Anything goes

Recession bites: a tale of two dealers

James Ruppert — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:56:14 GMT

Not all of the motor trade is in trouble. Last week I went to two dealerships in one morning.

The first had the glorious whiff of recently ignited petrol, occupied ramps and nowhere to sit in the reception area. Less than a mile away, the other had lots of polished plate glass and floor tile, but no life, soul or customers. It was the contrast between a dealer getting it right in a recession, and another stuck up a blind alley.

Both were Jag dealers. The first is a solidly independent operation with a busy workshop and affordable cars getting sold. The other was a main dealer with tumbleweed under the ramps and a showroom with all the bustle and atmosphere of a crypt.

Ask any motor trade professional and they’ll tell you that, since the August 1^st number plate change was abolished, this is the one of the quietest months of the year. We’ll have to wait until September to see just how bad things really are.

The independent had noticed a downward dip recently, but it was keeping busy doing what it does best. It’s staffed by a friendly crew who know what they’re doing, and who can do it cheaper than a main agent, even if they have to buy in the same diagnostic boxes and elec-trickery. And value still sells, with tidy XJs, S-Types and XKs looking great and attracting sensible customers.

At the main agent there was less atmosphere than on the surface of the moon. In a way, you can’t blame the franchisee: what can they do about VED, credit crunches and the fact that you can even get money off an XF these days? It was a depressing place to be - and just so eerily quiet. And behind their fixed, professional smiles, there was precious little for the staff to be keen about.

So there you have it: whatever the Government says about successive quarters of negative expansion being necessary to justify the ‘R’ word, there’s already a recession in the nation’s showrooms.

But there’s also hope that, if they are prepared to adapt, they might just survive. I mean, why was the main dealer so quiet and empty? Surely this is the perfect time to get a bit of passion and enthusiasm going on: a Sir Williams Lyons diorama, some Le Mans Scalextric and maybe some baby Jags for the kids to play with.

Come on guys: the ship might be sinking, but you don’t need to go down with it.

Renault learns from history

Mike Duff — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:42:47 GMT

Motoring history’s tendency to repeat itself has brought us another corker: Renault’s decision to resurrect the Safrane name tag.

Before nostalgic minicabbers get too excited, I should add that at least one lesson has been learned, and that Renault has no plans to actually bring the thing to the UK. Or, indeed, to Europe.

The new Safrane is intended to compete in the (mostly sandy) parts of the world where the natives still remember vintage big French saloons fondly. The hope is that the Safrane will be seen as a worthy successor to rugged barges like the Peugeot 504 and Renault 30.

Granted, the new car is nothing more than a rebadged Samsung SM5, which in turn is a slightly reworked Nissan Teana, but good luck to it.

But the new Safrane’s convoluted bloodline has sparked memories of another bizarre cross-branded saloon with Renault ancestry: the Ford Corcel.

Back in the late 1960s, Jeep maker Willys-Overland’s Brazilian subsidiary co-developed a new model with Renault based very closely on the then-unlaunched Renault 12.

Unfortunately for the French company, before this gleaming new example of Franco-Brazilian-American co-operation could be brought to the market, Willys pulled out and Ford of Brazil bought out the whole operation.

And so, with a freshly developed new car as part of the its new Brazilian portfolio, Ford applied the ‘Corcel’ name and launched the new car in 1968. Embarassingly for Renault, that was a year before the car went on sale in Europe, meaning the company was effectively scooped on one of its own products.

At least with the new Safrane Renault has the good sense to be the recipient rather than the donor.

Blue is the new green

Hilton Holloway — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:35:42 GMT

Vote blue, go green. That was the slogan David Cameron adopted when he took control of the Conservative party..

But using the 'green' tag as a car maker could become rather more difficult. Last year, one car maker was quietly researching the launch of a new 'green', eco-friendly sub-brand for European markets.

The company's marketing and legal brains got a hint that the EU was looking at a law that would severely restrict the use of the world 'green' to describe any new product. Indeed, it might be argued that anything 'manufactured' cannot be, by definition, green.

