The Good Oil: Prickly problems

It's not nice, the way the humble hedgehog often ends its days, sprawled gutted on the road. So try to avoid running it over next time because it may ultimately save your life. Scientists studying the makeup of the hedgehog's spines - its prickles - believe the honeycomb-like compound is one of nature's greatest cushions. A single hedgehog prickle can apparently absorb and disperse a huge amount of energy. The car industry is looking at how exactly it all works. Not that the family four-door will end up with a long bonnet and shuffling along the road covered in prickles - just that carmakers may one day thank the hedgehog for improving safety.

It's a beaut ute

Holden showed off a Commodore VS ute at the Detroit Motor Show. The Aussie icon was there to showcase the Australian arm of General Motors. But why the ute, you ask, when Holden could have sent the Commodore SS, the prototype Commodore Coupe or an HSV Senator? The Americans wanted a pick-up or "truck." But they didn't tell show-goers that the VS ute has been around since 1995 and that it will soon be replaced by the VT.

Farewell to flicker

A motorsport fan phoned the other day to ask whether television would screen the latest category in Germany - Volkswagen New Beetle races. The class was introduced last year. We couldn't tell him. But we could let him know that the digital television set he was planning to buy to get a "sharper" picture of Formula One action should ideally be 100 hertz and not 50 hertz. We know this because a TV repairman said so. The average television image is broadcast at 50 frames a second. But the 100hz model copies each frame and broadcasts it again, which means the image hardly flickers. A 100hz set with a feature called "digital motion interpolation" cuts out flicker altogether. What the repairman didn't say was how much a 100hz set costs - anywhere between $3000 and $20,000.

Bentley's big bucks

Got a spare $7000? No, not for a digital television set but a couple of sterling silver items from Bentley - a 375ml drinking flask in the shape of a Bentley radiator, and a pair of cufflinks, both carrying the winged B emblem. The lid on the flask is a scaled-down version of the quick-release radiator cap of the Le Mans Bentleys of the 1920s. If you really want to go the whole hog, platinum and diamond cufflinks - again adorned with the winged B - will set you back $15,000.

We are the world

* An automotive accessories company in Japan has developed a instrument which electronically tells drivers the direction in which the steering wheel is pointing the car, in case you are desperate to know. The information is displayed on a screen on the dashboard. We don't know if it works in reverse gear. We don't care.

* Police and customs officers at British ports are on the lookout for cars and vans which are sitting unusually low on the suspension. Odds-on they will be chock-a-block with booze from the Continent. Smuggling cheap beer, wine and spirits is the fastest-growing crime in Britain. Last year 100,000 vehicles were sprung.