Ad Age is reporting that Ford’s advertising agency, JWT, has fired the ad agency staffers behind a pair of offensive ads showing bound and gagged women in the back of a Ford Figo hatchback. Ford is not, however, looking to change advertising companies over the fiasco. The images were created by JWT staffers in India and then uploaded to the ad agency’s website. Such ads are often created without client approval as a way for ad designers to bolster their portfolios and were never intended to become part of Ford’s official campaign to promote the Figo.

With sexual assaults very much in the news in India the ad could not have been released at a worse tim. One of the images show former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was center of a storm of controversy regarding his alleged sexual adventures, with several women bound and gagged in the back of the car . A similar image shows reality TV star Paris Hilton with her reality rivals, the Kardashians, in a similar situation.

Although they bear no responsibility for the ads, Ford has added its apologies to those of the ad agency.

http://adage.com/article/global-news/jwt-india-sacks-staffers-responsible-offensive-ford-ad/240555/

Somebody Say I look like an old woman?

Yesterday I shared with you dear, reader, one of my favorite games, the $5000 Craigslist Fantasy Challenge and you responded with a lot of great cars. Today I thought I would step it up just one more notch and introduce you to that game’s Japanese cousin – the “Goo Game.” Won’t you come and pray with me?

On an internet filled with NSFW Japanese websites, it seems odd that one called “Goo-net.com” would be dedicated exclusively to cars, but trust me on this it really is. I have used Goo-net for years to peruse the JDM market and to wrap my head around the prices and the kinds of cars for sale there. Once upon a time you needed to have some ability with the language to be able to navigate the site, something that prevented most non-Japanese speakers from doing anything more than looking at photos, but now, thanks to the advent of the Google translate button, your need for years of study has been erased. Simply follow the link, translate the site and start exploring.

http://www.goo-net.com/index.html

A few things you will need to know to better understand the site. First, the Japanese dating system is a little different from our own. Each Emperor selects the name of his era at the beginning of his reign. The current “Heisei” era began in 1989 and cars marked as H1=1989, H2=1990, H3=1991, etc. The prior era, “Showa” ran from 1926 to Emperor Hirohito’s passing in 1989. Therefore, “S” dated cars have higher numbers. For simplicity’s sake I usually think abut them backwards, so S63=1988, S62=1987, S3=1986, etc.

Exchange rates are complicated so let’s forego any price limits. Just find something cool for us to look at! However, anyone looking to do a serious calculation of a car’s price may want to note whether or not a car has a current “shaken” inspection. Some cars list “with inspection” meaning that the shaken is not current and that the dealer will include it in the price. Some listings show “without inspection” meaning that will be on your own dime, and some only show a number H25.8 meaning that the inspection expires in August of H25 (2013). Whether or not a car has a shaken will affect the price and on older cars the cost of repairs may be significant. You will note that there is a “price on car” and then a “total price.” This total price includes the inspection and any service the car actually needs. Pay close attention to this, fellow bargain shoppers!

That’s it. There are no rules this time, let’s have some fun and find some cool cars to look at.

Here are three to begin:

1969 Nissan Datsun Fairlady SRL311
68K Kilometers
Price – 287.8 million yen or about $30,000 USD
Located in Saitama Prefecture
The state of the body is in very good condition with no corrosion. I do not think what you are after more than 40 years. Development status as well, is easy to ride hand car is contained meticulously. For information on the development of future, please contact us.

What can I say? This is a classic that I would love to own.

2008 Mazda MPV 23T 4WD FSB monitor P backdoor AFS side SRS
48K Kilometers
Price 226 Million yen – about $24,000 USD
Located in Nagoya
Please let me inherit a new car warranty (5 years from the time of new car registration). Subject to the warranty at dealers across the country by the new car warranty can be inherited. In addition, we have our own guarantees with a maximum of two years from the time of car delivery.

I love this new generation of Mazda MPV mini-vans. This one has it all and if I was going back to Japan to stay this, or something very close to it, would be in my driveway. I think it is an absolute pity that Mazda USA doesn’t sell these in the USA.

1988 Toyota Soarer 2.0GT-L twin turbo
129K Kilometers
Price 28 Million yen – about $3200 US Dollars
Location, Osaka
No ad text.

This is another one of “those cars” that should have got sold in the USA. It is a real personal luxury coupe that I would love to drive. The power train in the same one I had in my Supra so I know it isn’t really going to be a race car, but it would be a good cruiser and have enough poop to run on the highway.

So there you have it, there are a lot of nooks and crannies on this huge website. Check it out and show us what you are able to come up with. Dot’s forget that over there in Bizarro World, their domestics are our imports and vice versa.

I hope you have a great time and find something interesting for us!

Fong’s Taxi looked just like this.

The container yard stretched out into the distance as far as the eye could see. Next to the ship, three giant cranes worked at a feverish pace, plucking the 40 foot long containers from their racks, lifting them high into the air and depositing them onto one of an endless stream of flat-bed trucks below at a rate of around one every minute. The loaded trucks raced their engines and sped off into the yard where they were met by other machines, immense forklifts, that removed the containers and piled them in stacks six or seven units high. The stacks, numbering in the tens of thousands, merged with one another to form great flat topped mesas of multicolored steel cut by valleys of cement and the industrial landscape rivaled anything that nature could create with stone and water. It was a scene I had looked upon many times and it could have been a container port anywhere in the world. Only the stench of told me it was Kaohsiung Taiwan.

Given the weight of the cargo filled containers, the scale of the equipment and the frenetic pace of the activity below, the opportunity for death at the bottom of the gangway was obvious. But after crossing the Central Pacific by way of Hawaii and Guam, and with a 12 day return run to Seattle looming ahead, there was no way that I, or any other self-respecting sailor, was going to stay aboard ship. If necessary, I would have walked out to the front gate and tried to flag down a ride, but fortunately, the port authority in Kaohsiung understood the situation and allowed a number of taxis into the yard. Sure enough, there at the foot of the gangway waited a battered green taxi owned by a driver we knew as Fong.

Normally there were several taxis on the pier and while each of us had our personal favorite we were united in our disdain for Fong. In retrospect, Fong had to have been smarter than he let on. He spoke fairly fluent English and probably made a good living, but he always seemed like a huckster and a ride with him was an opportunity for him to bombard you with unwanted advice about where you should drink and with whom you should meet. Of course, every driver was in cahoots with one or more of the establishments along Kao-Suing’s version of skid row but when you rode with Fong, no matter where you asked to be dropped, you always found yourself deposited directly in front of his chosen establishment.

I was anxious to get uptown and with no other options in sight, I reluctantly climbed into the passenger seat of the much abused Toyota. We haggled for a minute about the cost of the ride but with the exchange rate firmly on my side I honestly didn’t try too hard. The deal struck, he mashed the gas and we roared off into the night while I was still fumbling around for a seat belt.

Fong handled the car with careless ease, one hand on the column mounted stick shift and the other grabbing a wheel mounted suicide knob. We slowed just barely at the port gate and then rolled out onto a wide, four lane road that ran around the perimeter of the yard and towards the town proper. As we neared the city limits the traffic became a mix of large trucks, cars and small motor scooters all moving along without regard for one another. The sheer number of two wheeled machines on the road was stunning and they flitted about going every which way without any rhyme or reason, their operators seemingly indifferent to their own survival. Fong treated them like obstacles, whipping the wheel as he changed lanes to avoid them and once even ducking into the lane reserved specifically for them to pass a car on the right. I stared in awe at an entire family rolling along on a tired Honda scooter, the father at the controls with a young child between his knees, mother behind him with a baby in her arms and grandmother behind her, facing backwards holding a frightened chicken in a wire cage.

Sort of like this!

