“Come to the South of France and try our updated Verso,” said Toyota. “Nice,” I said. “Yes,” they said, “Nice airport for Cannes and we’ll show you our ED2 design studio which did the updates.” A little southern Europe winter sun after British snow, I thought, you can guess the rest.
What I got, of course, was more like a bad Auckland winter day with driving rain and strong winds and a mere 6C, as well as a thunderclap at 5.30 that woke the whole hotel up and sounded like a 737 pilot had tried to land on top of us instead of at the airport some kilometres east. And it all cleared up and the sun started to peek out just as the plane headed back out to Blizzard Blighty.
Go deeper with GlobalData
I had not been to ED2 before and was impressed. The viewing courtyard with its white polished stones is very similar to one at Toyota City but that is not perched in the hills above Antibes with sea views and lovely wooden terraces on which employees can lunch while looking out over the Med – weather permitting. I can think of worse places in which to toil daily. And toil they do, now with full responsibility for A-, B- and C-segment Toyotas and the first all-in-house project, the Verso revamp. The new nose is nice but the changes wrought to the interior really do show just what you can do with cooperative suppliers and clever use of new materials.
Tarting up the Verso to make it more attractive to European buyers wasn’t the only story we had this week on adapting a product to where it’s sold. There was also news from Canada, where Mitsubishi was a relatively late Japanese entry, on how the Thai-built Mirage for that market will be longer with a different engine.
Industrial niggle in France has also been in the news this week with unions getting a better Aulnay redundancy deal from PSA while Renault refuted union claims it would close plants if better productivity was not achieved.
PSA revealed details of a new modular platform and a new study concluded that online sales of new vehicles would soar by 2020.
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalDataAnd we sat down with JCI to talk about the future of seating and continued adding to the list of new model debuts expected at Geneva – not long away now.
Oh, goody, it’s snowing again – have a nice weekend.
Graeme Roberts, Deputy Editor, just-auto.com
