On this Pope Gregory Arbitrary Calendar Start Day, I wrote to a contact of mine at Renault New Zealand.
In mid-2018, I joked that, since Renault had no dealers in Wellington (never mind what’s listed on their websiteâthe only people who can see a dealer there are psychic mediums), I could sell them out of my house.
Today, I may well have gone some way toward doing that, as someone I know would like a test drive of a first-gen Captur after I put it into her consideration set. After all, I put my money where my mouth is with Renault, so when I recommend one, I do so with some authority.
In the same note, I detailed some observations about Renault New Zealand’s marketing. I have since forwarded it to their top man in the country.
I concluded all that with, ‘And I reckon Hiroto Saikawa is dodgy and he was trying to cover up his own incompetence by framing his old boss and mentor. But that’s another story.’
Even if I sold one car, I might become the city’s top Renault seller. ‘If you find a better car, buy it.’
Above: The Mitsubishi eK Wagon, one of the cars at the centre of the company’s latest scandal.
One thing about creating and running Autocade is that you gain an appreciation for corporate history. Recently, I blogged about Fiat, and the troubles the company is in; it wasnât that long ago that Fiat was the designersâ darling, the company known for creating incredibly stylish vehicles for all its brands and showing how you could use Italian flair to generate sales.
That was the 1990s; by the turn of the century, Fiat had lost some of its mojo, and by the time I got to Milano in the early 2000s, the taxi ranks had plenty of German and French cars. Once upon a time, they would have been nearly exclusively Italian. Today, a lot of Fiatâs range is either made by, or on platforms shared with, Ford, GM, Chrysler (which it now owns), Peugeot, Mitsubishi and Mazda. Sharing platforms isnât a sin, but a necessity, but Fiat seems to have taken it to a new level, looking like a OEM brand whose logo is freely slapped on othersâ products.
Mitsubishi is the other car company to find itself in trouble in recent weeks. The company admitted that it had lied about the fuel economy figures for its kei cars, the micro-cars that it sells predominantly in Japan.
It wasnât as troublesome as Volkswagenâs defeat device which fooled the US EPA, running differently when it knew the engine was being tested. Mitsubishi kept things simple, and overinflated tyre pressures.
It would have got away with it, too, if it werenât for Nissan, a company to which Mitsubishi supplied, under an OEM deal, kei cars. The customer started to ask questions and tested the cars for itself.
Mitsubishi had supplied 468,000 cars to Nissan, all of which are affected. It had only sold 157,000 under its own marque. Production of the cars, from the eK range, and the OEM equivalent for Nissan, the Dayz, is now suspended, while Mitsubishiâs shares plunged 15 per cent on the news last week. Sankei, the Japanese newspaper, believes that Mitsubishi used the wrong test method on the I-MIEV electric car, RVR (ASX), Outlander, and Pajero, which are exported.
You have to wonder what the corporate culture must be like for these matters to recur so regularly. But then, collectively, people tend to forget very rapidly, and companies like Volkswagen and Mitsubishi must bank on these.
VW isnât the first to cheat the EPAâUS car makers have attempted less sophisticated defeat devices in the latter half of the 20th centuryâthough it has had a chequered past. Just over 10 years ago, there was a scandal involving VW colluding with a union leader to keep wage demands down, and a few low-level employees took the rap. Go back to the 1980s and the company found itself in a foreign exchange scandal. But these were known mainly among specialist circles, principally those following car industry news.
Mitsubishiâs scandals, meanwhile, were more severe in terms of the headlines generated. Last decade, when the media called Mitsubishi Japanâs fourth-largest car makerâthese days they call it the sixthâthe company was implicated in a cover-up over the safety of its vehicles. Japanese authorities raided the company in 2004, and revealed that Mitsubishi Motors Corp. hid defects that affected 800,000 vehicles, and had done so since 1977. Nearly a million vehicles were recalled. Affected vehicles were sold domestically as well as in Europe and Asia. Top execs were arrested that time, including the company president, although it was hard under Japanese law to punish Mitsubishi severely. There was no disincentive to conducting business as usual. The company was ultimately bailed out by its parent, the giant Mitsubishi Group, when it found itself facing potential bankruptcy.
People were killed as a result of Mitsubishiâs cover-ups, and at the time it was considered one of the biggest corporate scandals in Japan.
Go back a bit further and Mitsubishi Materials Corp., a related company, had used slave labour in World War II, including US troopsâsomething the company did not apologize for till 2015, even though the Japanese government itself had issued apologies in 2009 and 2010. While it was a first among Japanese corporations, and US POWs got what they had long awaited, descendants of Chinese slave labourers still have a lawsuit pending against a connected Mitsubishi subsidiary.
