I can’t find it on the Internet, but in 1983, in the incredible Collaroshow by Stéphane Collaro, alias Tonton Mayonnaise, there was a sketch that made me scream with laughter. I was ten years old and, admittedly, I was a better public than today, when I became perfectly sinister.
We saw Guy Montagné being copiously garlanded by his car, a 2CV on the hood of which had been painted a huge very red mouth. This sketch referred to one of the automotive novelties of the moment: voice synthesis. Two French cars were equipped with it, the Peugeot 505 Turbo and Renault 11 TSE Electronic.
Much more has been said regarding the latter, at least for the speaking side, because it embellished its vocalizations with a spectacular liquid crystal dashboard. A first on a homegrown car! That said, the innovation goes to a Japanese, in 1981: the Datsun Maxima. This used the principle of the phonograph: a plastic disc rotated and a reading head, controlled by electronics, chose the right groove according to the alert to be signaled.
At Renault, we use a more modern, fully digital system supplied by Texas Instruments. Yes, the voice is totally artificial! Even if it is the reproduction of that of a man, in flesh and bone. The principle is similar to that of Magic Dictation. A comparable installation is found in the Audi Quattro, between 1983 and 1987, surprisingly.
At the end of 1982, Chrysler also equipped itself with a similar device, the Electronic Voice Alert, very polite since it punctuated each corrective action with a ” thank you ».
It’s very paradoxical to see electronics humanize cars, the peak in this area being embodied by Kitt, the Pontiac Firebird computer driven by David Hasselhoff in the K2000 series, broadcast for the first time in the USA at the end of 1982. .
In 1984, Oldsmobile was equipped with the Digitalker, then Mitsubishi, and in England, Austin-Rover on the top-of-the-range Maestro and Montego. but all these manufacturers have given up on voice alerts, which can be found quite horrifying. All but one: Renault, which persevered. THE R25 and Safrane speak, as well as the Laguna II and Espace IV from the early 2000s.
Now voice alerts are a thing of the past. Perhaps they were considered superfluous, at a time when GPS, also talking, began to become widespread in the diamond range?
