How many niches is too many?
Discussion
Thankyou4calling said:
What do all the “Posh” people buy now the manufacturer has ruined their favoured brand?
According to PH, they all drive a 15 year old Volvo V70 or Subaru Legacy, and/or a knackered old Series Land Rover. In fact, the housemaid probably drives a more expensive car than them
SpeckledJim said:
Thankyou4calling said:
What do all the “Posh” people buy now the manufacturer has ruined their favoured brand?
Just about every prestige brand is selling ten times more than it used to 20 years ago.R-R and Bentley, and Lamborghini, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, you name it. They've all traded brand cachet and exclusivity for volume.
When I was a kid, a ride in a BMW was bloody exciting. A ride in a Mercedes was enormously exciting.
A Rolls-Royce or Bentley or Lamborghini being sighted in our village would have made the WI newsletter.
E65Ross said:
SpeckledJim said:
Thankyou4calling said:
What do all the “Posh” people buy now the manufacturer has ruined their favoured brand?
Just about every prestige brand is selling ten times more than it used to 20 years ago.R-R and Bentley, and Lamborghini, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, you name it. They've all traded brand cachet and exclusivity for volume.
When I was a kid, a ride in a BMW was bloody exciting. A ride in a Mercedes was enormously exciting.
A Rolls-Royce or Bentley or Lamborghini being sighted in our village would have made the WI newsletter.
Second Best said:
Plus those who used to buy the posher versions probably won't appreciate every humdrum PCP car looking identical to the one they've saved up for. I'm in this group - I love my F-Type, but I'll never buy another Jaguar. Why the f
k Jaguar thought it would be a good idea to throw two fingers to the V6 and V8 F-Type buyers by releasing an el cheapo four-pot F-Type is beyond me, but it's basically thrown me off the brand. I love my F-Type, but Jaguar aren't getting another penny off me directly.
k Jaguar thought it would be a good idea to throw two fingers to the V6 and V8 F-Type buyers by releasing an el cheapo four-pot F-Type is beyond me, but it's basically thrown me off the brand. I love my F-Type, but Jaguar aren't getting another penny off me directly.
You won't buy another Jaguar because there's a £52,000 F-Type with a 4-cylinder engine next to a £56,000 F-Type with a 6-cylinder engine and you're concerned that poor people will be heading out in their droves to buy the cheap version?
E65Ross said:
SpeckledJim said:
Thankyou4calling said:
What do all the “Posh” people buy now the manufacturer has ruined their favoured brand?
Just about every prestige brand is selling ten times more than it used to 20 years ago.R-R and Bentley, and Lamborghini, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, you name it. They've all traded brand cachet and exclusivity for volume.
When I was a kid, a ride in a BMW was bloody exciting. A ride in a Mercedes was enormously exciting.
A Rolls-Royce or Bentley or Lamborghini being sighted in our village would have made the WI newsletter.
Well they're a LOT more common than they used to be. Over 4000 cars in 2018, and now the Cullinan on top.
In the 1990s Crewe was making about 1700 cars a year, and over half of them were Bentleys. I've just found something that suggests about 19,000 Rolls-Royces were produced between 1980 and 2000.
E65Ross said:
They're every bit as special as they once were IMO.
Fair enough, but they're not made with anything like the same level of craftsmanship as they used to be, which is where the specialness is lost, for me.
You could argue that in many ways they're now made a lot better than they used to be, and I wouldn't disagree, but it still negatively impacts specialness, IMO.
SpeckledJim said:
Well they're a LOT more common than they used to be. Over 4000 cars in 2018, and now the Cullinan on top.
In the 1990s Crewe was making about 1700 cars a year, and over half of them were Bentleys. I've just found something that suggests about 19,000 Rolls-Royces were produced between 1980 and 2000.
.
1,700 cars a year worldwide isn't many, and neither is 4,000. Most of them these days won't be seen on our roads in the UK, which perhaps they were in the old days?
And of course, new Rolls Royces are not replacing old ones on a one-for-one basis, so there is a net increase because people still value keeping an old one going rather than scrapping it
2xChevrons said:
But it seems that, like-for-like, Mercs haven't gone down in relative value. If anything they've got more expensive.
