A highlight of the week was to break off from all the GM/Chrysler/Fiat/Magna/GAZ etc hullaballoo for just one day and make our annual trip to the toy shop.
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The SMMT Test Day, venue and timing of which has varied a little since I first attended some 21 years ago, is when most of the UK’s automakers and distributors lay out a half dozen cars each, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders provides hospitality and catering, and Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire, built originally by Vauxhall, provides the venue.
Test routes include the ‘hill’, a lovely selection of road surfaces, curves, cambers and gradients, the ‘bowl’, five concentric banked lanes with two-mile circumference allowing speeds up to 100mph, the ‘city’, with the typical stops and starts of an urban run, and a reasonably challenging ‘offroad’. There is also a ‘road’ route which allows for a foray offsite into the shire, if you must.
UK auto journalists approach the day in different ways. Mr Trade Press here makes the most of the opportunity to drive as many new cars from the last year as possible; the guys from the consumer magazines often take the time to try variants they haven’t road tested; some attendees drive hardly anything, taking instead the chance to catch up with a captive audience of most of the key industry PRs under one roof, so to speak. It’s always a great day out, and one we look forward to, as we can usually also round up a fair number of j-a contributors with whom to share a lunch table.
Apart from making like a Hollywood mogul on Mulholland Drive with a W12 Bentley Continental convertible and hooning around the hill or bowl in Cadillac’s CTS and Chrysler’s diesel 300C, I made sure to try some of the year’s more talked-about and more affordable vehicles like the gorgeous little Alfa Romeo Mito (lovely cabin, strong refined diesel, a great drive, ’60s US Ford-like LED-fuelled tail lights), the much-hyped Kia Soul (great cabin colours but less load space than expected from that size), Citroen C3 Picasso (clever cabin detailing), Ford Fiesta (nicely styled inside and out, good to drive and should do well in the US), Fiat 500 platform-sharing Ford Ka (most garish cabin, ever, in the ‘Grand Prix’ edition) and, apart from the Conti, enjoyed top up and down spins in the Peugeot 308 coupe-cabriolet, BMW Z4 and Audi A5. SUVs got just one look-in, the ideally-sized Volvo XC60.
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By GlobalDataBack in the real world again, today, the key story has, again, been GM as bids for Opel finally made it in and a deal was agreed with the UAW – just the bondholders to go. The pundits are now in overdrive but for now we wait and see. The most likely scenario is GM going into Chapter 11 in the US with Germany helping Opel forge its own way in the world later this year.
While all this is going on, j-a continues its research and this week we had an update on seating, taking into account the volatile changes in the auto business since we last ran a tape measure over the sector.
Here in the UK, we finally got our very own scrappage scheme, like our EU cousins in Germany and France, but, of course, it immediately hit a few snags which needed ironing out. Automakers haven’t wasted any time; I saw a TV ad for the aforementioned C3 Picasso last night which included ‘scrappage’ price options. Let’s hope the scheme shifts a few cars and gets our slowed assembly lines or even whole shuttered plants back to work.
From the Perhaps We Bit Off More Than We Can Chew department came news of some changes regarding the Porsche ‘takeover’ of Volkswagen and the ill-fated Schaeffler play for Continental. Debt has brought a reality check.
Big changes in America were announced – drivers will get more miles per gallon of fuel and automakers will no longer have to deal with two sets of emissions standards. And Chrysler got a new chairman.
Both in the US (Memorial Day) and here in the UK (the second May bank holiday) it’s a long weekend. Good weather is forecast, so I’m thinking BBQ.
Enjoy yours, whether it’s two days or three.
Graeme Roberts
Deputy/News Editor
just-auto.com