At a major intersection, in violation of a red light, Fong made an abrupt right turn without using any brakes and seamlessly merged into the cross traffic. Without checking his mirrors, he guided the car into the fast lane and then, as we approached another red light, suddenly swerved into the oncoming lanes to pass cars slowing for the light. The oncoming cars moved over to facilitate his passage without so much as a honking horn and we shot through the gap along the centerline and drove towards the intersection when the worst happened – two semi trucks moving side by side rounded the corner and headed straight for us. With a line of stopped traffic on our right blocking our escape, Fong shifted the car left and straddled the line in the middle of the two oncoming lanes. The truckers both hit their horns and parted just enough to allow us to shoot down the middle with inches to spare.

Compared to that, the rest of the ride was anticlimactic. Five minutes later we rolled to a stop in front of Fong’s chosen bar and sat there in stunned as I dug out my wallet. “You’re crazy!” I shouted at him. “If you drove like that in America,You would go to jail.”

Fong looked at me incredulously, “That’s not true!” he said earnestly. “I know all about America, we watch American TV.”

I stared back, unbelieving as I paid the fare and climbed out of the car. “It’s true!” He shouted after me as I fled into the night. “I know all about American drivers, I watch The Dukes of Hazzard on TV!”

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

Typical Japanese Highway scene

Total silence is not the kind of thing you expect in Japan. Given the fact that there are almost 130 million people crammed into a country roughly the size of the State of California, only 20% of which is actually habitable, the din of human activity follows you wherever you go. It is an incredibly urban environment, filled with people, heat and activity. Yet when I turned off the engine and stepped out onto the empty road and into the cool stillness of the summer night, I felt like I was the only person in the world.

How I found myself here, on a deserted stretch of road that could barely be considered pavement running between Mie and Shiga prefectures at an ungodly hour is a tale unto itself. It is the saddest kind of story. The kind of story that involves the untimely death of someone who has much life ahead of them. It is a story of despair and the urgent need of a good friend to return home to her parents in their gravest hour. It is a story kindness, friendship and loyalty and, best of all, it features your author coming to the rescue with a magnificent white, twin-turbo steed.

It was about 8 pm, just before closing time, when the call came in. The news was dire, my friend Fumi’s young brother, just 20 years old, had been killed in an accident and she needed to go home to her parents’ immediately. It was a long way to her parents’ home in the country and I knew that in the next few hours the trains would stop running. I imagined her stuck mid-journey on the platform of some isolated station while her parents waited at home alone at a time when they should be surrounded by family. There was no looking away and, fortunately, I could help.

To be honest, despite the situation, I was looking forward to the adventure as I went to retrieve my Supra. Even in the direst of emergencies, a journey across Japan in the dead of night can be sublime. The expressways are ribbons of silky smooth pavement hemmed in by tall curved walls of steel and glass and for much of their length overhead lights shine down and give the scene an ethereal atmosphere. In places, to enhance road safety, the pavement is covered by yellow or red textured surfaces set with tiny pieces of ground glass that reflect the beams of your headlights like a million imitations stars. The other worldly effect is completed by flashing lights set into the pavement on dangerous curves while in other places, pole mounted reflectors use tiny pinwheels spun by the breeze of passing cars to flash their own warnings. The lights, colors and road combine to focus your attention on the road, drawing you into the experience of driving the way a good video game pulls you out of your living room and into the action.

Upon my return to work, however, I discovered that there was, alas, no expressway where we would be going, we would have to go by rural highway. A journey across Japan on a rural highway can be torturous. The roads themselves are awful, frustrating scars on the surface of the Earth that move across the countryside with little concern for directness, speed or efficiency. At night, add to the narrow, often winding roadway the flashing lights of the pachinko parlors, noodle shops and convenience stores, each competing earnestly for your attention, and the glare of coming cars and you will find yourself in the midst of a perfect storm of danger and distraction. The result is sensory overload and an accident always seems just a moment away.

After a trip to Fumi’s apartment so she could collect a few things in an overnight bag, we left Kyoto at about 9:30. The trip can best be described as playing football on a team without a passing game. When the light turned green and the play action started, I came off the line hard and when an opening presented itself, I took. I shucked and jived my way past the blockers, it didn’t matter which way they are going at this point because they are all in my way, and you I went as hard as I could until I was abruptly stopped just a few yards from my last starting point. So it went, moving in fits and starts, until at around 2 AM we reached our goal, exhausted.

Japanese farmhouse

Fumi’s parents home was a small dark farmhouse set in rolling hills. As we pulled up, a light flicked on inside the house and Fumi’s mother emerged. Her eyes were hollow, but she smiled broadly and emitted a stream of polite Japanese as she invited me in for tea on this, the worst night of her life. It was good manners on her part and the feelings were sincere but, as I have come to understand only after years of living with a Japanese woman, the offer was not genuine. Fortunately for everyone involved, the open road was calling me home and I politely refused. As Fumi’s mother gathered up her daughter and guided her back down the dark path and into the house, I turned the Supra around and headed back down the narrow driveway alone. Before heading out onto the road, I stopped and consulted my trusty map book. After a few minutes work, I found that there was what looked to be a better route to the South and I set out through the night to find it.

The Meihan National Highway was toll-free and it turned out that even in the dead of night it was filled with truckers looking to save a buck. Together we blasted along at unsafe speeds, impossibly close to one another. Whenever I slowed the least bit or worked to increase my following distance, the space in front of me was quickly filled with a large truck and soon my exhaustion was exacerbated by my rising anger. The late hour and my frustration began to take a physical toll and exhaustion was setting in. Was nothing in this country easy?

Suddenly, I saw a piece of America glowing ahead: the Golden Arches. They called to me, offering me an island of normality in this strange land, and I left the highway. Fortunately, it was 24 hour restaurant and while I chuffed down hamburger after hamburger I studied my map book for better options. I had come a good distance on the dangerous Meihan and saw that to the North was route 307, I road I knew well from my explorations on my motorcycle. The connection looked good enough on the map, Route 422 over something called Sakura Pass. It was a direct path home and even if it was a little slower, it had to better than the Meihan, I decided. I put away my book, swallowed the last hamburger and headed inland.

Japanese village road

Within a mile of the highway the streetlights ended and the town fell abruptly away. Darkness reigned, the mountains closed in around me and the forest grew thick and impossibly close. Ahead, a raccoon or perhaps a tanuki took offense at my unannounced appearance and glared at me momentarily from the roadside before turning and stalking off into the underbrush. From unseen heights, an owl plummeted from the sky and flashed through the white-hot arc of my headlights and an amazing variety of insects rose up from the ditches and fluttered unsteadily across my path.

My momentum soon slowed to a crawl as the road twisted and rose through the darkness, following what I gathered to be the course of a stream lost somewhere off in the darkness on the other side of the impossibly close guard rail. I noted too that the road was growing narrower, now down to just a single lane in most places with only the occasional turn-out where cars headed in opposite directions might pass one another. Only there were no cars, I was totally on my own now, and still the road climbed.

The road twisted then dipped and suddenly, as I came around a corner, the trees pulled back from the road and I found myself in a small, high mountain meadow. Overhead, the moon shone brightly, casting its silvery light down upon a scene straight out of medieval Japan, a rice field and, in the distance, a small cottage with a thatched roof. Taken aback, I stopped the car, turned off the headlights and killed the engine.

I stepped out onto the empty road and soaked in the sight as the warm cloak of silence wrapped around me. The scene banished the present and I imagined the road as simple dirt track empty of all but the occasional horse and cart. As my eyes adjusted, I picked out more details of the scene, the ripening rice growing tall in the paddy at the edge of the road, a row of reeds bending gently in the breeze and, in the distance, a swarm of fireflies swirling around. I had found it, then, a place the exact opposite of the gleaming, futuristic expressways. A place with its own ethereal light, real stars and the flashing beacons. Not the future, but the past, and it too was sublime.