I thought it would be more striking but there are 2 factors I forgot to consider:1. VAT has increased from 15% to 20%
2. The Pound has lost 30% of its value against the Deutsche mark/Euro.
I did a comparison of E280 prices when I worked at Mercedes. I seem to recall the price difference (after adjusting for inflation) was staggering. However, the Euro was very weak against the Pound at the time so UK prices were relatively cheap so it may have been misleading.
SpeckledJim said:
Fair enough, but they're not made with anything like the same level of craftsmanship as they used to be, which is where the specialness is lost, for me.
You could argue that in many ways they're now made a lot better than they used to be, and I wouldn't disagree, but it still negatively impacts specialness, IMO.
I'm fairly sure the 'craftsmanship' is much better than it was in the days of the Silver Shadow/Spirit, too. One of my step-sisters works at Goodwood in what I suppose I'd call the Trim Shop (and they probably call the Textile and Tactile Furnishings Desire Fulfilment Centre or something) and the level of craft and artistry that goes into a Rolls-Royce is ridiculously high. You could argue that in many ways they're now made a lot better than they used to be, and I wouldn't disagree, but it still negatively impacts specialness, IMO.
Yes, the days when R-R engines were assembled by fitters at Crewe who were forbidden to use torque wrenches and had been trained to gauge torque purely by feel, or when R-R made its own nuts and bolts in-house are long gone. Yes, all the structural and mechanical bits arrive on a boat from Dingolfing. But Silver Shadow bodies were line-built by Pressed Steel Fisher in the same plant that made bodyshells for Morris Marinas and on a production line that, before R-R switched to unitary bodies, was used to make fridges.
But it seems to me that turning that bare body-in-white and a kit of BMW mechanical parts into 'a Rolls-Royce' - the assembly, painting, furnishing and trimming which I suppose you could say is the modern equivalent of 'coachbuilding' - is, if anything, done to a much higher degree of skills, care, and effort (not to mention overall quality) than it was in the Crewe era.
Shakermaker said:
SpeckledJim said:
Well they're a LOT more common than they used to be. Over 4000 cars in 2018, and now the Cullinan on top.
In the 1990s Crewe was making about 1700 cars a year, and over half of them were Bentleys. I've just found something that suggests about 19,000 Rolls-Royces were produced between 1980 and 2000.
.
In the 1990s Crewe was making about 1700 cars a year, and over half of them were Bentleys. I've just found something that suggests about 19,000 Rolls-Royces were produced between 1980 and 2000.
.
How does that fare as a proportion of total new cars though? Has total car production numbers kept up in line with that?
1,700 cars a year worldwide isn't many, and neither is 4,000. Most of them these days won't be seen on our roads in the UK, which perhaps they were in the old days?
And of course, new Rolls Royces are not replacing old ones on a one-for-one basis, so there is a net increase because people still value keeping an old one going rather than scrapping it
If you add 10,000 Bentleys to this years, what, 6,000 R-R including Cullinan (just a guess) then you're at 16000 cars per year. They are an order of magnitude more popular (less exclusive) in just a single generation.
2xChevrons said:
SpeckledJim said:
Fair enough, but they're not made with anything like the same level of craftsmanship as they used to be, which is where the specialness is lost, for me.
You could argue that in many ways they're now made a lot better than they used to be, and I wouldn't disagree, but it still negatively impacts specialness, IMO.
I'm fairly sure the 'craftsmanship' is much better than it was in the days of the Silver Shadow/Spirit, too. One of my step-sisters works at Goodwood in what I suppose I'd call the Trim Shop (and they probably call the Textile and Tactile Furnishings Desire Fulfilment Centre or something) and the level of craft and artistry that goes into a Rolls-Royce is ridiculously high. You could argue that in many ways they're now made a lot better than they used to be, and I wouldn't disagree, but it still negatively impacts specialness, IMO.
Yes, the days when R-R engines were assembled by fitters at Crewe who were forbidden to use torque wrenches and had been trained to gauge torque purely by feel, or when R-R made its own nuts and bolts in-house are long gone. Yes, all the structural and mechanical bits arrive on a boat from Dingolfing. But Silver Shadow bodies were line-built by Pressed Steel Fisher in the same plant that made bodyshells for Morris Marinas and on a production line that, before R-R switched to unitary bodies, was used to make fridges.