The way round the problem, the car maker decided, was to follow Mercedes' lead and adopt the word 'blue' to mean 'green'. And this quiet trend has been gathering force.

Merc's super-clean Bluetec diesel engines came first, followed by the fuel-sipping Volkswagen Blue Motion range. Then Hyundai's low-Co2 iBlue series appeared. And the facelifted BMW 3-series range will include a 330d fitted with the new super-low emission BluePerformance diesel engine.

It's hard not to take pleasure at the car industry out-flanking meddling EU politicians who seemed determined to wrong-foot the European car industry. But it's only a minor victory in the EU's war against any car bigger than the diesel Focus.

Technorati Tags: David Cameron Ford Focus Hyundai iBlue Mercedes-Benz Bluetec

Save the planet: buy a 22mpg BMW

Mike Duff — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:01:39 GMT

Where would motoring journos be without the BMW X6? We should give the thing some kind of award for the sheer amount of coverage we’ve already managed to wring out of it; everything from favourable comments on how it drives through to deep wonder at just how pointless the idea of an off-road coupe really is.

Anyway, BMW has obviously grown used to the critical deluge, to the extent it’s decided to stir up yet more debate with a press release that makes the extremely bold assertion that the forthcoming range-topper, the X6 50i, is some kind of environmental champion.

That’s right, a car that manages the dizzying heights of 22.3mpg when put through the standard fuel economy test – and which pushes out 299g of CO2 for every kilometer it travels, is worthy of praise on the grounds that it does slightly better than its rivals.

According to BMW, the twin-turbocharged X6’s CO2 emissions figure is 75g/km cleaner than the supercharged Range Rover Sport and it’s 4.8mpg more fuel efficient. It’s also 2.3mpg more efficient and 33g/km less polluting than the Porsche Cayenne GTS.

All of which is undoubtedly true, but it seems like a seriously strange battlefield on which to base the 404bhp X6’s case. It’s like saying that an oilwell fire is more environmentally friendly than a capsized supertanker.

Let’s be honest, for the mid-ranking Premiership footballers who will form the range-topping X6’s most appreciative audience, green issues are what happen if the groundsman hasn’t done his job properly.

Technorati Tags: BMW X6 Porsche Cayenne GTS Range Rover Sport Supercharged SUV

Defend the Defender, Land Rover

Ed Keohane — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:50:00 GMT

J D Power has just published the results of its 2008 Vehicle Dependability Study, which summarises the problems experienced by owners of three-year-old vehicles in the US. http://www.jdpower.com/autos/ratings/dependability-ratings-by-brand

Lexus comes top, as it has in the past. This has happened enough times in the past that it is approaching the point at which it is no longer newsworthy. Sadly, the name at the bottom of the list is not a newcomer either. Land Rover comes last with 344 problems per 100 cars.

It's easy to imagine that Land Rovers are put through more extreme conditions than the other cars on the list and therefore suffer more problems. But as every Land Rover owner I've ever met has pointed out, that's missing the point: the cars are now too complicated.

I was camping in Sussex last weekend. I scrabbled up the hill to the camp site in my Land Cruiser and got out to find a LWB Land Rover and a 55-plate Discovery parked at the top alongside some heavy-duty ex-army kit. I soon got chatting to the drivers of the cars and found out that the air suspension on the Discovery has collapsed onto the bumpstops a couple of weeks previously due to a faulty compressor. The owner of the 15-year-old 110 Land Rover was horrified. But not nearly as horrified as he was to hear that new Defenders come with electric windows as standard.

Tata has many challenges ahead with Land Rover: to make the cars more economical, to make them lighter, to make them more reliable. The biggest challenge of all, however, is to come up with a solution for the undoubted demand for a powerful, robust 4x4 with a minimum of gadgets and an interior you can hose down.