Ahead, the mountains loomed less large and I knew then that I was near the pass. The way ahead was clear and the road was calling me again. Slipping back into the car, I fired the engine, snapped on the headlights and headed up over the pass towards Uji, and home.

Japanese field

The paintings in this article are taken from the following website: http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~xr8k-tmr/ It features many wonderful watercolors and sketches of life in rural Japan. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

My TDI in Japan

The engine quit with a sudden un-dramatic snap, and the little Golf TDI began to slough off speed. Reflexively, I bumped the gearshift lever into neutral, flicked on my signal and began moving towards the left edge of the expressway. My exit was less than a mile away and, rather than stop alongside the highway, I used my momentum to coast up the off-ramp and over the small knoll that stood between the expressway and the toll plaza. I stopped there, on the back side of the hill where the road widened on the approach to the toll booths, to avoid blocking traffic and dug out my cell phone to call for a tow truck. I didn’t know it then, but it was the last time that I would ever sit behind the wheel of the little car, never mind the fact that it would follow me again around half of the globe.

I had purchased the dark blue VW diesel new before heading to Jamaica and the car had carried me faithfully, but not entirely without drama, during the two years I lived there. The problems were always small, window regulators, the brake like switch, an air bag light, and a check engine light among other things. They were more of a nuisance than anything else. There was a VW dealership in Kingston and they were quite professional but since I had purchased the car in the States, and then imported it to the island, none of these issues were handled under warranty. It was OK though, I really liked the car and so long as nothing big happened, I reasoned, I could foot the bill.

I check the map at a rest stop near Mt. Rokko in Hyogo Prefecture (2004)

After two years in the Caribbean, I moved to Japan, and the Volkswagen, after a delay that stretched into several months, followed me. It arrived in sorry shape, covered in filth and spattered with baked-on dead bugs from a trip across the USA on a car carrier. After so long apart, I was glad to see it and after a thorough cleaning, an oil change and a new set of tires, the car was road worthy. It was, I was told, the only Golf TDI in the country, and I enjoyed running around the Kansai region trailing a cloud of smelly black exhaust wherever I went. Unremarkable as it may have been in the USA, the car was a hit in Japan. VW fans often worked up the courage to bridge the cultural gulf to ask about it.

Times were good, for the most part. I had another broken window regulator, three out of the four VW logos spun off the center caps and I soon found out that there were no correct replacement batteries to be had, but I let these things slide. The car was unusual and quirky, after all, and inconvenience is the price you sometimes pay for cars like that.

Later when I transferred to Yokohama, I used the car to its best advantage to make the 5 hour drive down the Tomei and Meishin expressways almost every weekend to visit my wife who was at her parents’ house in Kyoto awaiting the birth of our first child. My little VW was not especially fast, but it ran well on the smooth high speed expressways of Japan. For once, it finally seemed to be just where it belonged.

On the Japanese expressway.

The car followed me to Okinawa in 2006 and, once again, it was put to work on my daily commute, a 20 minute drive that included surface streets and a bit of expressway. For the first few months, it seemed to be fine, but then, on one of my regular forays under the hood, I noticed that the coolant was low. Okinawa is hot, so I thought nothing of it and added some more coolant. A week later I got a low water alarm and, sure enough, the coolant was low again. Thus it began.

I have had to replace head gaskets before so I know what the signs are. I looked in all the usual places. There was no leaking water under the car, no sudden increase in my oil level, no oil floating on top of the coolant and no white plume out the back, so the signs were not obvious. It could be a weeping gasket, I thought, a leak small enough to suck the coolant slowly from the radiator without leaving a tell-tale trail of white smoke, so I took it to my local VW of Japan dealership to have them perform a test to see if I had combustion gases in my coolant.

It is a testament to my Japanese ability that I was able to use the language to berate the local VW technician well enough that he actually helped me. When first I arrived, he took one wide eyed look at the car and started to wave his hands. “We won’t service this.” He announced. But I wasn’t having any excuses and, after an ass chewing for the ages, he finally he agreed to perform the simple test I wanted. From the way he sucked air through his teeth as he worked, I knew it was bad news before he spoke. “It’s a head gasket,” He said sadly, “and there is no way I can fix it. We never sold these cars and we don’t have any training on them. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” This time I didn’t give him any static, his words had the ring of truth.

A look at my garage.

At home that night I got out the rebuild manual I habitually carried and looked at the job. It was nothing I wanted to tangle with, honestly, but I felt confident I could do the work if I had to. The first step was parts so I got on-line and ordered everything the manual said I would need. It took weeks for everything to arrive and, in the mean time, I made sure the coolant levels stayed high and limited my trips as much as I could. Still, unwilling to commit myself to a project of that magnitude, I continued to examine my options.

Most Japanese mechanics are excellent and I was confident that, if I could find one who was willing to work on the car, they could fix it. The problem was none of them wanted to touch it. It was an unknown, and no one was willing to take the risk. There were no Japanese rebuild manuals for the car, and since mine was written in English it was useless to them. Eventually, I learned that my local Marine Corps Base had an auto shop, so I went down to see if they had a mechanic who could work on the car. Fortunately, or so I thought at the time, there was someone.

Photo I put in Craigslist

The kid looked like a typical grease monkey. He told his boss he knew all about VW diesels and that he had worked on them when he was based in Germany. His boss seemed convinced they could handle the job and agreed to take it ,so I gave them the little car, the parts and went off confident that my worries were over.

A month later the car had not been completed and I found myself back down at the shop looking around. The kid was nowhere in sight but my car was over in the corner with its hood ajar so I went to look at it. I raised the hood and found myself looking at the shop floor – the engine was gone and my blood pressure jumped. Unhappily I tracked down the ship manager and asked what the hell was going on.

The kid, it turned out, didn’t have the experience he had claimed and there had been a problem. The manager told me that they had already ordered new parts and the work would be handed over to the lead tech who, with my rebuild manual, would put the car back together correctly. Until then I could use a small Mazda loaner and was assured that when the car was ready I would not have to pay a dime for the work. Free is good, but it wasn’t like I could do much anyhow, so I accepted their offer as graciously as I could and left them to it.

Two months later the Volkswagen came home. There were still a few issues with it, most notably a couple of the vacuum lines had been misrouted, but at least it ran. It did OK on the highway but seemed a little down on power. It didn’t matter, I told myself, I was slated to rotate home in another two months and when I got back stateside, I could get the car sorted and decide then whether or not I wanted to keep it. My plan worked for three weeks.

After an uncomfortably long wait, the tow truck arrived, carried the car home and dropped it in my driveway. The VW remained there for the rest of my time in Okinawa and, a day or two before I headed back to the States, another truck came to haul it to the port. While I completed my move and enjoyed a vacation back at home in Washington State before heading on to Buffalo, the little car was put into a container, sent across the Pacific, through the Panama Canal and up the east coast to a port in New Jersey. The first I heard of its arrival was when the shipper called to inform me that one of the world’s best traveled car had arrived with a major case of mold on the interior.

Nice and clean inside!

Although I offered to sell the car to the shipper for a reasonable cost, they elected to clean it prior to delivery and three weeks later the Golf rolled off a ramp truck at my apartment in Buffalo. It looked pretty good for all the trouble it had been through and, together, the tow truck driver and I pushed it into a parking spot. The next day, I took some photos and prepared a brief Craigslist ad explaining that the car had a blown engine and was being sold “as is.” I figured it was a long shot, but I asked $3,500.

Long shot or not, my phone rang off the hook all day long and a guy named Hank was waiting for me when I got home from work. He looked the car over quite thoroughly and offered me $2,500. We dickered for a while and then met in the middle at $3,000. The next day he came back, laid down the cash and put it on a trailer. As he rolled away, I realized that the car had become just another unhappy part of my personal history. I was happy to be rid of it.

