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KILSBY AUSTRALIA | transport policy, planning and management advice |
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The Road to Perdition ... ... should be travelled in appropriate vehicles. Reflect on the following extracts from the writing of Fairfax motoring journalist Bob Jennings, in the Sun-Herald on 20/1/01.
Trucks - the American generic term for big pick-ups, crew-cabs, four-wheel-drive wagons and their two-wheel-drive clones - are as deeply embedded in the US psyche as fast food and TV evangelism. Despite last year's scare of increased petrol prices (prices in the US were still only half what we pay) and the decision by OPEC countries to once more restrict crude oil supplies, trucks continue to dominate the US automotive landscape. ... Ford's F-series, which continues to be America's biggest-selling vehicle ahead of any conventional passenger car, will be on the front line of the move into Australia. Ford Australia is pinning much of its marketing strategy on this vehicle, virtually abandoning the small and medium-sized car market. ... In effect, Ford's future will hang on a trucks'r'us theme. ... Ford's momentum is expected to build with the all-new Explorer, which will make it to market by mid-year, then the heavyweights will roll out with the F-series F250 and F350 range in the third quarter of the year. The smaller F150 won't be coming, Ford fearing too much of a conflict with its most successful locally produced vehicle, the Falcon ute. ... [Chrysler Australia] Chief Executive Judith Wheeler said there would soon be more US product in the Australian line-up ... "We would love to bring in big vehicles such as the [Dodge] Durango and Ram", she said. ... Adding to the big truck confidence here is the fact that in the US there is absolutely no indication that the love affair is on the wane. At the North American International Motor Show, which opened to the public last week, the dominant theme of concept and production vehicles was trucks and, in many cases, the bigger the better. ... ... the Dodge Dakota is claimed to be "the ultimate vehicle for commercial construction" and its full title (you'd need a big vehicle to fit it across the back) is the "Site Commander Dodge Dakota Quad Cab"... ... If there's one theme to be noticed, it is that in both production vehicles and concepts, the wagons are sprouting ute-style cargo compartments at their rear-ends and "butterfly" doors - sometimes and more irreverently known as "suicide" doors, because the rear one is hinged at the back, hiding the alighting person's view of the traffic. ... It remains to be see if Australians will take to the big trucks with the same enthusiasm as the Americans - but there's plenty of money saying they will. But are we destined to emulate the Americans in these things? Or will (generally highly urbanised) Australians march to their own drum? Two days earlier, in a sister newspaper, Bob Jennings had given us the following gem. Australia's hottest panel van, the Holden Sandman that stole the Sydney Motor Show in November, received the cover-up treatment at last week's North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The 'colourful' Mambo beach scene airbrushed on the side of the van - reminiscent of the artwork integral to the culture of the 1970's - was too much for the sensitivities of a fundamentalist construction worker. Involved in unloading vehicles for the huge General Motors display in Detroit, he said he was offended by the women depicted in the beach culture scene, which was seen by more than 260,000 at the Sydney show without complaint. Even though the Aussie show car was to be tucked away at the back of the GM stand under a staircase, a local airbrush artist was employed to improve the modesty of the Mambo artwork. A grass skirt was added to one of the scantily dressed women depicted on the van, the hair was strategically lengthened to provide a further element of decorum to another figure, while further cover was added by a flower lei. "Apparently it had to be done to avoid the threat of industrial action", said Holden's chief of design, Mike Simcoe. Obscenity means different things to different people. As was once said in a different context, "Thank God Australia got the convicts and America got the Puritans". |