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