Hank called again in mid-December. My exportation and subsequent re-importation of the little car and wreaked havoc on the title process but since I had given him the Certificate of Origin we could sort it out with just a couple of signatures. We met at a local bank and while we waited for the notary he told me the rest of the story.

My TDI back in the USA – One of the photos that went on Craigslist

The un-dramatic snapping sound I had heard had been the catastrophic destruction of the engine. One of the valves, which had probably been damaged when one of the Marine Corps’ mechanics had turned the engine over without ensuring the timing was perfect, had broken off and fallen into the cylinder bore. Once there, it had wreaked all kinds of havoc. It gouged the cylinder walls, ruined the head, broke the piston into pieces and sent metal shards out the exhaust port and into the turbo where they destroyed that part as well. According to Hank, the engine was in such poor shape he had purchased a replacement drive train for the car.

The process had been expensive, Hank told me, but the little car, with less than 30,000 miles on it, would bring good money when he went to resell it. Someone, he explained happily as we shook hands on parting, would pay good money for it. Too true, I thought, and if they have the same kind of luck I had with it, they will keep on paying for a long, long time. I hope they like lemonade.

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

My 1986 JDM Twin Turbo Supra

Wherever I am in the world I will always be a typical American man. Despite a lot of the stereotypes that spring to mind when I say that, I learned a long time ago that it isn’t a bad thing. I was raised right and I have solid values. When seats are limited I will stand so my elders can sit. I always hold the door open for ladies, and I keep plugging away no matter how hopeless the situation might seem. There are a few things here and there that can cause problems once in a while, too. For example, I won’t be deliberately insulted, I need my personal space and, of course, I feel like I am loser if I don’t have my own set of wheels.

Don’t leave home without it

Owning a car in Japan is a bad idea for most people. To begin with, getting a driver’s license costs thousands of dollars and involves and extensive training program. Then there is the cost of the car, insurance, gasoline and tolls to consider. Also, unless you are fortunate to own a place to park, you will have to pay rent on a parking space and, of course, anywhere you go you will pay to park, too. Then there are the costs of oil, tires, repairs, even car washes to consider. Let’s not forget taxes and, of course, the great terror that is the vehicle inspection system known as the Shakken.

The Shakken system began in the post World War II era when the few cars remaining on the roads were generally old and unsafe. Shakken’s stated purpose has always been to ensure that all vehicles meet certain safety requirements, but it is also generally acknowledged that the policy has helped to ensure consistent sales of new vehicles as people seek to replace cars that they believe will fail the test. The guidelines are stringent, and without the correct inspection sticker affixed at the top of your windshield, where it is easily spotted, your car cannot be legally driven. There is little tolerance for lawbreakers.

Of course, when I purchased a 14 year old Toyota Supra, everyone thought I was nuts. In general, the Japanese do not buy used cars outside of a dealership, and person-to-person sales among strangers are almost unheard of. For the most part, the Japanese trade-in their cars when they purchase new ones or they sell them to companies like “Gulliver” that buy old cars for a pittance and then take them to auction. Cars that are worthy are bought by dealers, marked up considerably and then resold in-country. Cars that are unworthy are sold to exporters and eventually end up in places like Australia, Russia or parts of the third world. From my friends’ perspective, a car as old as my Supra was not worthy and should have been on its way to the southern hemisphere, preferably as scrap, instead of sitting in a Kyoto parking spot.

My 1986 JDM Twin Turbo Supra

The whole thing was quite a scandal and everyone, it seemed, had an opinion. Two buddies, Matsuda and Taka, were especially critical of my purchase. Self styled car guys, they began to speak ill of the Supra the moment it arrived. Never mind the fact that it was a Toyota that had less than 50,000 kilometers on the clock. In their minds, simply because of its age, the car was in grave condition. Unfortunately for them, they made the mistake of spouting off and insulting my intelligence in front of my girlfriend, who, in typical Japanese fashion, believed everything they said. I, of course, in typical American fashion, ended our friendship right there on the street. So much for fair weather friends.

It wasn’t like I had paid a lot anyway. I had purchased the car from the Japanese wife of a New Zealander for roughly $600. The car didn’t have a mark on it, the engine was spotless, it sounded good, drove flawlessly and it even had about 8 months of shakken left on it. I figured that even if it somehow failed the dreaded inspection, I would have a cool car at my disposal for the better part of a year at nominal cost, and so it really didn’t matter. But then, of course, I got attached to my little car, and as the dreaded day drew nigh, I decided to ask around.

The women at my office were worse than useless, they were misinformed. They told horrible tales about the inspection process, about what would happen if the car couldn’t pass, and how certified repair shops would use the process against me. No matter how small the trouble, the women told me, the mechanics would insist upon costly repairs before releasing the car. They told me that there was no way a car that old would ever pass, and that I had been a fool for buying it in the first place. They even told me that I would end up paying to recycle it. There was the air of plausibility about what they said, but even so, I wasn’t going to give up without a fight.

Another shot of my 1986 JDM Twin Turbo Supra

In addition to my workmates, I also solicited the opinions of my students, some of whom, it turns out, were much better informed. For the most part, I learned, the average Japanese man took his car back to where he bought it for the shakken. Upon buying a brand new car, another inspection is not needed for three years. After that, inspections are required every two years, and a typical dealer, I was told, pretty much rubber stamps the next two inspections so long as they have had a hand in maintaining the car. Therefore, most cars are about 7 years old the first time they really go under the microscope and, like most Americans, the average Japanese person is ready for a new car after 7 years whether they actually need one or not. The car is traded in, and the process starts anew.

Simply follow the easy instructions

Once in a while, there are people like myself who have purchased a car outside of the dealer network. People in my situation usually end up taking their car to an independent shop and, as the women at my school had said, most of these shops will go over the car with a fine tooth comb. The result is usually a pretty stiff bill and, as a foreigner, I was especially ripe for the picking. But then, one of my oldest students, a Mr. Hanaoka, a retired engineer in his 70s who spent most of his free time drinking heavily and studying English, told me about another little known option, the “user shakken.” Amazingly, in a land where there isn’t much DIY, there is a DIY inspection.

Following Hanaoka-san’s instructions, I went to the Kyoto DMV and collected the paperwork. While I was there, the helpful clerk sat me down in front of a video that explained the entire process. Then I was sent home to complete my own inspection. Although it was all in Japanese, the documents were well illustrated, and I was able to go through it at my own pace. Although there were some parts of the form I did not fully understand, the inspection was not complicated. I measured tire tread depth, checked all the lights, looked for leaks, etc and found that, as expected, the car was in generally good condition.

I did, however, uncover a leaky shock absorber and a burned out driving light. The light was an easy fix, but the shock was more problematic, there was no real way to fix it myself and unless I was damn clever they were going to see the dark stain of shock oil under the car at the inspection station. Fortunately I am damn clever.

The day I took the car to the inspection station it was raining like hell. I rolled up to the main office and took my paperwork, as complete as I could get it, inside. After waiting in line I approached the counter hoping for a little help to complete some of the informational blocks at the top of the form and was pleasantly surprised to find that for a fee of around $5 that the clerk would actually do everything. I paid my money and ten minutes later took my car around back to the inspection station.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The inspection station was set up like an assembly line and I was required to drive the car from station to station. There was a brake test where I put the car up onto a set of rollers followed by speedometer test on the same machine where I was required to run the car up to 45 kmh. There was an underside inspection station where I sat in the car while a guy underneath tapped about ten spots with a hammer and, thanks to the wet weather, failed to notice my dripping shock absorber. There was a headlight test where a set of robotic cameras examined the front of my car to make sure everything was working within proper specs, a horn test, a brake light and blinker test and an emissions test. It was all quite efficient and I don’t think the entire process took more than 30 minutes.