The other major difference between Volkswagen and Mitsubishi is that the Japanese marque is relatively weak in terms of covering its market segments. Itâs SUV- and truck-heavy, and its kei cars had sold well (till now), but it has little in the passenger car segments, which it had once fielded strongly. The Mirage (and the booted Attrage) and the Galant Fortis (exported as the Lancer to many markets) are whatâs left: the latter is now nine years old, though still fairly competitive, and in desperate need of replacement. Its only other car is its Taiwan-only Colt Plus, still selling there as an entry-level model despite having been withdrawn from every other market. In the big-car segments, Mitsubishi is actually supplied by Nissan in Japan, but doesnât make its own any more. âSixth-largestâ is shorthand for third-smallest, at least among the big Japanese car companies.
Mitsubishi looks set to quit the C-segment (Galant Fortis) since neither Renault nor Nissan, which it had approached, wanted a tie-up. And the company survives on tie-ups for economies of scale, and thereâs now a big question mark over whether potential partners want to work with it. Automotive Newsâs Hans Greimel questions whether the MitsubishiâFiat truck deal will go ahead (though I had thought it was an inked fait accompli).
But, most seriously, Mitsubishi hasnât completely recovered from its earlier scandal.
It is within living memory, and the timing and nature of the latest one, tying so closely to what rocked Volkswagen, ensured that it would get global press again, even if the bulk of the affected cars were only sold domestically. And when consumers see a pattern, they begin wondering if thereâs a toxic corporate culture at play here.
Weâre too connected in 2016 not to know, and while Mitsubishi is likely to be bailed out again, it will face the prospect of shrinking car salesâand sooner or later one will have to question whether the company will stay in the passenger-car business. Isuzu exited in the 1990s, focusing on SUVs, pick-ups and heavy trucks, forced by an economic downturn. Since Mitsubishiâs own portfolio is looking similarly weighted, it wouldnât surprise me if it chose to follow suit, its brand too tarnished, with too little brand equity, to continue.
Fiat has announced that it’s going to bring back the Dodge Dart nameplate on a compact sedan based on a stretched Alfa Romeo Giulietta platform for the 2013 model year.
This was actually mentioned when Chrysler was going cap-in-hand to the US Government, so it’s not a total surprise. The nameplate, however, is.
It makes sense to me, though if you look at some of the blog comments elsewhere, motorheads are coming out saying it should be used for a rear-wheel-drive sedan that captures the spirit of the original.
The trouble is, it does. Dart was a compact beloved of schoolteachers, and even if the last one was a variant of the Dodge Diplomat sold in Spanish-speaking countries, enough time has passed for the general public not to be nostalgic for V8-powered Demons, Dart Sports and the like.
It’s a compact sort of name, and it’s going after a general audience. And it looks too aggressive to be called Omni or Neon. A sporty little Dodge should be called Dart.
I know that it could be very easily argued that the last time an American company resurrected a hallowed nameplate last sold in the US in the 1970sâthe Pontiac GTOâand ignored the heritage, it was a sales’ disaster.
But the Goat is legendary. Think back to the 1975 model year: did anyone really regard a basic Dart as legendary?
We’ve already had a four-door sedan from Dodge called the Charger, the Polara name last wound up on a version of the Hillman Avenger down in Brazil, and the Chrysler New Yorker nameplate went on to a heap of different cars in the 1980s (R-body, M-body, E-body, C-body), so this isn’t exactly a company that has been looking after its heritage that well. I dare say the public is used to nameplates being recycled when it comes to Chrysler, sometimes for the better (300) and sometimes for the worse (it’ll be a long time before anyone brings Sebring back).
The preview shots Dodge has revealed look aggressive, and since a designer is running the decals-and-flash show there, I suspect it wouldn’t look too bad.
The other nameplate news of late, going in reverse chronological order, is the demise of Maybach. No surprises there, either: if you’re going to charge stratospheric prices for a car, it had better look stratosphericânot a rehash of a Mercedes-Benz S-Klasse. âNuff said. Finally, I’ve been meaning to blog about this little item for many weeks now: the rebadging of rebadged Lancias, if we might come full circle to Fiat.
As many of you know, Lancias are sold as Chryslers in markets where Chrysler has a stronghold, while Chryslers are sold as Lancias where Lancia has a stronghold. That means, in Britain and Ăire, the Lancia Ypsilon and Delta are sold as Chryslers.
Car design, however, is no longer a matter of badge-engineering (even if there are certain segments where you can still get away with it, such as city cars and certain minivans). Everything about the design has to reflect the brand’s value. Cover up the grille of a Volvo, and it’s still a Volvo. But the Lancia design language is very Italian, and the Chrysler design language is very American, the insipid 200 aside.
