Stateside GP this weekend
The F1 circus has gone to America to race at
the specially designed F1 circuit inside the famous Indy 500 oval
track. There has been much talk and noise about getting another
American driver into F1 to stimulate interest from the American
public, but so far there are no serious offers, or serious
applications, from the US. Names are being thrown in the air like
Bryan Herta, Townsend Bell and Cristiano Da Matta (now there’s a
good American name for you), but I would not be waving the Stars
and Bars just yet!
With the time difference between here and Indianapolis, the
start will be at a most uncivilised hour here, around 1 a.m. in
the early morning as far as I can work out. Watch it from home, as
Shenanigans would have to shut before the telecast ends (2 a.m. is
still the official closing time).
Autotrivia Quiz
Last week I mentioned the Russian GAZ
"A" which was a carbon copy of the A model Ford and
the 1962 Tchaika, the dead ringer for the 1956 Ford Customline.
However, they did build a horrible chromium plated car for
their VIP’s, which was called the ZIS, and then later
renamed the ZIL. I asked what did the initials stand for, and
why did they change the S to an L? The answer was Zavod Imeni
Likatjova (ZIL) and the previous "S" had stood for
Stalin. And "Dos vidanya" to you too!
So to this week. Japanese automaker Jitsuyo
Jidosha Seizo took over a Japanese car company in 1927. The
name of the cars he built was later changed in 1931 and again
in 1932 and again in 1935. What were these cars called? I want
all four names. A clue - this company is still manufacturing
cars today!
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be
the first correct answer to fax 038 427 596 or email automania
@pattayamail.com
Good luck!
At Suzuki Motor they make
Suzuki’s. Err, wrong!
Automotive News reported recently that the
new Nissan Moco is not really a Nissan at all. It is, in fact,
a re-badged Suzuki MRwagon, built at Suzuki’s Kosai plant
near Tokyo. Shock! Horror! How can this be?
The answer is actually fairly simple.
Suzuki are so adept at building cars for other manufacturers
that in the first six months of this year over 90% of the
production went out the door, wearing a non-Suzuki nameplate.
That included 27,609 "Mazdas" and 6,627
"Chevrolet Cruzes" (See our report on the Cruze
Pattaya Mail Vol. X, No. 35).
Nissan
Moco
Suzuki is just one of the car manufacturers
that is willing to be an important part of other manufacturer’s
line-ups. Take, for example, at the launch of the Moco mini
car in April, Nissan Motor Co. President Carlos Ghosn called
the 660cc vehicle "an essential part of our entry-level
strategy" for gaining market share in Japan. The
important word here was "our" entry-level.
"Our" really meant Nissan’s money and Suzuki’s
product, because Nissan turned to Suzuki, Japan’s No. 1
mini-vehicle maker, to develop and build the Moco.
What Suzuki did was to re-badge the Suzuki
MRwagon, and Hey Presto, Nissan has its "essential part
of our entry-level strategy". And everybody is happy.
Suzuki
MRwagon
Meanwhile, at the same Suzuki Kosai plant
outside Tokyo, Japan’s best-selling car, the Suzuki Wagon R,
is re-badged for Mazda Motor Corp. for sale as the Mazda
AZ-Wagon mini-vehicle and for General Motors as the 1.0-liter
Chevrolet MW. Suzuki also builds the Cruze for GM, which
badges it as a Chevrolet, or as a Holden for Down-under.
I have mentioned the incestuous
relationships between car manufacturers the world over, and
the Suzuki-Nissan is typical of what is happening. The
interesting factor that comes from this is where then does the
customer loyalty lie? Let’s look at the person who swears by
their "Nissan" Moco. At model change time, do they
look at another Nissan product, or go to Suzuki, the
"real" manufacturer? According to Nissan President
Carlos Ghosn, in July, the Moco accounted for nearly 7 percent
of all Nissans sold in Japan and helped Nissan’s July sales
jump about 10 percent from a year earlier. Nissan hopes that
Moco owners today will return to Nissan showrooms to look at
its larger, higher-margin cars in the future, but I wonder.
Suzuki are also in a bit of a quandary.
While the good news is that they are keeping the factory going
with the "foreign" manufacturing, these re-badged
cars are then sold as competitors to the Suzuki line-up. What
Suzuki are gaining on the swings, they might almost certainly
be losing on the roundabouts!