As I recall, the total cost was around $450. Some of that was for the inspection fee, some for vehicle taxes, and another large part of it was for some kind of insurance that would pay for any public property I might damage in an accident. The whole thing was quick and painless and after weeks of consternation and worry, I was highly satisfied when I was awarded a new two-year sticker without a single hitch. I drove home in triumph.

Wherever I am in the world I will always be a typical American man and, despite a lot of the stereotypes that spring to mind when I say that, I learned a long time ago that it isn’t a bad thing. I was raised right and I have solid values. I keep plugging away no matter how hopeless the situation might seem and sometimes that can pay big dividends. I remember the people who helped me, too. Today, many years later, when I have the opportunity to raise a glass, I often find myself thinking about those days and of Mr. Hanaoka. He was a man who knew how to get things done, and when the whole system is stacked against you, you need a guy like that on your side.

Mr. Hanaoka at one of our school parties. Even though he was older than every other student, he never missed a single party.

Thomas Kreutzer currently lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and three children but has spent most of his adult life overseas. He has lived in Japan for 9 years, Jamaica for 2 and spent almost 5 years as a US Merchant Mariner serving primarily in the Pacific. A long time auto and motorcycle enthusiast he has pursued his hobbies whenever possible. He also enjoys writing and public speaking where, according to his wife, his favorite subject is himself.

The Paris Five. All aborted

Another inspiration for wet dreams of easily impressed juvenile car bloggers is dying, is bleeding to death and has a “do not resuscitate” note nailed to the head.  Lotus has been given up for dead.

Blogs from autoevolution all the way to our sister pub Autoguide reprint the happy PR fluff that Lotus wants to “boost sales five times by 2015.” With sales crawling along at homeopathetic 1,043 units allegedly produced in 2012, making 5,000 by 2015 doesn’t sound like such a big deal. Trust me, it is if you want to sell them also. By 2015, the Lotus cars will still be sitting on technology that is ripe for the museum, and there is no relief in sight. Only poor car bloggers would be a target group ripe for a 20 year old Lotus – if sold used, preferably with a salvage title.

Paultan.org is a blog that has boots and ears on the ground in Kuala Lumpur, and it actually goes to press conferences given by Lotus owner DRB-Hicom. Paul Tan reports that if you’ve been waiting for the new Lotus Esprit or Elan, or any of the five Lotus concepts that had been shown 2010 Paris motor show (yes, that far back) you need to abandon all hope. They won’t happen, DRB-Hicom group Managing Director Datuk Seri Mohd Khamil Jamil told the press in KL. And by the way, plans had been cancelled even before the DRB-Hicom acquired Proton. As in: Forget about it. We never meant it.

Says Paul Tan: “The ‘Paris five’ were the Esprit, Elan, Eterne, Elite and the new Elise, which was supposed to replace the current one.”  No replacement für Elise, sorry.

Mohd Khamil told the press that Lotus must soldier on with the already ancient metal. “They may be old, but they remain good cars and there is still demand for them,” Mohd Khamil said. What else would you say in his shoes?

Khamil held out the possibility of a new Exige and Evora for after 2015, an announcement nobody can take really seriously. Development takes money, and there is none. A $434 million loan from six financial institutions has been used up, Khamil said.

Monday press conference: All peachy in non-car sectors

There is little chance for fresh funds:

Lotus may be famous for its cars, but the most memorable achievement was “making losses for the past 15 years,” as the Business Times reports from Kuala Lumpur. This achievement was crowned by a “record loss” of $185 million last year, as the Times of London wrote over the weekend.  The report comes with the good news that “Lotus breached banking covenants on a £270m financing facility. Last January lenders froze funding to the firm.”  Ouch.

At the weekend press conference Mohd Khamil said that the brand is not for sale. A few companies had looked into buying Lotus, or even all of Proton, but they didn’t like what they saw. Rumors that Volkswagen might be interested in buying Proton are floated with regularity in KL, as late as a few days ago, totally unfazed by prior firm statements by Volkswagen’s labor chief and vice chairman of Volkswagen’s supervisory board, Bernd Osterloh, that Proton won’t be bought. Volkswagen has an existing joint venture with Proton, and sees no reason to change that. When Osterloh talks, Volkswagen listens.

The buzz in Malaysia is that DRB-Hicom is stuck with Proton and Lotus which it took over as a favor to Malaysian politicians. In Malaysia, the government likes to “encourage” government-dependent companies to take failures off the government’s hands.  Loss-making companies get passed around to companies who can’t refuse, and get financing from equally hapless government banks or pension funds or state companies.

My contacts in Kuala Lumpur think that DRB-Hicom has agreed to keep Proton alive in exchange for favors from the government. DRB-Hicom is a Malay conglomerate, involved in everything from the Kuala Lumpur Airport, over arms production, all the way to waste management.  DRB-Hicom must remain in the government’s good graces. The question is how long it will be able to tolerate pain and bleeding.

At another press conference yesterday, DRB-Hicom sung the praises of its other sectors, namely services, property, assets and construction, while valiantly holding out the failed prospect of turning Malaysia into an automotive powerhouse. It didn’t work before, and it will work even less in the future. Car producing neighbors Thailand and Indonesia are pressuring Malaysia to remove trade barriers as promised when they signed the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement. Malaysia has sabotaged this as much as it can, but it can’t stop the ASEAN FTA from making Proton less and less competitive, and a takeover target nobody wants and needs.

All of this however never enters a budding car blogger’s wet dreams. That’s good, the young folks should not suffer nightmares at an early age.

The car company is called Bufori. If you want one, you need to get in line and wait two years until  hand-made car is ready. The cars cost between $150,000-$350,000 new, individual touches can drive the price higher.

Bufori founder Gerry Khouri started the company in his native Australia in 1987. He moved to Malaysia in the early 90s when Asian demand began to jump. China and the Middle East are Bufori’s biggest markets right now.

The Geneva is s powered by a 6.4-litre V8 engine with up to 470 horsepower. Optional coffee machine, Mini Bar, safe and humidor.

The La Joya has a 172hp V6, a 3 piece 100% silk Persian carpet set is optional.

Mitsubishi, pretty much given up for dead in the U.S. and Europe, thrives in an easily overlooked part of the world: South-East Asia. Mitsubishi has three assembly plants in Thailand, and will spend around $150 million to increase output.

January through August, Mitsubishi sold only 41,316 units in the U.S. and 48,166 units in Europe. At home in Japan, Mitsubishi sold 97,412 units in the first eight months. Meanwhile, pretty much under the RADAR screen, Mitsubishi’s cars are selling like hotcakes in the up and coming markets of South-East Asia.

Its three plants in Thailand will have a combined output of some 500,000 cars when the expansion is finished, the Bangkok Post writes.

Sales of the recently introduced Mirage are especially promising. In the Thai market alone, some 14,000 Mirages were sold from April-August. Orders for 36,000 units are on the books, and customers wait four months for delivery.

According to Nobuyuki Murahashi, president of Mitsubishi Motors (Thailand), 13,000 Mirage are built per month in Thailand- 4,000 for the domestic market and 9,000 for export, mainly to Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei.

Unveiled at the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show, the sixth generation Mirage is a low cost, high MPG car. Fitted with a 1 liter 3 cylinder engine, it achieves 27.2 km / L in the JC08 cycle and costs around 1 million yen ($12,700).

Thailand is Mitsubishi’s main production hub outside of Japan, and many cars are exported to Japan. 2011, Mitsubishi built 603,594 units worldwide.

Malaysia pretty much gave up on the idea of having a national car and sold Proton, a brainchild of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. This does not keep neighboring Cambodia from embarking on a similar silliness. State-owned ACICA signed “a US$2 billion join venture investment” with UK’s BIW Automotive to build a factory in Preah Sihanouk province for a Cambodian-made vehicle within the next three years, says the Phnom Pen Post.

The joint venture has big plans for a small car: It will build a factory with a capacity of around 300,000 units per year. It will produce a small low cost car, with eyes on the domestic market, ASEAN and the world.