The Defender is iconic and its longevity gives the Land Rover brand a reputation for reliability and dependability that is often at odds with anecdotal evidence. It won't matter how many hybrid 4x4s Land Rover makes, if it doesn't have the workhorse it won't have the image. Over to you, Ratan. Here are the results of the J D Power survey, showing the number of problems per 100 cars. The industry average is 206.

Lexus 120
Mercury 151
Cadillac 155
Toyota 159
Acura 160
Buick 163
BMW 164
Lincoln 165
Honda 177
Jaguar 178
Porsche 193
Mitsubishi 197
Hyundai 200
Ford 204
Infiniti 204
Audi 207
Mercedes-Benz 215
Nissan 224
Pontiac 225
GMC 226
Mazda 228
Subaru 228
Chrysler 229
Dodge 230
Mini 233
Chevrolet 239
Hummer 241
Scion 243
Volvo 244
Saturn 250
Jeep 253
Volkswagen 253
Saab 254
Isuzu 274
Kia 278
Suzuki 302
Land Rover 344

Company vs country

Ed Keohane — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:58:00 GMT

The sheer scale of Ford's recent quarterly loss - $8.7bn - is difficult to understand. I know what you might be able to run for a hundred dollars a year (a laptop), a thousand dollars a year (a motorbike), even a million dollars a year (a small web design company), but what can you do with $34bn a year?

Well, according to the World Bank, you could run Tunisia... or Guatemala.

Yes, Ford's running costs are on a par with those of a small, developing country.

Now, any guesses which country's GDP General Motor's $15.5bn quarterly loss equates to?

The Parliamentary greenwash continues

Mike Duff — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:00:15 GMT

We shouldn’t be too surprised that MPs seem so completely disconnected from motoring issues.

For most of them, driving is something that happens to other people. Government ministers are whisked everywhere in the back of taxpayer-funded Jags, to the extent that our own Prime Minister has never felt it necessary to get a driving licence.

And between the free flights, free train travel and generous taxi accounts, even backbenchers rarely have to actually drive themselves anywhere.

All of which helps explain why the Commons Environmental Audit Committee reckons that the biggest problem with the controversial recent increase in Vehicle Excise Duty is that it didn’t go far enough.

Indeed, according to chairman Tim Yeo (a Tory), we need the “biggest possible incentive”, including “really penal rates for high-emission cars.”

Great idea, Tim. And why not go the whole hog and make the driver of anything with over 2.0-litres of swept capacity given HMG their bank account details, so that the revenue can take whatever it likes, whenever it likes?

Backdating the road tax revisions to everything made after 2001 has trapped thousands of motorists into the equivalent of negative equity, collapsing residuals (in many cases to considerably less than the outstanding finance on a car) and preventing punters from trading out of their situation.

Surely the whole point of punitive ‘green’ taxation is to allow people the chance to make decisions that will avoid it, something that sticking it on new cars that then work through the secondhand system would achieve. Imposing it retrospectively on cars that were, in many cases, bought years before it was conceived is nothing short of highway robbery.

At least there was some sense from the three committee members who disagreed with the greenwash report enough to write a dissenting opinion on it.

"The public must have faith that green taxes are not about raising revenue for the Treasury,” said Lib Dem Jo Swinson, “but in this case, their use is clearly more to do with filling Alistair Darling's coffers than cutting carbon emissions from our roads."

Here, here.

Technorati Tags: MPs Parliament Tim Yeo VED tax carbon emissions

Why your next car might be Serbian

Mike Duff — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:21:02 GMT

I went to the Zastava factory in Kragujevac, Serbia, earlier this year, and to say it was a depressing place would be a major understatement.

It was still winter at the time, and on the factory floor workers spent their breaks crammed into small huts, trying to keep warm among Arctic drafts and a leaking roof.

The one-time computing centre sat in ruins, destroyed by a NATO bomb in 1999. And, around the back of the plant, lines of mothballed railway wagons showed how far Zastava’s fortunes had fallen – the factory no longer made enough cars to justify sending them out by train.

I’ve only been to one other place that gave off such gloomy post-industrial vibes: the abandoned zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.