What did we learn from the
Italian GP at Monza?
Well, the first thing is that BMW build
very powerful "qualifying" engines. 900 bhp is the
figure quoted, and they certainly showed they had the squirt
on the Saturday. Unfortunately, the "race" engines,
while still being powerful, do not have what it takes over the
long haul. That’s the second time in two meetings that a
BeeEmm has gone BooOomm!
Jaguar
A Jaguar on the podium! Well over twelve
months since that has happened, so perhaps the drastic
rethinks are starting to pay off. Eddie Irvine might be given
a reprieve, so we may have to put up with another year of the
loquacious Irishman!
Felipe Massa is not endearing himself to
anyone, and punting Pedro de la Rosa’s Jaguar off at Monza
did not endear him to the FIA either, who have given him a 10
place penalty for the US GP. From the position he qualifies
in, he must take 10 places backwards. It is significant that
Sauber are dropping Massa for next year. Peter Sauber is
fairly canny, so although Massa has the pace, he has not shown
the maturity needed to drive at that level. If Toyota choose
him, as the rumours are predicting, then they are welcome to
him!
Ferrari? What can you say about a team that has won 13 of
the last 15 GP’s? It is not that many years ago that they
tried to send one car out on three wheels - now look at them.
Totally drilled and dedicated. The top people in the design
team and some of the cleverest people on the pit wall in Jean
Todt and Ross Brawn.
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The most exciting new driver
in Eff Wun?
The www.pitpass.com website has just held a
poll to see who the internet readers thought was the most
exciting prospect amongst the ranks of the newer drivers. 52%
voted for the "ice man" Kimi Raikkonen, comparing
the McLaren driver with former McLaren and Ferrari legend
Gilles Villeneuve. After the Monza GP qualifying crash with
Sato, Raikkonen showed no remorse at all. He is just focussed
on racing, I think Sato will wait a long time for a real
apology.
Kimi
Raikkonen
Although Gilles Villenueve’s statistics
don’t make it into the record books too often, having won
only six GP’s in his short career, Gilles is still widely
regarded as one of the most exciting racers, a man who wished
to win every lap, not just every race.
According to the pit pass.com poll, Kimi
Raikkonen is the 2002 equivalent of Gilles, for 52% of those
that voted believe the Finn to be the most exciting driver in
Formula One, and its brightest prospect. Juan Pablo Montoya
came in second, with the ‘ballsy’ Colombian pulling in 39%
of the votes.
Showing the editor’s humour, pitpass.com
reported, "Clearly a certain Japanese gentleman has a
sore index finger, either that or his fan club has been in
action, for Takuma Sato is next up with 4% of the votes cast.
Mark Webber polled 3% and poor old Felipe Massa could only
manage 2%. It might be worth coming back to this in a couple
of years," said the report. I agree. A total of 9257
readers voted in the website’s poll.
Ford thinks again about
"THINK"
Ford Motor Company, which bought the Norway
based THINK in 1999 for USD 23 million and invested another
USD 100 million in electric vehicle battery technology since
then, will instead focus on developing fuel cell and hybrid
gasoline-electric vehicles to meet environmental standards,
said Ford spokesman Tim Holmes. "The bottom line is we
don’t believe that this is the future of environmental
transport for the mass market," he said. That is one
expensive change of beliefs.
When THINK started production in 1999,
officials said they hoped to make 5,000 cars a year. But
production since than has been less than 1,050 cars.
"Clearly that’s a disappointing number for us. We had
anticipated that it would be substantially higher than
that," Holmes said. Ford will try to sell THINK, or work
with the Norwegian government to transform the company to
create a viable business, Holmes indicated. Ford hopes to make
a decision by the end of September on the future of THINK,
which has two facilities outside Oslo and employs about 150
people.
When Bill Ford said the company had to
return to the basics of building cars and trucks, and that
each division had to be financially viable, he really meant
it. With the current clean-out being done by the world’s
number 2 automaker, I would suggest that by 2006 FoMoCo will
be one very profitable organization.
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Try
this questionnaire given to secondary
school children in the US.
Why do you think big cars are a bad
thing for America?
[ ] They use too much gas.
[ ] They tear up the roads.
[ ] They are unsafe.
[ ] They use up too much raw
material.
[ ] They encourage immoral behaviour
in the back seat.
It must have come from a
bible-thumping state I reckon!
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