Now who is BIW, you ask? Good question. The company calls itself “a specialist automotive and technology transfer business,” and so far, all it has is a plan. It wanted to build yet another “circa $3,225 Peoples Car”.

Prices are going up, and when the car is finished ()if it ever will) if will cost approximately $7,000 per unit now.

“By 2015-2016, we commit that Cambodia will have a Cambodian national car which represents the country, like Malaysia or others have. But the difference to Malaysia is that we will produce all parts, such as the body and engine, by ourselves. We don’t buy from other companies. It means that everything is made in Cambodia,” said ACICA’s Group Chairman Al Rumny. Good luck with that.

Mr. Rumny also needs someone who knows how to do budgets for car companies.

According to the report, $450 million of the $2 billion project will be used to build a new power station to supply the factory. An additional $1 billion will be spent on construction of a new township. The remaining $550 million amount will be used for the car project, Al Rumny said.

A massage parlour and a car wash outlet in the Sunway Mentari suburb of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, engaged in a flourishing joint venture until it was disrupted by police last week. After nine car washes, customers received a free detailing – but not of the car.

“To get the extra ‘offer’, customers must send their cars for washing nine times within a certain period. The tenth car wash will entitle them to free sex,” Emmi Shah Fadhil, officer-in-charge of the local Crime Prevention Division told  the Malay Mail.

Car-less customers, or those who did not want to wait for nine car washes for free sex could pay between 130 and 180 Malaysian ringgit ($42 and $58) for immediate gratification.

A raid of the premises led to the arrest of four men, none of them customers, and “nine Vietnamese women, believed to be prostitutes and GROs, aged between 18 and 28,” says the paper. A report by the Malaysia Chronicle says that the raid netted evidence in form of “several condoms stashed inside a microwave.”

According to a source familiar with Malaysia, GRO stands for “Guest Relations Officer,” and usually applies to women employed by night clubs. PC speak has reached Malaysia, where GRO takes the place of WG, or working girl. Just in case you wanted to know.

The car wash connection was only revealed after loyalty cards were found on several customers (who were not arrested.)

In a blatant act of discrimination, the operation “only allowed patrons of a certain ethnicity to enter,” says the politically correct Malaysia Chronicle. Further research revealed that the services were only available to Chinese, apparently in an effort of not to upset the predominantly Muslim indigenous population.

The Indonesian Kompas newspaper reported about “exploding sales” of Rolls Royce in Asia. And then, the Jakarta paper that prides itself of its “high-quality writing and investigative journalism” showed a picture of the Bentley Mulsanne, surrounded by eight gold-lamed and well-heeled Asian beauties.

The translated caption says “Rolls-Royce surrounded by pretty girls.” Half true at best. While the pictured presumptive Rolls definitely is a Bentley, we hope that all the girls are in fact girls. The story is datelined Bangkok, Thailand, can’t be careful enough.

Tip of the blangkon to Petrus

In just a few short years, Myanmar has gone from Southeast Asia’s pariah state to the new darling of investors looking for the next emerging market.

The free(er) press, burgoening civil society and release of dissidents like Aung San Suu Kyi are rightfully getting all the media attention. But Myanmar’s developing market means that auto sales will inevitably expand, and Hyundai is the latest automaker to set up shop in the country.

So far, only government-approved agencies can import cars, and Hyundai has apparently approached local distributor Diamond Star to help them out, in lieu of establishing a wholly owned subsidiary there. Diamond Star has its hands in a number of ventures, including the distribution of Pepsi products, but not much is known about its auto retail business. According to Just-Auto, Myanmar has the potential to rival Thailand as a major auto market in the region. Hard to imagine that once upon a time, U2 was writing protest songs about the country.

Uh-oh: Our colleagues and fellow market watchers in Malaysia were waiting and waiting for market data for the month of July, but none arrived. With August about to end, they stared to ask questions. They were told there won’t be any data. No, it wasn’t because Malaysia suddenly is like Europe. In the Old Country, July data traditionally are supplied in September,because Europe is on vacation in August.

No, it was because Proton suddenly refused to supply its data.

Without Proton, one of Malaysia’s two sizable automakers, the statistics would be for the birds, reasoned the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA), and called the whole report off. Proton had a surprising excuse for not submitting its sales count. Reports Malaysia’s Motor Trader:

“Proton’s refusal to supply the data is due to its belief that doing so would be an offence under the Competition Act which came into being at the start of this year. The Act, which is intended to prevent price-fixing (among other things), suggests that sharing of data by car companies is an act of collusion.”

Other car companies also curtailed their reporting over the last 6 month, but they still provide ‘top-level’ data, i.e. overall sales volumes but not data on sales of individual models.

Nasty observers could be inclined to think that troubled Proton has something to hide.

Tip of the songkok to Polar Bear

While everybody has their eyes on China and possibly India, the car market in smaller South East Asian countries is exploding right below  the RADAR screen. By themselves, car sales in a country like Vietnam don’t seem to amount to much. Now, go to the trouble and add a few South East Asian countries together. The Nikkei [sub] did and notes to its amazement that the car market in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore jumped 21 percent in the first half year to 1.6 million units.

Now why would The Nikkei be so excited about this?

1.23 million or 77 percent of these rapidly growing sales in the balmy countries are by Japanese automakers. Taken together, the car market for the region is similar to “such emerging markets as Brazil, India and Russia,” as The Nikkei can’t help to note.

In Thailand, sales rose 40 percent in the first half to 606,523 units. Sales in Indonesia rose 28 percent  to 535,263 units.

Korea’s Samsung, better known for flat panel TVs, Galaxy smart phones and other gadgetry, wants its name removed from cars produced by Renault in Korea. “We want to take our brand ‘Samsung’ out of Renault Samsung since we don’t have anything to do with the car sales,” a Samsung executive told The Korea Herald.

Nothing doing, replied a Renault spokesman:

“Both Renault group and its Korean operation consider the relationship with Samsung successful and positive. We have no immediate plans to make any change.”

Then Samsung Motors was established in 1994 when Samsung Chairman Kun Hee Lee wanted to branch out into carmaking. Lee soon learned an expensive lesson.

When first cars rolled off the line in 1998, Korea was hit by the Asian financial crisis. Samsung Motors was put up for sale and Renault bought a 70 percent stake for $560 million in September 2000. It was decided to keep the Samsung brand, which had more standing in the Korean market than Renault. There is a license agreement that allows the carmaker to use the Samsung brand through 2020.

Renault Samsung is not doing so well. Last year, its sales dropped 9 percent. In the first quarter of this year, Renault Samsung was the worst performer among the Korean carmakers.

India is touted to become one of the biggest car markets in the world by the end of this decade. However, there is a lot of uncertainty in the Indian automobile market. Fuel prices fluctuate (usually northwards) abruptly, while the Government tries to cover its mis-governance by increasing taxes on cars when its least expected. But which is the car that Indians are buying the most? It is the Maruti Suzuki Alto!

The Alto used to sell around 35,000 units earlier, but in the last two months, its sales have declined massively to 17,842 units in April and 20,724 units in May. The sales decline is because the Alto is offered with gasoline engines only. The demand for gasoline powered cars is fast decreasing in India. Diesel fuel is heavily subsidized and hence people are opting for diesel cars.

Mind you, the Alto is not the Alto that you see in Europe or Japan. The Indian Alto is the last generation Alto, which is still on sale with some cosmetic changes. The new Alto has been re-badged as the A-Star in India. So, the Indian Alto is a very old car, low on safety, low on space, but still the highest selling car. The reason is the Maruti Suzuki badge, which the Alto carries. Maruti Suzuki (a tie-up between Maruti [local] and Suzuki [Japan] in the early 1980s, but now Suzuki has a majority stake) has been present in India since a long time. There is a vast dealership network. The Alto is a well established brand and is the second cheapest car in the country (the cheapest car is the Tata Nano).