But I left Kragujevac convinced that Zastava deserved to thrive and develop. Pretty much every other country in Eastern Europe is now the home to gleaming new car factories, yet Zastava was making cars in Serbia before any of them. And, despite the dilapidated offices, the company has some serious brains on the payroll, too – guys who have worked out how to re-engineer and refresh its ancient line-up on the sort of shoestring budgets that wouldn’t pay to develop a 3-Series glovebox catch.

The factory had also just started to make previous generation Fiat Puntos under licence, with gleaming, state-of-the-art machinery standing in stark contrast to the Dickensian gloom of the rest of the plant. It was a big clue to the company’s future, because now Fiat has just finished purchasing a controlling stake.

With a workforce that already knows how to make cars, plenty of onsite engineering expertise and a vast site that could incorporate even the most optimistic expansion plans, I predict a bright future for the Serbian motor industry.

Technorati Tags: Zastava NATO Chernobyl Fiat Punto

Nissan’s publicity stunt fails to ‘Ring true

Andrew Frankel — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:49:49 GMT

It’s finally happened: the world’s greatest section of tarmac, the northern loop of the Nurburgring, has descended into complete self-parody. For years now it has been used by car manufacturers as much as a marketing tool as a test track: it seems almost impossible for any even faintly sporting car to come to market without press shots of it at the ‘Ring to ram home its usually unworthy sporting credentials.

But last week’s news that Nissan has set the fastest lap at the Nurburgring using a fuel cell vehicle takes the entire box of biscuits. This fastest lap was recorded by a fuel cell powered X-Trail SUV and took two seconds less than 12 minutes to complete at an average speed of less than 65mph.

What is this staggeringly slow time meant to prove on a circuit whose defining feature is a triple digit number of corners through which it presumably doesn’t matter whether the car is powered by petrol, electricity or elephant dung? How much more impressive would it be if it had gone to a proving ground and covered a hundred miles in a hour, all in a straight line? Or two hundred miles at 80mph without running out of (hydrogen) gas?

These are the numbers we need to see from fuel cell cars before they can start to be seen as a credible replacement for existing technologies, not meaningless lap times from the most over-exposed race-track in the world.

Technorati Tags: Nissan X-Trail Nurburgring FCV Fuel cell hybrid

Alfa Mito: Me, too

Vicky Parrott — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:38:11 GMT

When I was asked about my star of the London motor show I had no hesitation in opting for the Alfa Mito.

Okay, so it’s not a high-performance icon like the Megane R26R or Focus RS. And, as it’s already in production, it lacks the show-stopping capacity of concepts like the OSM. But after meeting it in the metal for the first time, I really like it.

So why do I feel the need to justify my choice? Well, Alfa’s baby hatch seems to be polarising opinion in the office at the moment, with the majority definitely not feeling the love for the Mito.

I can’t comment on the driving experience, but what made my mind up was the interior of the Mito, which to me seems to exude the same kind of high-quality finish as a Mini or any of its premium rivals.

The seats were comfortable, the dash was well-laid out, the materials were good quality and I felt like I was sitting behind the wheel of a car worth the £10k-plus that it will cost.

Plus, I really like the looks. Styling is subjective, we all know that, but I couldn’t walk past the Mito without getting a good look and admiring the sweeping lines.

I’m not being unrealistic here. I don’t believe that the Mito will make a huge difference to the seemingly unstoppable Mini sales. But as someone who’s always been a sucker for the nostalgic (and distinctly clichéd) Italian ‘flair’ you get in Alfas, I’m pleased to see a car wearing the famous serpent badge that also appears to equal its rivals for build quality.

Time will tell whether, as some of my colleagues have warned, the show cars are not a good measure of a car’s true quality. But for now, at least, I remain an unashamed fan of the Mito.

Motor show scores full marks – if you’re 11

James Ruppert — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:20:46 GMT

It must say something about the Motor Show that the only model I actively tried to purchase on press day had two wheels, a chain and some pedals.

