Safety Fast

1974-1977 Ford Granada Ghia Coupe featured in The Ford in Britain Centenary File, an Eric Dymock Motoring Book available March 2011
There is not much new in the latest anti-speeding wheeze. The return of cameras by Prohibitionists was predictable. Roundheads propose one of those fatuous speed awareness courses to anybody exceeding limits by only a little, at £100. The Times parrots the airy talk of, “some 800 people a year,” being killed if speed cameras are decommissioned. “Populist objection to speed cameras cannot withstand … scientific research,” it says. It should be cautious. Climate changers and global warmists, to say nothing of millenium buggists, salmonella scaremongers, passive smoking soothsayers, panics over BSE, DDT and a dozen more hysterical “scientific researches” produce a jaundiced view of “experts”.
Campaigners follow predictable paths. A half-truth, an emotive pull, an expert advocate will set a bandwagon rolling and if the result is a Puritanical ban on rich speeding drivers so much the better. A dozen years writing for The Guardian showed me how it was done. Opinion was entrenched on speeding. I never subscribed to the newspaper’s political stance, although to its credit, once nominated as a contributor it left you alone. Your opinions were your own. Alastair Hetherington probably took the view that if I got myself into what he would regard as a hole, I should stop digging. All that was required was the house style of writing, which was the most demanding of any newspaper for which I wrote. Right-click to enlarge

If you wanted reader reaction, whimsies on speeding guaranteed it. During the first oil crisis 50mph limits were imposed to save fuel. Guardian readers of 23 December 1974 loved them.

This correspondence column of 6 January 1975 was quite restrained. Mr Burke seems perversely pleased to drive a 90mph car. A bit racy for 1974.

Icelert 1964

There’s still ice about. Quite a lot of it. Wrote this for Motor in January 1965. Right-click to enlarge
I wonder if the Icelert system still operates in Edinburgh. Quite a good idea on the face of it, a warning system that goes off in the office responsible for sending out the gritters. I suppose you would need an arrangement for shutting it off in winters like this one. The way snow has fallen deep and crisp and even and extremely fast, you scarcely need a warning siren; you just look out of the window and marvel at the incompetence of authorities who can’t keep airports open or trains running. Only goes to show that cars remain a great means for getting about when all else fails. Not good when jack-knifed lorries block snow-bound roads of course. Pity the poor individuals who had to sleep on the M8 and other roads. Pity too anybody who tried to use the M25 when a tanker fell off the edge. You get cross with fractious policemen who close down both carriageways whenever there’s a hint of an emergency. More than their jobs are worth if anything else goes wrong. Still, it’s the season of goodwill and here’s a scene worthy of a Christmas Card, taken by me, like the one above, at the end of our road last week. Happy Christmas

Porsche - Peter Schutz

My BMW Z3 and road test Porsche
I once stood with Peter W Schutz, the American chief executive of Porsche AG, as he waxed eloquent over the quality and longevity of his cars. “You know what,” he said to me. “Every time I see a Porsche leave the factory I know not only have we sold a car, but also we will go on selling it spares for years.” True. The factory had a bodyshell in primer parked outside in all weathers and it never decayed. Maybe it’s still there. They had to sell bits for crashed Porsches, worn-out Porsches and in due course restored classic Porsches as the cherished things lasted for decades.

Porsche sold spares at premium prices. It sold everything at premium prices. Schutz, who replaced Dr Ernst Fuhrmann as CEO in the 1980s, knew that replacement components’ business was a bankable asset. Why, a Porsche headlamp glass could cost £100 when everybody else’s were a couple of quid. Now high-power flush-fitting Halogen units are £400 and upgrades to Xenon or Litronic levelling ones are £800.

Ford Focus headlight features on new Dove book, out March
Now everybody has caught on. Headlights are much superior to those of only a few years ago. I notice it going from a newer test car to my BMW or Nissan. Those that swivel with the steering are especially clever. How like cranky American politicians to ban them on Citroëns.

