrari.com

Smarter skidlid

We borrowed a Forcite helmet for our test of the electric BMW scooter (the wonderful CE 04) and felt we were in the future in every sense. Batteries are a great fit for an urban scooter, and so is a good-looking, carbon-fibre helmet with built-in smarts (HD camera, speakers, microphones and more).

Forcite is a play on foresight, and that’s precisely what you get with the Australian brand’s smart helmets.

The Australian designed-and-built Forcite has a row of subtle LED lights along the inside of the chin bar which flash green on either side to indicate a turn, so the rider doesn’t need to look down at a screen to read satnav instructions. This “non-distracting peripheral display” flashes orange for hazards and red-and-blue to indicate speed cameras up ahead. Built-in sensors including an accelerometer can measure angle of lean and other performance metrics, plus impact detection, though these functions are scheduled for a future over-the-air update.

The app that runs it isn’t perfect (we noticed a bug or two) but features and improvements are being added progressively. We also found when the built-in camera is filming, it picks up the swearwords that emerge from inside the helmet when someone in a car does something silly. Which is often.

From $1299. forcitehelmets.com