I wasn’t being deliberately obtuse or fashionably envirofriendly. Indeed my usual chronic cynicism was being tempered by the company of my wide-eyed eleven year old daughter. As a result I spent much of my time hanging around the hands-on stuff at the event while she got on with the business of enjoying herself...

So it was top marks to Ford for having the longest football table I’ve ever seen and also allowing us to kick footballs through European Champions League stars. Then, in the carpark, more Ford sporting shenanigans where we were allowed to chuck rugby balls through hoops – and load up the deck of a Ranger with sundry rugger luggage. All balls to Ford, then – round ones and squashed ones.

Over at Vauxhall they were getting excited about their Insignia – it was the radio-controlled mini-VXRs that got my youngster interested, as she ran rings around the grown-up hacks. She then insisted that I take the Zoom-Zoom challenge in some full sized Mazdas, which was fun. Interestingly I was two seconds faster around the track in a Mazda 2 than I was in the MX-5, which suggests I may not be cut out for a racing career.

Inside there was plenty of PlayStation action on various stands, but also a rather depressing radio controlled scale model hell on earth operated by Transport for London. Without any prompting Miss Olivia Ruppert ran the lights, stopped in box junctions and triggered speed cameras in her ‘car share’ MINI. And to think: Londoners have paid for this brainwashing.

So whilst all the proper motoring hacks interviewed the great and the good, we looked at a groovy Saab folding bike that they had parked around their stand. Miss Ruppert really wanted one. It took most of the day to find out that it cost £850.

Unlike the four wheeled stuff I saw yesterday it looked like it was worth every penny.

Technorati Tags: London motor show Playstation Vauxhall Mazda MX-5 Zoom-Zoom European Champions League

What's in a name?

Andrew Frankel — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:18:54 GMT

Best bit of yesterday’s press day at the motor show? Seeing how much better in the flesh Lotus’s new 2+2 sportscar looks than in the photographs.

All my old worries about this car disappeared the moment the covers came off only to be replaced by one new one when I heard it they were going to call it ‘Evora’.

Sadly few people I spoke to at the show thought it a good name for a Lotus. A great one for an early 1990s Korean concept car, a tropical disease, sandwich spread or a pharmacological ointment my colleagues opined, but not a Lotus.

The hope is we all get used to it: I remember people getting pretty sniffy about ‘Elise’ back in 1996 and now we don’t even think about it. But can you imagine an owner waking one sunny weekend morning with a long journey on the cards, turning to his missus and saying: ‘Let’s take the Evora.’ Me neither.

Still it’s easy to criticise and rather more difficult to suggest something better. I’d prefer all exotics to be numbered rather than named as their looks and specification should speak for themselves, but if one must have a title I share the view of Rolls-Royce and Bentley that recycling a noble name from the past is infinitely preferable than plumping for some awkward computer-generated nonsense from the present.

‘Excel’ is one example that would have fitted the car’s 2+2 configuration while, at the same time, making a bold statement about its abilities. Still it’s all academic now: Evora it is and if it turns out to be as good to drive as it is to look at, I suspect they could rename it the Lotus Eggbreath and its customers would not care less.

The Focus RS: what makes it great

Vicky Parrott — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:11:08 GMT

You might think that the night before the motor show, most hacks would be ironing their suits and checking that they had a working biro ready for the day following.

In fact, many of them were milling around a new Focus RS in a neglected looking shed in Dagenham, which is normally home to more than 60 heritage cars.

So it was appropriate that Ford’s pre-motor show party was centred around the heritage of the new 295bhp, front-wheel-drive RS. And very impressive it is, too. The row of historic models ranged from the Capri RS through to the famous Sierra Cosworth RS, and all of them held more appeal to me than plenty of today’s faster sports cars.

The new Focus RS promises to hold to all those values, including benchmark performance in its class, the flexibility to be used every day, and looks good enough to inspire any car nut old enough to consciously hanker after a motor.