The cost of headlights has gone up and up on ordinary cars well below Porsche in the price pecking order. Audis run from £270 for an A3 to £390 on an A6. But are the distinctive LED running lights strictly necessary? They seem to me more like advertising gimmicks to identify drivers of upper-class cars.

Nothing’s new. Our family Wolseleys had a little light-up badge in the middle of the radiator proclaiming our social status after dark. You didn’t want to be confused with Austins, Morrises or Vauxhalls. As a small boy I was proud of that little light and cross with father when he refused to replace its single festoon bulb. Like festoon bulbs in Trafficators it failed. Father didn’t understand status.

Renault Grand Prix

Renault engines seem to be everywhere in F1. It is hard to believe Renault has been in it for the best part of three decades although, as this item (below, click image to read) from May 1995 shows, it was in motor sport even before grand prix racing.

Renault set up a commemorative expedition to Le Mans in 2006 with “Agatha”, the closest thing to the 1906 racers, all of which have been lost. One of ten built, at $8,500 each for William Kissam Vanderbilt Jr to compete in the Vanderbilt Cup races on Long Island in 1908, Agatha is only 7.4litres but as I discovered aboard the venerable racer leaps off the line with astonishing vigour. With pistons the size of biggish teapots, the crankshaft turns at between 1,200rpm and 1,800rpm, yet pulls with the low-speed strength of a steam engine. Changing gear is ponderous, accomplished with a certain amount of clunking and heaving of the big lever, even in the practised hands of owner German Renault dealer Wolfgang Auge.

Renault Director of PR Tim Jackson lends a hand
The great car’s first owner was Harry Payne Whitney, Vanderbilt’s cousin and heir to a cotton gin fortune. It then passed to mining millionaire Robert Guggenheim, before coming to Britain before the first world war for Lord Kimberley, famous surgeon Sir Harold Gillies, then collector Marcus Chambers of Clapham. The value of all old racing cars collapses when they are no longer eligible for competition, and Chambers, later motor sport manager of the British Motor Corporation (BMC), bought it at the bottom of its cycle. He advertised it in Motor Sport of August 1935 under Veteran Cars as: “1907 Sports Renault, £30 or offer.”

Brothers Anthony and John Mills, named it Agatha, and when Anthony a Royal Air Force squadron leader was killed soon after D-Day it was sold to Charles Dunn until auctioned in 1992 to Wolfgang Auge. It is now almost priceless.

Newly created Renault Sport F1 will supply engines and technology again for 2011. As well as engines it will research transmissions and kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS). The new division is Renault’s response to changing engine regulations, operating from Viry-Châtillon and will supply engines to Red Bull Racing. The 2010 drivers’ and constructors’ world champions has used Renault engines for four seasons and has extended the partnership for a further two. Renault will equip Lotus Renault GP, previously the Renault F1 Team that won world championships in 2005 and 2006 and 1 Malaysia Racing Team (UK) Ltd, a new customer, which made its F1 debut this year. It will have Renault engines and Red Bull Technology transmission.
Renault took part in 29 Formula 1 World Championship seasons, winning nine Constructors’ world champion titles including Red Bull’s this year. Renault engines achieved 23 podium finishes in 2010, including the first three at Monaco and they have won three of the last six world championships.

Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen

Resurfaced roads in Spain convinced journalists of the superior ride and handling of Mercedes-Benz SLs. In an era when Spain’s roads were iffy at best, before all Europe shelled money out to improve them, Mercedes-Benz paid to have them smoothed-off for car launches. Or so it was once supposed. A publicity event for a new kind of Geländewagen was set up in Scotland and as this Sunday Times column of 2 December 1990 relates, I drove one across a grouse moor and waded it up a stream. Click column to enlarge It splashed obediently through a good deal more than the recommended 60cm of water, picked its way over wet boulders, then up a steep bank on to dry land. It was quite compelling. The G-Wagen was more accomplished than the Vauxhall Calibra, with which it coincided. I praised the Vauxhall carefully although faintly. Colin Dryden was kinder to the Land Rover Discovery V8 he drove in the desert. It was an era of extravagant car launches and with fuel at only 60p a gallon in Dubai he could happily recommend it for holidays.