But it seems to me that turning that bare body-in-white and a kit of BMW mechanical parts into 'a Rolls-Royce' - the assembly, painting, furnishing and trimming which I suppose you could say is the modern equivalent of 'coachbuilding' - is, if anything, done to a much higher degree of skills, care, and effort (not to mention overall quality) than it was in the Crewe era.
More special? No, not for me.
rockandrollmark said:
I’m by no means stating this as fact, purely speculation, but I imagine a lot of that is related to how people “buy” cars these days too?
It is certainly a factor, when I worked at MB they were very slow to understand the change in the way people financed purchases. In the mid-2000s there were still some at MBUK that expected to launch a new model and that dealers would be able to sell every model they could get for full list price to cash buyers. They simply couldn't understand that the market had become much more competitive and that buyers were walking into Audi and BMW dealers asking "how much car can I get for £200 per month?".rockandrollmark said:
I’d be more interested to see gross profit of Merc and its position verses competitors 1989 vs. 2018.
Unfortunately, there isn't as much detail in the Daimler-Benz AG report of 1989 as there is in the Daimler AG report of 2018 to make that kind of comparison. The results of the Passenger Cars Division were consolidated with the Commercial Vehicles Division back in 1989.I can tell you that the near 5 fold increase in units sold was achieved with only a 50% increase in headcount - proof of the impact of automation.
If modern manufacturing techniques mean that a car company can profitably build a whole raft of different configs on the same platform then why not? It doesn't bother me.
I've always been happy with (fairly traditional) coupe's, saloons, hatchbacks and estates. But other people like other things. And don't forget that hatchbacks were once a brand new format, not that long ago in the scheme of things.
I've always been happy with (fairly traditional) coupe's, saloons, hatchbacks and estates. But other people like other things. And don't forget that hatchbacks were once a brand new format, not that long ago in the scheme of things.
I did mean to include a 'car preferences are usually emotional and subjective, so whatever...' at the end! SpeckledJim said:
Fair enough, but they're not made with anything like the same level of craftsmanship as they used to be, which is where the specialness is lost, for me.
You could argue that in many ways they're now made a lot better than they used to be, and I wouldn't disagree, but it still negatively impacts specialness, IMO.
Having been in a Phantom (circa 2013) and previously a Silver Seraph, I strongly disagree with that. They are truly wonderful things and the craftmanship is fantastic.You could argue that in many ways they're now made a lot better than they used to be, and I wouldn't disagree, but it still negatively impacts specialness, IMO.
SpeckledJim said:
When I was a kid, a ride in a BMW was bloody exciting. A ride in a Mercedes was enormously exciting.
As were foreign holidays ( especially if they were outside Europe - Middle East USA etc ) , phone calls, computers, clothes with a brand more exotic than M&S or Next.I caught myself doing the garden in a D&G t-shirt this weekend. A discreet makers logo and only cost £10-15 from TK Maxx as I recall. No doubt the fashionistas would have something to say about proles like me buying clothes I can't really afford from TK Maxx rather than paying through the nose for them at Selfridges like a proper person would...
Second Best said:
Plus those who used to buy the posher versions probably won't appreciate every humdrum PCP car looking identical to the one they've saved up for. I'm in this group - I love my F-Type, but I'll never buy another Jaguar. Why the fk Jaguar thought it would be a good idea to throw two fingers to the V6 and V8 F-Type buyers by releasing an el cheapo four-pot F-Type is beyond me, but it's basically thrown me off the brand. I love my F-Type, but Jaguar aren't getting another penny off me directly.
I've read this a few times and I just don't understand your gripe. Are you worried that people might look at your car and think you're not as rich as you actually are?k Jaguar thought it would be a good idea to throw two fingers to the V6 and V8 F-Type buyers by releasing an el cheapo four-pot F-Type is beyond me, but it's basically thrown me off the brand. I love my F-Type, but Jaguar aren't getting another penny off me directly.I also own an F-Type V8 and chose it because that's what I wanted. The fact that V6s and I4s exist in the range was and is inconsequential to me. I'm glad for the choice that Jag gave to me because I couldn't afford an SVR.
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