The Ford Focus RS doesn’t go on sale until summer 2009, but even viewing a static car on a stand, the latest performance model to wear the Blue Oval reminded me of exactly what the RS brand is all about; great cars that give every enthusiast an attainable icon.

We may not have driven it yet, but I want one anyway.

The non-stars of the show

Will Powell — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:57:22 GMT

It’s press day at the British Motor Show tomorrow – and tens of thousands of people will be going to the ExCel centre in east London over the next couple of weeks to catch the excitement of seeing the newest and shiniest cars parked under bright lights.

There are going to be some great cars there – and some major international show debuts. But there are also going to be some major gaps in the line-up thanks to those manufacturers who, for whatever reason, don’t think that the British International Motor Show is worthy of their support.

Looking to make your mind up over the controversial BMW X6? Tough: despite attending two years ago, BMW won’t be there.

Nor will you get a chance to see the Audi Q5, despite the fact that Britain is set to be one of its biggest markets. Why not? Because Audi says the Goodwood Festival of Speed is a better place for it to spend its marketing budget. You’ll look in vain for any of Chrysler’s products, too. Although not seeing the Sebring is hardly going to ruin your day.

But Rolls-Royce is a British brand – making its decision not to take a stand at the show even more disappointing. So no chance to experience the amazing ‘starlight’ headlining in the new Phantom Coupe, then.

No Skoda, either. The Czechs are denying you the opportunity to see the new Superb’s clever rear tailgate, citing budget restraints. Is it a hatch? Is it a saloon? You won’t be able to decide.

And what about Porsche? Considering the fuss it made about the £25 congestion charge you’d think Porsche would be all over the a major motor show in London. Not so: and no chance for the city boys to have a good pore over the facelifted 911.

And the final entrants in the hall of shame are Fiat, Volvo and Volkswagen – so no 500 Abarth, XC60 or Up!

Why aren’t these manufacturers making more of an effort in what remains one of their biggest markets? Or is their non-attendance understandable because, frankly, the London motor show isn't a big enough deal and doesn't justify the car maker's outlay?

They're questions worth considering next time you find yourself in the market for a new car.

Diesel doing very nicely

Matt Saunders — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:42:46 GMT

It might not sound as thrilling as tearing around a circuit in a brand new sports car, but there really are few things more enthralling in a motoring journo’s life than visiting a car factory.

The cutting-edge technology, the sophisticated processes, the thoroughness and coordination of the work, and the sheer attention-to-detail involved with screwing cars together will simply blow your mind.

Ford’s Dagenham diesel centre, which knocks out close to a million engines a year for the Blue Oval’s many and various models, is just such a place. Ford of Britain opened up this engine factory to a few of us yesterday, in advance of the London motor show next week, where it will be ramming home its improving environmental credentials.

We got an hour-long tour of the Tiger engine production line, on which it produces 1.4 and 1.6-litre diesel engines for the likes of the Ford Fiesta, Mazda 3 and Volvo C30. And it produces them all without consuming so much as a volt of national grid power, thanks to the two massive wind turbines you’ll see if you happen to drive past on the A13.

Five hundred workers, and almost as many robots, beaver away on this snaking production line. The metal castings for each of them are machined on site and come in at one end of the building, along with all the ancillaries and electronic gubbins; two hours later, at the other end of the building, completely finished and tested 1.4- and 1.6-litre TDCi motors roll out. And here’s the staggering bit: at full tilt, Ford can deliver one finished engine every 27 seconds, whether it’s a 1.4 or a 1.6. I’d struggle to make a decent cheese sandwich in that sort of time.

Further down the factory is the line for what Ford calls its Lion family of engines (the 2.7 V6 and 3.6 V8 diesels for Land Rover and Jaguar). If you’re wondering, it takes slightly longer to make one of those (they can only manage one every two minutes, according to line manager Craig Caves).

One thing’s for certain: I’ll never lift the bonnet of a diesel-powered Ford, Volvo or Land Rover and feel quite the same way about what I find under it. I used to think Ford engines were ordinary. Trust me, they’re anything but.