Results season – Q1 2013, Q4/fiscal year 2012/3, etc. We disappear under a mountain of figures and you get it all neatly sliced, diced and packaged here. Enjoy.
So far, it’s not looking too bad. Honda just beat this column’s deadline with news of healthily restored operating profits after the twin disasters of Japanese earthquake and Thai floods which knocked it for six and Ford, though on the ropes in Europe, did well enough at home in the US to also post some encouraging results.
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A surprise announcement today: Nissan Micra production is returning to Europe. From India, and not Thailand, as I inititally reported until receipt of a swift kick from The Editor. D’oh! Thailand supplies Japan now, but ours come from Chennai, also the source of Nissan’s European Suzuki Alto-based entry level Pixo. The Micra used to be made, until 2010, at the Nissan plant in Sunderland, north east England but, from 2016, Renault will make it in Flins, near Paris.
The old British Micra used to be everywhere but the new one, costed for emerging markets, is a rare sight here and hasn’t had great press. Small car buyers’ requirements in emerging markets are different from those in Europe, where a B-segment supermini can be a family’s only car, and I expect a much poshed-up new generation car out of France in three years’ time.
Speaking of revivals, Ford, apparently to the horror of some of its units worldwide, revived the name Escort for a Shanghai show concept. That led to a little niggle in Australia, where the local design unit felt they deserved a bit more credit for the car. I always liked the Escort but my exposure ended with rear-drive generation two as, in my part of the world, instead of generation three, we got a rejigged Mazda 323 called the Laser. Apparently subsequent front-drive Escorts weren’t so good, hence the concern over the possible revival of the name – for a lengthened Focus sedan – which is likely to be China-only, if it happens.
The original Escort, incidentally, wasn’t from 1968; the nameplate first appeared on a 1950s estate car version of the Prefect. What an anorak…
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By GlobalDataHave a nice weekend.
Graeme Roberts, Deputy Editor, just-auto.com
