FT944-136 _AN-FAAACABDFT 941231 FT 31 DEC 94 / Triumph of style over substance: John Griffiths on the craze for macho, gas-guzzling four-wheel drive vehicles By JOHN GRIFFITHS Next month's motor shows in Detroit and Los Angeles are expected to confirm a trend in car-buying that represents the triumph of ego over ecology, lust over logic, and cult over commonsense. The latest vehicle sales statistics from North America show that, in the first 11 months of this year, Americans bought 5.6m of what are described as light trucks - four-wheel drive cars such as the Jeep Cherokee and Range Rover, multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs) that seat seven or eight adults with car-like handling, and pick-up trucks. These 'cult' sectors of the US market have accounted for 43 per cent of total passenger vehicle sales in 1994. 'It's been trucks, trucks, trucks - we can't build enough,' according to Mr John Maciarz, a spokesman for market leader General Motors. This year, more than any other, light truck sales have outperformed the conventional car market in the US by a large and growing margin. Sales are nearly 15 per cent higher than in the same period last year, compared with growth in car sales of just 5 per cent. In some western US states and provinces of Canada, their sales now outnumber those of ordinary cars. Indeed, the single best-selling vehicle in the US is not a car, but a pick-up: Ford's F-series model outsells the country's best selling car, the Ford Taurus, by a ratio of 3 to 2. For most of their owners for most of the time, these vehicles are not ideal choices: four-wheel drives and MPVs are usually much bigger than they need; pick-ups have few passenger seats; and all three are simply irrelevant to any kind of need other than the emotional. Most also consume far more fuel than anyone needs for basic transportation. US vehicle makers claim to be almost as nonplussed as environmentalists by the gulf between the public support for energy and environmental conservation and the purchase of eccentric gas-guzzlers. This year, Chrysler has taken the pick-up cult to a new extreme with the Dodge Ram Laramie SLT Magnum V10. Only three adults can squeeze into its cab; its rear load deck is open to the elements; and under its bonnet is an engine with 10 cylinders, eight litres and the ability to out-drag most sports cars. Such eccentricity is unlikely to remain confined to the land of Dollars 1-a-gallon gasolene, however. Chrysler's UK importer currently has one on test, assessing it for a possible niche in the European markets. Despite several attempts by manufacturers to promote them as both leisure and utility vehicles, pick-ups have never really caught on in Europe. In the UK, only slightly more than 3,000 are expected to be sold this year, almost all to builders and other traders. But four-wheel drive cars are another story. They have already provided the beachhead through which Chrysler is re-establishing itself as a manufacturer to be taken seriously in Europe, with sales of around 20,000 units a year of its Cherokee, Grand Cherokee and Wrangler models, some assembled at a plant in Austria. Last year, according to statistics from market monitoring group Automotive Industry Data, Europeans bought 300,000 leisure/utility four-wheel drives. AID forecasts that sales should rise to around 500,000 by the end of the decade. Japan's choked roads provide the best support available for those who contend that the European four-wheel drive market has a long way to grow. Although the Japanese have even fewer opportunities than Europeans to take their vehicles off-road, because of greater urban sprawl and tight controls on the countryside, four-wheel drives account for 6 per cent of the new car market. To date, their share in Europe is under 3 per cent. According to AID, buyers justify their purchases by a desire 'to venture off-road where the mountain goat tenacity of such vehicles is likely to be needed'. AID's report on European four-wheel drive prospects to the year 2002 says that those interviewed claimed other features, such as styling, were much less important. But the report's research into how these vehicles are used showed that most buyers had little or no need for an off-road capability. 'The overwhelming majority of vehicle owners, around 95 per cent, are using their four-wheel drives for nothing more demanding than driving to the office, or for the daily school run.' Embarrassed though most buyers might be to admit it, AID suggests, the real reason for their purchase is simply 'to stand out from the crowd'. To underline the point, it reports that four-wheel drive owners on average were found to spend nine times as much as their car-buying counterparts on appearance-improving extras. In terms of both purchase and running costs, four-wheel drives can be a very expensive way of being different. In September, the UK Rover Group's subsidiary, Land Rover, launched the latest version of its flagship Range Rover model, developed as part of a four-year, Pounds 300m investment programme. Priced at up to Pounds 44,000, it has taken the vehicles into direct competition with established luxury car producers such as Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, BMW and Lexus (Toyota). The Range Rover, its cheaper stablemate the Discovery and the more utilitarian Land Rover Defender have been big success stories in the world market for four-wheel drives. The company's output at the end of the 1980s was fewer than 50,000. This year the total will reach a record 85,000, and the company expects to sell 100,000 units or more in the new year. With so much at stake, Land Rover executives strongly defend their four-wheel drive vehicles, maintaining they offer more than an ego trip. The Discovery, they say, is gradually taking over the market for big estate cars, typified by Volvo, because of its commanding driving position above other traffic and multi-seat flexibility, as well as style and image. Critics maintain that the perception of usable space is exaggerated. They add that the current cult status of the vehicles could quickly be undermined if there is a revival in concerns over the stability of these cars, which have a high centre of gravity. Small Suzuki four-wheel drives faced a barrage of criticisms over rollover safety in the 1980s. More recently, the deaths of a woman and her two children in a motorway accident in the UK, when their Range Rover rolled over the central barrier into oncoming traffic, has revived industry unease over the safety image of four-wheel drive cars. Yet manufacturers continue to crowd into the sector, and the vehicles themselves grow ever more varied. Volvo is reported to have developed a four-wheel drive prototype; Ford may introduce its large Explorer model into Europe; and Korea's SSangyong will introduce its first four-wheel drive to Europe during 1995. Meanwhile, Japan's Mitsubishi has just launched a Japan-only, 600cc mini version of its popular Pajero/Shogun vehicle. Two of Europe's biggest carmakers, Peugeot and Fiat, stand out from the trend, however, as absentees from this sector of the market. Both Peugeot's chairman, Mr Jacques Calvet, and Fiat Auto's director-general, Mr Giorgio Garuzzo, maintain that four-wheel drives will end up in a market wilderness and that the best growth prospects for niche vehicles lies with multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs). Their own efforts have gone into producing such a vehicle jointly, already in production as the Fiat Ulysse, Peugeot 806 and Citroen Synergie. But for 'green' critics of Europe's current modest craze for the fuel-gulping, macho-looking four-wheel drives, the future looks bleak. The latest vehicle sales statistics from North America suggest that, short of a public outcry over their safety, there will be many more of these vehicles on Europe's roads by the end of 1995. Countries:- USZ United States of America. XGZ Europe. Industries:- P3711 Motor Vehicles and Car Bodies. Types:- TECH Products & Product use. CMMT Comment & Analysis. MKTS Sales. MKTS Market shares. The Financial Times London Page 6