Press launches could be memorable for the wrong reasons. Even though Mercedes-Benz planned its’ with more than usual care, they could take an unexpected turn. The Highland river test of the G-Wagen included driving through strongly flowing water, over a course marked by tall sticks. We were warned to keep between the sticks because of adjacent deep pools. One G-Wagen was more luxuriously appointed than the rest. It had air conditioning and leather upholstery, thick carpets and, it was said, was in the Highlands to be loaned for appraisal to a member of the royal family. Mercedes-Benz allocated it to a journalist more important than mere writing hacks.

Tom Ross was editor of Top Gear. The programme had been going since 1977, as a BBC Pebble Mill production with presenters Noel Edmonds, William Woollard and Angela Rippon. Contributors included Sue Baker, Frank Page, Tony Mason and Chris Goffey. It went on to BBC2 and the affable easy-going Ross was editor until 1991. Unfortunately, like many TV people, he not only thought he could walk on water, he was also sure he could drive on it.

He elected not to steer between the sticks Mercedes-Benz had provided.


Doug Wallace of Mercedes-Benz supervises recovery

Land Rover Discovery

Neither one thing nor the other. The Discovery was a sort of Tweenie, 19th century maids who assisted both cook and housemaid, a Between-Maid neither aspiring Upstairs nor quite descending all the way Downstairs. Yet on 12 November 1989 it was a Range Rover without the pretensions, which it remains.
It is difficult photographing the motoring dogs. If you get it right with Nelson (above), Wellington (below) disappears into a black morass

Windscreen Smear

More readers are interested in practicalities than you would think. In 13 years of Sunday Times columns this one of 19 November 1989 brought more response than almost any other. Correspondents wrote with enthusiasm on cures for windscreen smear or juddery wipers, ranging from potato peelings to Coca Cola – “look what it does to coins.” Kitchen roll soaked in white spirit, alcohol, lemon juice or Windolene, hair shampoo, vinegar or bizarrely Silvo liquid polish were among the suggestions. They all, “… worked a treat.” One driver was never without a Financial Times, which seemed to clean road dirt best; others advocated car polish, soapy water or household detergent on a foam backed scouring pad. There were warnings against detergents, washing-up liquid or Rain-X and other proprietary additives that were supposed to help. Squeaking wiper blades could be cured by a) replacement, b) twisting the operating arm to change their angle of attack or, c) lubricating their hinges with olive oil. Some blamed acid rain for the problem. Others thought driving in acid rain would cure it. Salt residue following anti-icing measures seemed particularly problematical. Polishing a windscreen to squeaky clean with Kleenex tissue and screenwash fluid still seems a good bet although modern Jaguar dealers are said to stock a paste that does the job in a trice. Perhaps this is a descendent of the solution Trico-Folberth was working on with Jaguar 21 years ago.

Premium Brands

Volkswagen Group sells more cars than Ford in Britain. That’s not just Volkswagens of course. It is also Seats, Skodas and Audis. You could include other VW-related nameplates, Bentley maybe, Porsche and Lamborghini although the numbers would not add up to much. It was a bit different in 1991 when everybody was into acquiring a premium brand as a means of improving profit-per-car. Ford sought Jaguar and Volvo, General Motors Saab, while Toyota created Lexus and Nissan Infiniti.
Right-click to view
Ford is now back to just Ford. If it still owned Jaguar-Land Rover and Volvo, or wasn’t busy relinquishing its stake in Mazda, VW might not have taken the lead. Ford claims it is less concerned about market share than about profit. Well, it would say that, wouldn’t it, yet it is probably true. The engines and components it still makes for Jaguar and Volvo, a relic of its ownership years, must make a useful contribution to its balance sheet. An Aston Martin V12 started life as a doubled-up Mondeo V6 after all, and Ford-made bits will go into Indian-owned Jaguar and China-owned Volvo for a long time to come.