It is unfair to criticize ChryslerâLancia given that these cars were penned before Fiat merged the brands, but I thought this customer-level rebranding exercise was a very interesting one on the part of Lancia fans in the UK and Ăire.
A group of enthusiasts located an Italian dealer who was willing to sell them a bunch of Lancia badges, so British and Irish owners could give their cars the complete Lancia treatment.
It shows something I have talked about in many of my speeches: that brands are increasingly in the hands of the consumers.
But it also shows that no matter what badge you put on the Ypsilon and Delta, they look Italianâand certain consumers want authenticity.
Finally, it shows that in a globalized world, it’s no longer up to retailers to tell us what something is called. We have access to the ânet, and we can find out for ourselves. When it comes to cars, where there is a lot of online research, demand might start building from the moment scoop photographs are released. These Lancia enthusiasts have clearly wanted their RHD Deltas for a long time, and they have the means to make their dream come true, regardless of what the badge at the dealership says.
Robin Capper referred this to me, found on Autocarâs blog and penned by Hilton Holloway. I’ve only taken excerpts:
[A senior MG Rover insider] claims MG Rover bosses were offered a life raft shortly after they bought MG Rover for a tenner. Realising that Roverâs L-series diesel engine was hopelessly outclassed, they approached Fiat about buying in its JTD diesel. Fiat, the insider claims, came back with an amazing offer. MGR could have the diesel, but it could also license the Fiat Stilo platform. Fiat had installed at least double the capacity that the slow-selling Stilo needed and had capacity to spare. The fact that the Phoenix Four didnât return Fiatâs call suggests that they never really intended to turn MGR around by their own efforts.
I read a blog post tonight on my friend Jenâs Tumblr, about a memory that goes back to when she was about three or so. But she wondered if it was accurate.
I believe it was, because for me, by age three I had over two yearsâ worth of memories. I have met two people in my life who can remember back, clearly, in a temporal, linear fashion, to before we were one. When we discuss this, our first comment to the other usually is, âNo one believes you, do they?â
Many doubt us, saying, âYou must have heard that from your parents,â or âYou must have seen this in a photograph,â until we start telling the stories.
I wrote on Jenâs blog:
I have a few vague memories similar to this prior to nine months, and they are dream-like, almost like flashes. I assume the human mind does not string events together in a temporal fashion at earlier ages, so we recall them as unclear glimpses rather than moments that are anchored to past and future events on either side.
I donât know if studies have been done about this, about why those early memories are not stored. The above is only a theory, but I have a hunch it is right. We are not taught the concepts of past and future as babies, so we donât store anything in a linear fashion. Why I began to earlier than most, I do not know. No single event triggered it.
I usually tell people I began remembering when I was nine months old. Thatâs only a rough date, because at that age I had no concept of what a month was. The date does come from photographs, but thatâs all I will give childhood photography. The rest is down to my own mind.
The story that usually convinces people in regular conversation is this one: learning to walk. It was not my first memoryâthat was one of those âflashesâ that I alluded to in the quoteânor was it the first one that I can trace right back. But I think most people will agree that getting on to your two feet should be quite a memorable event.
I was a late walker and a happy shuffler. If we put the average baby learning to walk at around age one, then I was still shuffling at 15 months.
My friend Tim, who remains in contact with me to this day, is younger than me by just over three months. His family came over to visit and he had just started walking. I believe I retold this to him when we were in our late 20s. Sadly, he does not remember it and cannot corroborate the events.
I had already put up with encouragement to walk for ages (again, at this point, I had no concept of âmonthsâ, but it must have been) so, naturally, there was a lot of âOh, look at Tim, heâs walking! Isnât he a good boy?â
My thought, because at this point I had attempted to walk (and fall) numerous times was: âThis is peer pressure. Iâm not doing it. Look, I can get across the room shuffling more quickly than he can walk. Itâs safer, and itâs a known quantity. Just because everyone else is doesnât mean I should, and so what if I donât?â
I should note that the thought was not structured as language, but as impulses, which, really, is the way most of us think. Itâs only in recounting the event that we stretch it into comprehensible sentences. I also did not say this; if I did, it probably was as infantile babbles.
And I could get across that room more quickly. Shuffling 1, walking 0.
If you think back to when you were five or six, or whenever it was when you first began your set of memories, you might remember that inner voice of yours. Itâs your own Jiminy Cricket. Itâs not a weird voice telling you to do evil stuff, but your thought process. You know, the one talking to you right now as you read this. And Iâm willing to bet that that voice has remained identical all these years in your own mind.
For the fellas, that means that when your voice broke, it didnât suddenly change. Itâs as though it was the same all along.