As you can see, the interiors of the Alto are terrible. The rear seats are best for children and the front seats are best for short passengers. The vehicle pictured here is the top end model, which accounts for less than 30% of the Alto’s sales. The more popular model carries a 2-spoke steering wheel and a basic instrument cluster (no tachometer). Power comes in from a 796cc, 3-cylinder, gasoline engine which produces 47 BHP and 62 Nm. The more powerful version uses a 998cc, 3-cylinder gasoline engine to produce 67 BHP and 90 Nm. Fuel efficiency is around 20 km/l (47 MPG Non-EPA). The 800cc Alto is priced at $5,500, while the 1000cc Alto costs $7,300.

The Alto has no safety features on offer, there are no ABS, Airbags, etc. The only safety feature is the engine immobilizer. Still, the Alto sells like hot cakes, which clearly shows that pricing and economy are still the two important parameters a majority of first time car buyers look out for, at least in India.

Faisal Ali Khan is the owner/operator of MotorBeam.com, a website covering the auto industry of India.

Ever heard about the Tata Safari? It is the first SUV that was designed and developed entirely in India. The Safari went on sale in 1998, since then there haven’t been many changes to the styling of the vehicle.Tata Motors changed the engines, bringing in better powertrains over a period of time. The Safari has managed to create a cult following and still sells in-spite of its dated styling. The first generation Safari used the engine from Tata’s truck line-up (Tata 407 truck). 

The Tata Safari is an SUV, which is based on a body-on-frame layout. The first generation model was too heavy and suffered from high body-roll. The second generation model has been revealed in India (not yet on sale though), and has drastic improvements. The design remains more or less the same but some styling cues have been borrowed from Land Rover. Called the Safari Storme, it borrows its elder sibling’s, the Aria’s X2 platform, which is made of hydro-formed chassis sections. The vehicle also features dual-mass fly-wheel and has been made to comply with EuroNCAP norms, so you can expect to buy one in the near future.

The Tata Safari has good amount of interior room. The vehicle will seat 5 in comfort, but the last row of seats are best for children. The interiors have vastly improved too (in terms of quality) but the dashboard layout is not to everyone’s taste. Power comes in from a 2.2-litre DiCOR diesel engine which is equipped with VTT (Variable Turbine Technology). This engine has been developed in collaboration with engine experts AVL and produces 140 BHP of power output at 4000 RPM, along with 320 Nm of torque at 1700 RPM. The engine is mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox.

The Tata Safari competes with the Mahindra XUV500 (a vehicle which we reviewed earlier, you can find the story here). It costs around $20,000 (at today’s exchange rates,) its standard features include alloy wheels, reversing camera, ABS, front airbags, DVD system, LCD screen, climate control, leather seats, electronic shift on the fly 4-wheel drive, etc. The Safari has a tremendous fan following in India and the brand name itself is strong enough to attract many to buy one.

Faisal Ali Khan is the owner/operator of MotorBeam.com, a website covering the auto industry of India.

India is a country with absolute imbalance as far as policies and regulations go. Earlier this year, the Indian Government abruptly increased excise duty on cars by 2-5%. This increase came at a time when the automobile sector was already facing a slow down. Soon later, one of the states increased local taxes and registration charges. Now to make matters worse, the Supreme Court (the highest judicial forum of India) has abruptly banned all kinds of sun control films on cars (with effect from 19th May 2012).

The alleged reason for this ban is to curb crimes in the country. The court feels that no sun film will result in no cover for the criminal. This ban has resulted in the shut down of the sun control film industry over night. The industry  has players such as 3M, Lumar, Vkool, Garware, etc. People with a Z or Z+ security rating  (read politicians, many of which had been declared as criminals by the courts) can continue to use sun films with heavy tint. That, however, is not enough to sustain a heretofore booming industry.

All car owners will have to remove the sun control films immediately. Repeated offenses will lead to seizure of the driving license. Not only will this result in increase in bribes and huge loss of employment, it will also cause wastage of already installed films. India being a tropical climate really needs sun control films on cars. With temperatures soaring between 30-50 degrees Celsius in summers, I have noticed a far cooler car and better efficiency with sun film installed.

Just a few months back, I installed the top of the line 3M sun control film on my Suzuki Swift. This film cuts down 99% of UV rays and has been recommended by the Skin Cancer Foundation. It doesn’t come cheap at a shade above $500 and has a 5-year warranty. I guess I will park my car until India’s government gets enlightened. What would you have done?

Faisal Ali Khan is the owner/operator of MotorBeam.com, a website covering the auto industry of India.

Lamborghini has become very bullish about the Indian market. The Italian automaker launched its second showroom in the country last week and also set up a national sales agency.

Lamborghini currently sells the Gallardo and Aventador in the Indian market, which are priced at Rs. 3.2 crore ($608,000) and Rs. 4.2 crore ($798,000) respectively. With prices on the higher side, Lamborghini was able to sell 15 units last year, and is planing to sell 20 units this year. The company is looking at selling 50 units per annum by 2015.

But Lamborghini does not have it easy. There are many competitors, from Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bugatti, Koenigsegg, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Maserati, etc who are fighting in a market which has a size of 100 units a year. So how does Lamborghini attract buyers? The company is planing to hold exclusive showcases at 5-star hotels, wherein prospective buyers would be invited to have a glimpse of the raging bull. Lamborghini also plans to take to the track to convert sales.

The Buddh International Circuit is rented out for Rs. 10 lakhs ($19000) per day. The 5.1 kms long circuit is frequently rented out by automobile companies to conduct drive events. Lamborghini plans to invite 15 prospective customers to drive Lamborghini cars on the track once a year,in the hopes that the experience will translate into sales.

Faisal Ali Khan is the owner/operator of MotorBeam.com, a website covering the auto industry of India.

Peugeot might be one of the biggest car makers in Europe, but it has absolutely no presence in the Indian market. With the Indian car market growing bigger day by day, there is no big automaker which doesn’t have the presence in the sub-continent. The most recent car maker to set up operations in India is Porsche, which  used to import vehicles through a third party. So why doesn’t Peugeot have a presence in India?

In 1994, Peugeot tied up with Premier Automobiles. Premier is an Indian automaker which manufacturers cars under license, their latest offering being the Zotye Rio, which is a re-badged Daihatsu Terios. Peugeot offered the 309 sedan in the 90s, which failed to excite Indians. Sales were very poor and the dealership network was small. Soon, Peugeot started to run into labour trouble and during my meeting with Peugeot India officials at the 2012 Auto Expo, they told me they had to leave everything and run back to France. The unsatisfied workmen were coming to kill the Peugeot management! Peugeot left and went missing from the Indian market for a decade.

They made a return last year and soon all over Pune – a city near Mumbai, where the Automobile Research Association of India [ARAI] is present, the Peugeot 207 hatchback was seen undergoing tests to obtain governmental approval. Peugeot announced plans of setting up an Indian facility and procured land in Gujarat. The development of the plant commenced and at the 2012 Auto Expo, the French automaker showcased a range of cars including the 508 sedan, RCZ, Le Mans racer, etc. Peugeot was soon going to be back with a bang.

But as soon as the Expo finished, rumors of offices being closed began to trickle in. Peugeot management clarified that after the Euro crisis, they are slowing down their Indian operations. Peugeot later tied up with GM, and now the French automaker is saying they plan to use GM’s India facility to produce vehicles. Peugeot is scrapping its 650 million euro investment in India. The company says that GM is a global partner and they will use their plants to assemble vehicles. GM denies the same, saying that they have absolutely no plans to assemble cars for Peugeot in India. The problem with GM is that their Indian operations rely heavily on SAIC (GM’s Chinese partner) and by assembling cars for Peugeot, their partnership with them could be jeopardized.