VW has been good at absorbing other makes and keeping them all on board. It is rationalising its engineering, concentrating development of sports and luxury cars at Porsche against opposition from Audi, which keeps the 2007 modular longitudinal matrix for the Audi A4, A5 and Q5. With the dust is settling on who owns what at Porsche and VW, Martin Winterkorn told Audi executives just before the Porsche AGM at the end of November that it will keep the lead in developing large luxury cars. Winterkorn reassured Porsche that it won’t be merely a tenth VW brand and will develop the Panamera and future Bentleys, as well as a sports car platform for Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini. It will have a new wind tunnel, a design centre with a hundred new engineers and integrate electronics at Weissach.

Tom Walkinshaw

I met Emerson Fittipaldi and Tom Walkinshaw on a series of races in Brazil 40 years ago. Emerson went on to win two world championships and two Indianapolis 500s. Tom won the 1984 European Touring Car Championship in a Jaguar XJ-S, setting up Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) as the basis for a business empire in Britain and Australia. In the space of six years his Jaguars won three World Sports Car Championships and two Le Mans 24 Hours’ races. He married my sister-in-law. Tom died yesterday Sunday 12 December 2010. Emerson, happily, is still with us.

Both were born within months of one another in 1946; Emerson in São Paulo, Brazil, Tom at Mauldslie Farm, near Carluke, Scotland. Both had turbulent careers. Emerson catapulted to fame through Formula 2 and Formula 1 with Team Lotus, relatively safe in a racing car until the 1990s, when he had a big accident at Michigan International Speedway. Barely recovered, he then crashed his aeroplane, from which he was fortunate to escape with his life although suffering severe back injuries. When I knew him first he was married to Maria Helena, then came Teresa, later still Rossana.

Tom moved into Formula 3, driving a Lotus, then broke his left ankle in a works March. He had a lot of accidents and recuperating in my Putney flat met Elizabeth, still a 17 year old schoolgirl. He was a gritty determined driver in Formula 2 and Formula 5000, and shone brilliantly at the wheel of a Capri in the British Touring Car Championship. In 1976 he formed TWR and won the European Touring Car Championship. His ascent in team management was swift and lucrative. Tom drove hard bargains but you got your money’s worth. He ran squads for several manufacturers, sometimes simultaneously, building up an impressive business empire despite a broad-minded view of racing regulations. In 1983 his Rover Vitesses won all eleven races, only to be deprived of the British Saloon Car Championship for what were either technical infringements or flagrant breaches of the regulations, depending how you read them. Tom read them with the utmost care.

TWR’s crowning achievements were with Jaguar, first with XJ-S in the European Touring Car Championship, followed by the triumphs at Le Mans and the World Sports Car Championships. Tom had a sure touch with people, not only in securing the services of engineers such as Tony Southgate and Ross Brawn, but also when he moved into Formula 1 with drivers Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill. TWR consultancy accomplished production runs of cars for Volvo and created the Bloxham factory that Ford took on for making the Aston Martin DB7.

Tom’s ambitions were boundless but Formula 1 proved his undoing. As engineering director of Jordan he was again scrutinised for technical infringements in 1994. His electronic aids were suspect. Adventures with the Arrows team led to more trouble and the liquidation of TWR. Tom made friends on his way to the top then lost them on the way down. He had set up a number of car dealerships and as chairman of the British Racing Drivers’ Club persuaded it to invest in the Silverstone Motor Group. Innes Ireland and Sir Jackie Stewart were among his severest critics.