And thatâs the voice I had at 15 months.
It means that even at age one, I was a stubborn so-and-so.
I should also mention that I was on âthe leashâ (which demeans us both). And from personal experience of being the leashed, it is bloody painful on your armpits when you get dragged up. Itâs only natural for your parents to not want you to hurt yourself and they jerk you up. But by 12â15 months, youâre used to the pain of falling and you know how bad it is. In fact, the pain of falling was preferable to the pain of being yanked up. (In the 1990s, I went to Plunket to tell them of my experiences, and begged them to never recommend the leash to parents.)
The leash might well have made me more rebellious than I normally would be, but eventually, as anyone who knows me today, I eventually learned to walk. I was about 16 at the time and wanted to pull chicks. Only kidding.
Soon after (again, I cannot give you an exact time-frame), I discovered that I could run. Fast walking. And I loved it. (Driving on the autobahn gives the same thrill.)
I then remembered thinking, âIf someone had told me that I could run after I learned to walk, I would have done this ages ago [or, at least, in the past]. Why didnât someone tell me?â
Even at a time when we are not supposed to understand language as it is constructed, I am convinced infants actually understand any language as impulses, probably picking up vibes. They can reason, and it means that parents should be clear in explaining everything to their children, even at a very young age that they cannot remember back to.
But it shows me that at around 12â18 months, I had a clear idea of âthe pastâ being the time when I was being encouraged to walk.
The memories may well have been triggered by another phenomenon: the need to begin schooling at age two, as was common in Hong Kong.
We are expected to attend kindergarten from 2Âœ, and itâs not what occidentals associate with that term.
We are talking nightly homework and getting graded. Sucks, I know. You donât get much of a childhood, though there were really cool tricycles there.
The idea is that if you donât get into a good kindy, you donât get into a good primary school, which means you donât get into a good college, which means you donât get into a good university. Therefore, in Hong Kong, in the 1970s, it was important to get the right start in life.
However, to get into a good kindergarten, you have to sit an exam. Solo. With the examiner in the room in front of you.
This would have been around two, and in the period before, while you are still one, you notice your parents buy join-the-dots puzzle books (I could count by this stage, thanks to my grandmother) and books with the alphabet.
This was not exercising my mind: this was serious swotting.
Because of the kidnapping of infants by Red Chinese back in those days, we also have the âDonât talk to strangersâ message drummed in to us. By this point, my parents and grandmother were rationalizing with me, adding, âBecause if you do, you might not see us again.â
You can imagine that being abandoned by your mother with the examiner in a room is a pretty traumatic experience, because it goes against the whole anti-stranger thing.
It didnât make it easier that the bloody exam was not alphabet recitation or joining the dots.
Maybe this is why, to this day, I still have nightmares about not having studied for an exam, though usually itâs set at law school, and itâs often constitutional law. (Thank you, Prof Palmer. Ironically, I did quite well with Sir Geoffreyâs exam.)
The exam was putting shapes in to holes: the one Frank Spencer had to do when he joined the RAF.
I eventually did it, crying through the process, but I guess at the end of the day, it was about the result and not the means. And I could see my Mum again.
So by age two, most kids in Hong Kong had to rely on some form of memory, and when I was younger, I usually credited that with why mine went so far back. However, I wonder if others from the same place can report the same.
Or, for instance, can actress Alicia Witt recall that she recited Shakespeare on Thatâs Incredible at age four? Considering her profession todayâmusician and actressâshe must be blessed with a good memory, one that sheâs had to exercise for a longer time than most.
Emigrating to New Zealand in 1976 might have triggered a new set, because of the then-unfamiliar surroundings.
I have a photographic memory, and I can tell you that the first car that went on the other side of the road as we left Wellington Airport on September 16, 1976, three days shy of my fourth birthday, was a Holden.
There were few Holdens in Hong Kong but I remember the shape of the station wagon and finding out the brand later.
Itâs a little obsession I have always had, long before I even came to New Zealand.
If anyone who worked at the Fiat dealership on the corner of Victory Avenue, Homantin, Kowloon, in 1975â6 remembers a two- to three-year-old who could tell them which was the 124, the 127, the 128 and the X1/9, and what years they were registered, then that was me. I still regret missing the launch of the 131, which was scheduled to take place in late Septemberâearly October 1976, but the cars were in the showroom, covered up.
The dealership is no longer there, nor is the kindergarten, otherwise I would be asking Fiat Hong Kong for photographs of the launch event. It must have been the first launch to which I could have gone to, and had to miss.
Above The corner of Victory Avenue and Waterloo Road. At the far right, cut off, is where the Fiat dealership would have been. The laundry was there in the 1970s.
