There, in the rear-view mirror -- that Jaguar coupe. Notice how it hovers 100 yards behind, mile after mile. Step on the brakes, it slows to the exact pace. Speed up. It follows. Always 100 yards behind.
Are you being tailed by some sinister agents of the global thought police?
Nope, just some sod with a lot of dough. Enough dough, at least, to buy a new Jaguar rigged with the latest automotive techno doodad: a radar-equipped cruise control that maintains a constant distance behind the traffic ahead.
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Starting Tuesday, the new system -- Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) -- was available as a US$2,000 option on $94,000-plus Jaguar XKR coupes and convertibles sold in Britain and Germany. Jaguar will trot out the cars in North America sometime after November.
Theortically, ACC allows a driver to go for miles in heavy traffic without ever touching the gas or the brake.
"The result is a relaxing drive -- and a relaxed, yet alert driver," purrs Jaguar in its promo material.
Here's how it works, in a nutshell: After a driver enters the desired speed, he enters the distance -- in seconds -- he wants to maintain between himself and the cars ahead.
A microwave radar in the car then measures the distance to traffic ahead, feeding the data to the car's throttle and brake, which adjusts the speed to maintain a constant spacing.
If the road is clear, the system will function just like normal cruise control.
While Jaguar pitches ACC as a convenience for congested highways, it suggests that the technology may be the first step towards building cars smart enough to keep themselves out of wrecks.
"Arguably, it may lay the foundations for future collision-avoidance systems," Jaguar spokesman Martin Broomer said. "But that's way in the future. This is an aid for the driver, not a substitute."
Jaguar, a division of Ford, is the first to produce an ACC-equipped car, but a rival luxury car maker sniffed that Jaguar had rushed out an idea it had invented first.
"I think we can honestly say that the conception of it occurred here first," said Mercedes-Benz spokesman Joshua Davidson. "We're the pioneers in this field."
Mercedes and other major car makers promise to deliver similar systems.