Tom is mourned affectionately by Gloucester Rugby Club, which he owned. He was divorced from Elizabeth, with whom he had a son and was married to a Belgian girl. Tomorrow’s obituarists will have a field day. Apologists will claim he was much misunderstood, which is true. He was uncompromising and tough yet capable of surprising generosity of spirit. When Craig married Emma, Aunt Elizabeth flew the newlyweds off in Tom’s helicopter. Craig paid tribute. “I was one of his biggest fans. But you could see how difficult he could be if you weren’t family.”

Aunt Elizabeth Walkinshaw - pilot

Dunkley Pramotor

Here’s an idea for electric. Power for prams. Dyson could instal its latest digital electric in a new version of the 1923 Dunkley Pramotor. It does five times the speed of a Formula 1 engine, and with fewer moving parts than other electric engines, lasts four times as long. The DC12 and DC 22 vacuums and the Dyson Airblade™ hand dryer have them. Double-click to read

Nannies could do with a bit of motivation for tours of the park on balmy afternoons. The Dunkley had a single cylinder engine and Nanny steered from the back step. Alas it was a noisy two-stroke, which would have kept the baby awake. You mixed lubricating oil with the petrol on two-strokes so they were smoky and smelly.

GrandTeddy no longer needs a pram. StepGrandGeorge does, and while Alex would probably like a spin on the Dunkley’s pillion, it would worry Jane. An electric Pramotor would soothe and pacify George, who would doze like babies do, and you could charge the machine up off a domestic three-pin. Light weight and a slim Nanny would give it Car of the Year Nissan Leaf performance and range, without the complication of flashing indicators, regenerative braking, parking camera, telematics and enough innovative connectivity to allow heating or cooling the interior remotely via mobile phone or computer. A Dyson Pramotor would have no satellite navigation. Well-paid Nannies would find their own way to the perk.

Not A Car of the Year

Not a Car of the YearAnother Not a Car of the Year
There’s a FIFA flavour about Car of the Year voting. Clear winners don’t get prizes. In 20 years COTY has never elected a Jaguar, Range Rover or Land Rover. It can’t be anti-Englishness. Munich doesn’t come off well either. There has been no BMW. A range that goes from Rolls-Royce to Mini has never met COTY criteria. The 57-strong jury that elected the electric Nissan may be environmentally aware, yet it doesn’t do safety. Volvo and Saab have never featured. Engineering excellence? Bentley has never made it despite the W12’s technological mastery. Production quality? There have been no Hondas. Value for money? No Skodas or Seats.

Still Not a Car of the Year
Not only have these exemplary makes never won top award, they have never made the first three. Mercedes-Benz did once, a lowly third in 1994. Korean makes have been excluded so strong sellers with long warranties, it seems, don’t count. There has never been a Porsche or an Aston Martin.

Unworthy as a Car of the Year, any year
I have long had qualms about COTY. Judge the jury’s deliberations since my Sunday Times column covered the 1991 Car of the Year.

Right click to enlarge copy
1992: VW Golf, Vauxhall/Opel Astra, Citroën ZX 1993: Nissan Micra, Fiat Cinquecento, Renault Safrane 1994: Ford Mondeo, Citroën Xantia, Mercedes-Benz C-class 1995: Fiat Punto, VW Polo, Vauxhall/Opel Omega 1996: Fiat Bravo, Peugeot 406, Audi A4 1997: Renault Mégane Scénic, Ford Ka, VW Passat 1998: Alfa Romeo 156, VW Golf, Audi A6 1999: Ford Focus, Vauxhall/Opel Astra, Peugeot 206 2000: Toyota Yaris, Fiat Multipla, Vauxhall/Opel Zafira 2001: Alfa Romeo 147, Ford Mondeo, Toyota Prius 2002: Peugeot 307, Renault Laguna, Fiat Stilo 2003: Renault Mégane, Mazda 6, Citroën C3 2004 Fiat Panda, Mazda 3, VW Golf 2005 Toyota Prius, Citroën C4, Ford Focus 2006 Renault Clio, VW Passat, Alfa Romeo 159 2007: Ford S-Max, VauxhallOpel Corsa, Citroën C4 Picasso 2008: Fiat 500, Mazda 2, Ford Mondeo 2009: Vauxhall/Opel Insignia, Ford Fiesta, VW Golf 2010: VW Polo, Toyota IQ, Vauxhall/Opel Astra 2011 Nissan Leaf, Alfa Romeo Giulietta, Vauxhall/Opel Meriva.

