Fast cars, RIP: PH Blog

The rush to go green nearly killed fast cars; Chris is glad it didn't

Twice I have considered leaving this racket and taking up organic farming - the first incident involved a Maserati and a Ford Fiesta, the second was the 2009 Geneva Motor Show.

Honda's current line-up hardly inspiring...

You want to hear about the former, but I'm going to tell you about the latter.

I walked around the 2009 Geneva Motor Show in a shocked trance because the industry I thought I knew had completely capitulated. We all knew the global economy was shafted and banks were folding daily, but the immediate reaction of many brands shocked me.

They immediately became afraid of fast cars. Worse than that; they became ashamed of associating themselves with any kind of performance motoring. Every exec I spoke to gave me the same message: the new word was efficiency. There was no place for high performance. I should remember the past few years fondly, they wouldn't be repeated.

This dour sentiment was summarised on the BMW stand. Every car shown was white, almost all were small diesels bearing their efficiency ratings on their coachwork. They looked stashed away under the stairs somewhere. The Ultimate Driving Machine had been reduced to white goods status. It was like Currys, with cars.

Future looks a little more promising

No new fast cars meant I didn't have much interest in what was going on. I have a curiosity in all cars, but the thought of hacking Priuses around a test track didn't appeal. I couldn't really see the point of doing the job. Furthermore, the core message of this shift from exciting to environmentally worthy was nonsensical - it wasn't about offering cheaper cars to an impoverished populous but a weird marketing-led assumption that flaunting speed would somehow offend potential buyers.

If you stop making cars people aspire to own, you might as well pack-up and leave, surely?

Players who had always understood the benefit of performance models as marketing tools simply fled the sectors. Honda left F1 and developed the CR-Z as a response to the prevailing market conditions. When was the last time you saw one of those? It also gave is the Insight. The team who placed a bullet cam in the footwell of an NSX-R to record Ayrton Senna's heel'n'toe technique around Suzuka was reduced to the Insight. It was tragic.

BMW back in Harris's good books with DTM

BMW completely lost its mojo, but Audi and Mercedes both kept their nerve (or perhaps there was just too much fast product in the pipeline that had been paid for) and continued to believe that halo models were good and that the oil-based economy wasn't going to end within five years. Subaru was suddenly a maker of Foresters and crap saloons, Mitsubishi appeared to be killing the Evo: 2009 felt like fast car Armageddon.

But it just never came to be, did it? Fast forward to November 2013 and there are more fast cars now than at any time in the past. Kia has just launched a hot hatchback - I suppose that says it all.

Because the best way to sell lots of ordinary cars is to make a fast one and let the rest of the range most actually buy bathe in its glory. It is the simplest marketing strategy of them all, and that the majority of car brands chose to forget it in 2009 should make them all bow their heads in shame.

Surely proof everyone wants a fast car...

Peugeot was one of the first car makers to abandon the quick stuff, and its appeal promptly nose-dived. In the past few weeks we've had two fast Peugeots announced. Even though you do get the feeling that it is closing the stable door and the horse is already in a value lasagne, Peugeot should be applauded for attempting to regain some of that 80s and 90s magic.

The great news here is that the post-Lehman manual for automotive profitability now contains an important chapter on maintaining a fast car presence. Those who stuck to their guns did the best. Most of the Germans, Ford - even the government-owned GM - carried on building image and appeal by launching ever-faster cars, and I genuinely believe it has helped them all move back into profitability.

Honda is now desperate to reclaim its sporting heritage. A new NSX is on the way, the pre-launch activity on the Civic Type R is so uncharacteristically in advance of the launch date that you have to assume someone in the marketing hutch has told the press people to get spreading the word that Honda has re-discovered its corporate testicles. Given that the silly CR-Z has quietly been dropped in Europe seems to support this theory.

Even Peugeot is back at it!

What an uplifting trend this is. And it has other potentially enjoyable side-effects. There's a brewing appetite to move onto the next most exciting way of pushing your product and brand: motorsport. Hyundai has a World Rally Car, BMW is back in DTM - other brands are looking at racing and seeing a way of connecting with an audience quite disinterested in plug-in hybrids for everyday use. Give them a plug-in hybrid that can win Le Mans and you might suddenly add some vital sex appeal.

So I'm happy about all of this. Loads of new fast cars means lots of interesting work for the day job and, most importantly, ample used examples to enjoy a few years down the line. We've never had it so good.

Chris

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