So what went wrong for Peugeot India?

• Wrong entry strategy in 1994, with the wrong partner.
• The second coming was too late.
• Brand building never took place. Peugeot could have setup a small network and brought in completely built units from France to create an aspirational brand.
• Not committing investments for the Indian market.
• Wrong products offered to Indians. The Peugeot 309 was highly dated when it was launched in India.

If you were part of the Peugeot management, what would you do?

Faisal Ali Khan is the owner/operator of MotorBeam.com, a website covering the auto industry of India.

Looks like I have my work cut out for me yet again; the new Mitsubishi Mirage will be coming to Canada, but Mitsubishi may not bring their new small car to the United States. Yes, I’ll take time to review it.

According to Automotive News, money is tight at Mitsubishi, and the new Outlander will take priority over the diminutive Mirage, with Mitsubishi spokesman Roger Yasukawa telling AN

“Our concern from a timing standpoint is that with the Outlander coming out next year, not too far from a possible launch of the [Mirage], we have to really think about resources,”

The Mirage is also on the small side for American tastes – about the size of a Chevrolet Spark, and even shorter than the Ford Fiesta or Kia Rio hatchback. Built in Thailand, the Mirage is meant to be basic transportation designed to give Mitsubishi a foothold in fast-growing Southeast Asian markets. Pricing would have to be rock bottom for it to sell in America, but if it costs too little, dealers may not make any money on the car.

The Mirage should do reasonably well in Canada, where small, affordable cars are always a hit. The province of Quebec in particular should be a big market for the Mirage. Hyundai Canada used to sell 50 percent of their Accents in Quebec alone (when the car could be had for under $10,000 brand new) – but the Mirage’s CVT-only configuration may not go over well in la belle province, where anecdotal evidence gleaned from walking the streets of Montreal suggests that buyers heavily favor manual transmissions in their compact cars, even in the hilly, narrow stop-and-go streets of Montreal and Quebec City.

Mahindra & Mahindra dates back to 1945, when they started to produce the Willys Jeep in India under license. Soon after that, they started developing light commercial vehicles and utility vehicles. In 2002, Mahindra launched the Scorpio, which was also introduced in Europe as the Mahindra Goa a few years later. Last year, the XUV5OO (pronounced five double Oh) was launched. Mahindra had to stop accepting bookings (which were opened in just 5 cities across India) after just 10 days of launch. They received 35,000 test drive requests in the same time. The second phase of bookings saw more than 25,000 applicants, which were put through a draw! Bookings have been closed since then and you can’t buy the XUV5OO even if you have the money. So what is the Mahindra XUV5OO all about?

The Mahindra XUV5OO is offered in three variants – W6, W8 and W8 AWD. These variants are priced at Rs. 1.35 million ($26,039), Rs. 1.52 million ($29,294) and Rs. 1.65 million ($31,695) respectively (prices are inclusive of registration and insurance). The W6 and W8 variants use a front-wheel drive layout, while the W8 AWD has all-wheel drive, but this variant has been temporarily stopped.

Power comes in through a 2179cc CRDI diesel engine which produces 140 BHP of peak power at 3,750 RPM and 330 Nm of peak torque at 1,600 RPM. The 6-speed gearbox is not the best around, shift action is notchy. The XUV5OO is a 7-seater, but the last row is best for kids. With the last row in place, the trunk is almost unusable. A small survey has revealed that people are having many niggling issues with their vehicles including GPS, rear AC, night vision camera, infotainment system not working, just to name a few. Yet, the XUV5OO has taken the Indian market by storm.

In India, people are very conscious about the styling and design of a vehicle. If a vehicle looks good, it will sell well and that is where the XUV5OO excels. Detailing is over the top with the door handles shaped like a paw (the XUV5OO draws design inspiration from a Cheetah), motif engraved into the rear tail lights and a conversation mirror (above the rear view mirror which helps the driver look at the passengers while talking, pictured above). But that is not all, the equipment list is huge and puts even the Toyota Fortuner (a vehicle which costs at least $18,000 more) to shame. The XUV500 is also the first indigenously developed monocoque Indian SUV.

Some of the features include 6 airbags, automatic headlights, automatic wipers, projector headlights, LED parking lights, cornering lights, ABS, EBD, ESP, Rollover mitigation, Hill Hold control, Hill Descent Control, tire pressure monitoring, leather seats, touch screen infotainment system, DVD player, GPS navigation, climate control, all-wheel discs, cruise control, steering mounted controls and start-stop system to name a few. This is serious equipment for a car of this price. I can go on and on about the XUV500 after having driven it extensively, but we shall keep a drive review for another day. Meanwhile, Mahindra is working hard on increasing capacity. Soon, the XUV5OO will be sold in Europe too. Would you buy one?

Faisal Ali Khan is the owner/operator of MotorBeam.com, a website covering the auto industry of India.

According to lore, Americans dig big cars, Europeans love their hatchbacks, Australians love pick-ups. And the Indians? Indians love sedans. The sedan is a status symbol for most in India. It provides a feeling of accomplishment. It also costs more. A sedan does not cost much more to make than its hatchback platform cousin.  What makes a sedan more costlier are the taxes we have to pay.

The Indian government wants to promote small cars as they are eco-friendly and consume less fuel. They are easy to park and maneuver. They take less space on the road and help in reducing traffic congestion. If you visit India, you will notice that the infrastructure growth is not keeping pace with the GDP growth. This makes small cars extremely important, and the Government of India is leaving no stone unturned to promote them. But how do they do that?

All cars measuring under 4-meters in length and having an engine capacity of less than 1.5-litres (diesel) / 1.2-liters (gasoline) are classified as a small car and attract only 12% excise duty. All other cars cost you (well, us) 27%. Now what if you want a sedan, but not the tax? This is where the compact sedans come in.

The first company to develop a compact sedan was Tata. The owners of Jaguar Land Rover made the Indigo CS (Compact Sedan), which measured less than 4-meters in length and was powered by a 1.4-litre diesel engine. This helped Tata Motors save 15% excise duty, which they passed on to the buyer, resulting in the Indigo CS becoming the cheapest sedan in the country.

The next company to follow the Compact Sedan craze was Maruti Suzuki (Suzuki’s Indian operations), which developed the Swift DZire (a Swift with a 316 liter trunk). In comparison, the Honda Jazz has a trunk space of 399-liters. But still the Swift DZire (gasoline) sells almost twice that of the Jazz (the Jazz is only available in gasoline).

The compact sedan craze is quite high and growing. This is the reason why Mahindra (which now owns the rights to the Renault/Dacia Logan and has renamed it Verito) is planning to cut the bumpers of the Verito to make it a sub 4-meter car. Why did Toyota’s made-for-India-car, the 4.26 meter Etios, get a shorter brother, the 3.77 meter Etios Liva? Now you know.

Many others are planning similar things with their MUVs and SUVs.

It looks like India will soon be awash with stout cars with a little rump.

Faisal Ali Khan is the owner/operator of MotorBeam.com, a website covering the auto industry of India.

U.S. president Obama was not allowed drive the Volt down the Hamtramck assembly line. His colleague in Turkmenistan does not suffer such tight restrictions and was allowed to win Turkmenistan’s first car race.

Last Saturday, Turkmenistan’s unpronounceable president Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov drove to the track in the capital Ashgabat in a lime green Bugatti Veyron, ostensibly just to watch the country’s inaugural car race.

When an event presenter introduced august guest, Berdymukhamedov asked: “Can I take part?” You deny such a request at your own peril in Turkmenistan. The president suited up, hopped into a likewise lime green Turkish-made Volkicar and won the time trial challenge. He could have raced his Veyron, but that would have been unfair.

The Associated Press has suspicions that the whole thing might have been choreographed. Who would think such a thing?  Berdymukhamedov simply likes lime green, just like Jack Baruth does.