That makes eight Vauxhall/Opels, eight VWs, eight Fords, seven Fiats, five Renaults, five Citroëns, four Toyotas, four Alfa Romeos, three Peugeots, three Mazdas, two Nissans and two Audis.

Never made it into first three as Car of the Year
COTY jurists’ integrity is beyond reproach. They must believe the Nissan Leaf is worthy, never mind what this blog thinks, nor Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph: “Even with a taxpayer subsidy of £20.7 million, to allow the price of each of these supposedly planet-saving vehicles to be brought down to £23,000, this will only enable the lucky purchaser to drive quite slowly for 100miles…”
Yet another Not a Car of the Year

Beach Cars

Designers’ dreams. Al fresco cars with wicker seats. Open air motors to drive on beaches. Ever since Gordon MacRae tried to get Shirley Jones into his Surrey with the fringe on the top in Oklahoma, sun worshippers from San Trop to San Francisco have longed for a bit more speed. Milk-white horses and dashboards of gen-yoo-ine leather were all very well but engines were essential.

Now Frank M Rinderknecht says he will show his Bam Boo at the Geneva Motor Show. “This open-top vehicle awakens the longing for sun, summer, for lightness and easiness, the desire to be at the beach,” cries his press release. “It is a reminiscence of the Seventies, of the south of France and St. Tropez. One expects to find Brigitte Bardot behind the wheel with playboy Gunther Sachs at her side heading towards Tahiti beach.”
Tahiti? San Trop? No matter. “Anyone who might think this is simple retro design for nostalgia’s sake underestimates the boss of the Swiss concept powerhouse. Yes, Rinderknecht incorporates the automobile references of the time.” Rhetoric knows no limits.

Rinderknecht’s references for fun cars to the conspicuously wealthy go back a long way. In 1958 Ghia created the Fiat 600 Jolly. It had no doors, wicker seats and you could have a fringed sunshade top. Aristotle Onassis owned one when they were bespoke and rare, probably losing interest when they were put into limited production. A Jolly was just the thing for the beach house or whenever you parked your yacht. It cost twice as much as a standard Fiat 600; they made it for 18 years and there might be about a hundred survivors. Thirty were used in 1958-1962 on Catalina island, Los Angeles. Lots more were courtesy cars at luxury hotels.
Citroën made the Méhari between 1968 and 1988. It was named after a fast dromedary camel of the French African army. A Méhariste was a sort of Sahara cavalryman. Based on the Dyane 6, with a plastic body and flat-twin 2CV6 engine, the Méhari weighed only 570kg (1300lb) with squashy interconnected all-independent springing so it was quite agile. There was a four wheel drive version in 1979. The self coloured plastic panelling was available only in beige, green or orange and a 4-seater in 1971 had doors replacing the little chains that kept occupants from falling out.

California went for beach buggies, generally cut-down from VWs but they were never very elegant. In Europe ACL made 60,000 Rodeos on the basis of the Renault 4 van between 1970 and 1987. “Moke” apparently meant donkey and the Mini Moke was an open platform of a car based on Issigonis’s masterwork. It was meant to be military or agricultural but small wheels and not much ground clearance saw to that. Yet it had the rugged appeal of a Jeep and appealed to the young-at-heart.
Mokes were made at Cowley, then Longbridge. Between 1964 and 1968 14,500 were produced. From 1966 to 1981 26,000 were made in Australia followed by another 10,000 in Portugal up to 1993.

