Day: Aug 12, 2016

Theme : colour – The Lost Competitive Advantage

We’ve moaned about the dull uniformity of the world’s car parks. TTAC has some insight on the fact that opting for the boring colours is not helping you resell that car.

The Lancia Kappa: source
The Lancia Kappa: source

This is the link. “Silver and beige, the go-to colours of the 1990’s and 2000’s, have higher depreciation rates, but nothing is worse than gold. With an average depreciation of 33.9 percent, gold vehicles are dead last. Oddly, it’s the third-fastest-selling colour in the study, behind gray and black,” says the article. As it reports American data it does not say so much about black or mid-grey metallic. I imagine that a similar study would show that these colours aren’t helping protect value at this stage. There can’t be a competitive advantage to having a silver-grey or black Audi or Ford at this point. We must at this point be at peak monochrome.  Continue reading “Theme : colour – The Lost Competitive Advantage”

The Gentleman’s GT

The definitive Bristol?

1976 Bristol 603. Image: only-carz
1976 Bristol 603. Image: only-carz

Considering the fact that Bristol Cars employed a variation of the same chassis for half a century, it might seem a little futile discussing the 603 as a stand-alone model. Especially so when one considers how much the end-of-days Blenheim 4S owed to its 1976 forebear. However, the 603 did mark one of those rare evolutionary shifts in Bristol style, one which saw them through the next thirty-or-so years, although in retrospect this may have been unwise.

A replacement for the well-regarded and latterly much appreciated 411 series, the 603 was designed under the supervision of Bristol’s chief stylist, Dudley Hobbs, his final piece of work for the marque. One of the primary aims for the 603 model was ease of build, utilising flatter body panels, making it more straightforward for Bristol’s technicians to Continue reading “The Gentleman’s GT”