OUT TO LUNCH

There has been much comment in the print media and on radio lately about new car sales, particularly how the various Chinese brands are penetrating the new car market. This at a time when many car buyers are having to settle for what used to be euphemistically described as ‘previously enjoyed vehicles’ when what they really mean is ‘secondhand cars’.

There are now twenty-seven different Chinese vehicle models to choose from with a few more due by the end of the year. To give you some idea of the growth of Chinese car sales, one of the best-known brands is Haval (a sub brand of GWM who market vehicles under their own name. Back in 2019 Haval sold 872 vehicles in South Africa which wasn’t bad considering that they were still getting their name known. By mid 2024, according to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa, Haval had sold 19904 vehicles. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

I mention this because I have recently traded in my one year old Suzuki Baleno for an Omoda C5. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the Suzuki and it had barely 10 000kms on the clock when it was traded in. The problem was that I visited the local Omoda showroom with the intention of looking for a new car to replace my wife’s eleven year old Honda CRV. But my wife is in love with her Honda CRV and thought the Omoda was far too hi-tech so we left the show-room empty handed as it were.

It wouldn’t do any harm to go for a test drive I thought to myself so one weekday morning I snuck off to the Omoda showroom and asked for a test drive. By the end of the drive I was convinced and negotiated a trade in price for the Suzuki, a sale price for the Omoda and after a bit of paperwork it was all arranged. I could collect my new car in four days time.

It is no surprise to me that the Chinese car brands are eating the lunch of the more established brands. They are well designed, solidly constructed, perform well and are packed full of gadgets and gizmos that you only used to find on top of the range German models. The Sony sound system in my new Omoda would have been reason enough to buy it but the real reason I bought it was the price.

An entry level BMW 1 series costs just under R700 000 and is pretty boring to look at. My Omoda cost R470000, looks far more interesting than a BMW 1 series, has voice activation for most of the functions and is luxuriously appointed inside. The dashboard has been replaced by a screen which gives you all the data you need to know and displays the link to your Google maps and your music as well as allowing you to make hands free phone calls just by asking the computer to phone a contact.

When South Korean cars first arrived in South Africa they were met with the same sort of reception as Japanese cars had experienced earlier. The problem with the early South Korean cars and the Japanese cars was that they were designed to be functional rather than pretty. The lesson was quickly learnt and designers were poached from companies like BMW. Needless to say, it wasn’t very long before it became difficult to tell a South Korean car from a premium German brand.

The Chinese made the same mistake with an early model Geely which was a rip off of the Mercedes Benz 190 complete with Mercedes grill. They also copied a Range Rover and Rolls Royce and sold the models in China for a fraction of the price of the genuine article to the status conscious.

But the Chinese motor industry has matured and realises that if it wants to conquer new markets then it can’t get away with cut price rip offs.

Which is why models like the Haval, the Omoda and the Jaecoo may pay homage to other marques but still manage to retain their own good looks.

It’s a common misconception that people are buying Chinese models because they are ‘trading down’ and can’t afford the more expensive European competitors. The Chinese car owners I’ve met are certainly not short of money and could probably afford a more expensive model if they wanted to. Maybe South African car buyers are just wising up to the fact that you can buy a perfectly good substitute to a German brand for much less money. Those Haval sales figures would tend to suggest that might well be the case.

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Now both Messrs Cabanac and Gouws are without their promised jobs the exuberant bedwetters must be doing whatever bedwetters do to celebrate the downfall of a fellow human being. When I got booted from the Sunday Times back in 2008 a friendly insider informed me that at the editorial meeting following my sacking it was suggested that more pressure should be put on me in the hope that I would commit suicide.

That, some felt, would be great for newspaper sales and clickbait.

Fortunately my support group got me through what could have been some very dark days.

I wonder if the bedwetters, whether they be the ‘orcs’ at the IRR or the cyber-bullies in the mainstream media have given any thought to the mental condition of both the victims and their families. My wife worked at the Financial Mail back in 2008 and had to get into the same lift at the company’s Biermann Street head office as the chap that sacked her husband. Both Cabanac and Gouws have been viciously and quite unfairly attacked by the media but being dumped by a cowering Democratic Alliance stinks.

One would have assumed that the DA knew what most of the rest of us knew about both these gentlemen when they were welcomed aboard. If they didn’t then it doesn’t say much for due diligence within the party. Gouws’s ‘outbursts’ were, as he has explained, pure theatrical hyperbole to contrast the threats and insults against white South Africans with those against black South Africans. With the benefit of hindsight, maybe a bit over the top but the message was clear and was certainly not racist unless you are feeble minded enough to think that the conjuring of the dreaded ‘K’ word is offensive of itself.

It looks like ‘cancel culture’ is alive and well in South Africa which is very bad news for those of us who are sufficiently cerebrally developed to accept that we will all sometimes hear words or opinions that offend us. But they are only words.

The more worrying aspect though is that ‘cancel culture’ seems to be very one sided. If a black politician earning R1.4 million a year plus perks calls for my white throat to be cut then that is perfectly fine.