Rinderknecht feels he won’t get the attention of the young without green credentials. The Bam Boo really has an interior made from bamboo fibres and the engine will be electric.

Saab GB 50 Years

Saab GB 50 years
GM’s musical chairmen failed Saab. A perceptive review in Automotive News Europe by Richard Johnson argues that GM’s policy of rotating senior executives didn’t work. European premium companies like BMW and Audi prospered because single-minded leaders stuck to their task. Johnson hypothesises that what he calls the “great man theory” of automotive history, installing a Ferdinand Piëch say, did not provide strong, independent leadership at Saab.

Quite right. When I was doing the Saab fifty-year book in 1997 I met some of the bright Americans given the job of turning Saab into a high-earning brand. They had great ideas but as Johnson says, they were pulled back into the GM hierarchy too quickly. None of them lasted, leaving the bean-counters to force Saab into component-sharing with Opel. Ford didn’t coerce Jaguar into badge engineering and although in the end that didn’t work either, it was for different reasons. Audi shares plenty of bits with others in the VW Group but Piëch ensures it is so subtly done nobody, apparently notices. Or if they do they don’t care. Remember the fuss when the Aston Martin DB7 was spied with Granada switchgear.

Classic Saab. The RAC Rally winning 96
Saab loyalists, like 1990s PR director Peter Salzer, whose support for our book was crucial, praises two Americans who ran Trollhättan in the 1990s, Dave Herman and Bob Hendry. Herman was American, but he had not worked in the United States since 1975, and never in Detroit. He had been in London, East Europe, Russia, Belgium, Chile and Colombia. In 1989 he was in charge of GM’s European parts operation in Rüsselsheim when Europe president Bob Eaton sent him to Saab. Herman fumbled a press conference over Saab’s image but he proved a strong advocate.

Walsall-born Keith Butler-Wheelhouse, who had attained stardom by leading a management buy-out of GM South Africa, followed Herman in 1992 until handing over to Bob Hendry in 1996. Determined to get a feel for Saab, Hendry spent his opening weeks driving all the cars in the Trollhättan museum. He decided Saab needed to improve its image. “The brand had the same kind of potential as BMW,” Hendry says. “There was no reason Saab could not have the same level of profit and brand loyalty.” But the quirky image had to go: “No customer likes to think of himself as quirky.” Not sure about that.

The preserved 96 ready for the Roger Albert Clark Rally
Another head of Saab PR, Olle Axelson who went to a similar job at Volvo in 2000, called Hendry “…the best CEO of a car company I've ever met. He got the team together; he got sales up.” When Hendry arrived, Saab sold under 90,000 worldwide, down from 134,000 in 1987. By the time he left, global sales were back to 133,000. Hendry lasted until 2000, replaced by Swedish Peter Augustsson until 1 April 2005 and the arrival of Jan-Åke Jonsson (born Valdemarsvik, 1951), who remains.

Most memorable press launch, the 9000 to North Cape. I ran one in the 1990s.
There really is only one Piëch – engineering genius, motivator, executive, shrewd perhaps ruthless entrepreneur – yet had any of the above been left to get on with rebuilding Saab, they might have attained Piëchian distinction. They were never allowed. Engineers tried to make Opels drive like Saabs without quite managing it. Stylists could make cars that looked like Saabs but the robust Swedish life force, quirkiness even, wasn’t there and now Saab is in the hands of Spyker and Victor Muller.

There is hope. One of his first moves was to secure a supply of some of the world’s best engines. From BMW.

National Treasures in a National Treasury. Stuart Turner and Eric Carlsson, Saab 96, in the RAC Pall Mall.
Automotive News Europe is good. It agrees with this blog on the premature election of the Nissan Leaf as Car of the Year. Richard Johnson is astute. Reach him at rjohnson@crain.com