UK’s motor vanity fair (11) [Bâlciul deşertăciunilor cu motor din UK]

If there were a British car that I like, that wouldn’t be a luxurious Jaguar, Aston Martin, Bentley or Rolls-Royce. What I would like to drive – and probably not just as an ‘experience’ but as an owner, using the vehicle every day – is a Mini.

Not that I’d be any auto expert, but I really find this car to be – either the original Mini or the newer BMW Mini – a masterpiece of British (and German, since 2001) craftmanship. I guess any of the fans in this British Mini car club would agree with me.

Anyone knowing me could easily imagine I’m not crazy about fancy vehicles, and even if I had the amount of necessary money, I wouldn’t throw it on a car as a ’motor idol’. But I’d like to have a Mini as a useful (and also pleasing) object.

In my view, given the prices of today in Europe, I guess one could buy a good car with a maximum of 15,000 euros. Spending more would be such a waste, in my opinion.

Sadly, according to the price lists (that can be seen here, here, here – for the UK or here – for Romania), this little car is not quite cheap. Buying a fully optioned version would take the cost well beyond my artificially set limit of 15,000 euros.

Considering the beauty of the car and it’s technical specifications, I’d say it’s a fair price. The only problem is posed by it’s size. It seems to be too small for a family car... However, weren’t the VW Beetle or the Fiat 500 also small? Still, whole families (4-5 people) got into them...

If the future of Vauxhall and Saab (maybe Jaguar as well, as I was writing in a previous episode) doesn’t seem to be bright these days, I hope the that the takeover of Mini by BMW (a decade old this year) was a good deal, and will continue to be so.

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In 1945, the Brits were too narrow-minded to foresee the future of the Beetle, which they could freely steal from the part of Germany they were occupying, and set productions lines in the UK. It’s good to see that BMW was not equally stupid to let the Mini perish.

Of course, the current Mini only bears some exteriour similarities to the Mini that Mr Bean drove, and it’s a completely different motorized beast on the inside. God willing, maybe one day I’ll drive such a car, although there’s no way this could ever be a ‘priority’ of mine…

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

UK’s motor vanity fair (9) [Bâlciul deşertăciunilor cu motor din UK]

I’m dedicating this first blog post of 2009 to a not-so-new piece of news, but one that will keep recurring in 2009 – the car industry in the UK (as well as anywhere else in the world) is in dire straits or, quite probably, in its death throes.

In my view, irrespective of the current economic crisis (see more about this specific industry’s decline in 2008), the automakers’ problems are simply well-deserved, and it was about time that they started dying.

Obviously, no one could be happy about this bad news, nor remain unsensitive to the social aspect of this issue (the hundred thousand workers that are to remain jobless throughout the EU and the US), nevertheless, this industry is doomed – maybe not necessarily to extinction, but at least to a serious reduction in size.

In the UK, some of the darkest clouds seem to be gathering (like in the first picture) above the iconic brand Jaguar (another true ‘motor idol’ for many), as the ‘rescue’ effort of Tata Motors (the company’s owner since March 2008) proves to have been futile.

The Indian takeover only delayed the outbreak of current problems, but it couldn’t avoid them on the long term – see about it: here or here.

Apart from central London – where, thanks to the Congestion Charge, it’s a delight to see few cars – other UK cities seem to have plenty of cars. Maybe traffic is far more civilised than in Bucharest, and streets don’t seem to be suffocated with motor vehicles like those of the Romanian capital, however, the Brits have too many cars as all the civilised (?!) nations of the EU do.

Many people are mourning for the presumably unjust death of the car industry, but I am wondering how much longer could anyone imagine its survival to be.

People don’t change even TV sets or refrigerators every couple of years, let alone their cars, yet millions of new cars get produced every year. How many more vehicles can this civilised (?!) world take? Aren’t there far too many already?

Isn’t this EU overwhelmed with cars? In the 25 EU countries of 2004, there were no less than 216 million passenger cars, let aside vans, trucks, buses, tractors, fire fighter cars, and other special vehicles… And these four years old figures are not taking into consideration the 10-14 million cars (again, from relatively old data!) produced every year in Europe! Two cars for every five EU citizens is already too much in my view...

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]