15 Oct 2016 – Driven To Write

More Pressure On the Middle Market

Sources such as this, this, and this and this are painting a sketchy picture of a new midprice brand to sit, lie or crouch between Geely and Volvo.

Good luck to them, we at DTW cynically murmur. The story is not brand new but the launch date of October 20th is. Recent additions to the brandscape include Qoros, Borgward and DS and for two of them things don’t look so rosy. In the last decade China Brilliance had a go selling cars in Europe and that did not end so well. Existing middle market brands are not all thriving: Honda, Mitsubishi and Mazda struggle to support a full range. Rover and Saab have departed this turbulent world. Lancia teeters. Ford and Opel have difficulty with their more expensive vehicles. So, what sort of price bracket are Volvo and Geely going to be aiming for? Continue reading “More Pressure On the Middle Market”

Theme: Film – Grime

Not the 1978 film directed by Werner von Fassbender, but the stuff that accumulates on the car.

Even if you leave a car in a nice dry underground carpark, dust eventually settles on a car’s bodywork. In urban areas the dust is a mixture of exhaust particulates, pollen and vegetable matter such as pollen and leaf fragments. We breathe this stuff in all the time.

During summer when the humidity is on the low side, this dust usually remains mobile. As winter settles in and air temperatures drop, the air moisture tends to Continue reading “Theme: Film – Grime”

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