Germans Beat Italians In Race For Brazilians
Together with record breaking sales, April brings another surprise to Brazil. VW über alles! Bring out the warm beer and fried sausages, let’s party like it’s the 90s and 80s and 70s and 60s again! VeeDub on top! Not so fast. It depends how you look at it …
According to Brazil’s business magazine Exame, VW has not only defended itself successfully against an onslaught of new old products from GM, but they have snuck up on Fiat and then, OMG, they passed them.
In April VW amassed a 21.52 percent share of the Brazilian market, inching past Fiat (21.29 percent) by a short Brazilian hair. GM fell and had a participation of 17.9 percent, while Ford soldiered on at 10.7 percent. However, for the year, Fiat is still in front with 21.3 percent, VW breathes down their necks with 20.9 percent, GM is slipping with 19.4 percent and Ford shows slight improvement over last year with 11.1 percent of the Brazilian market.
And what a year 2010 shapes up to be. With 1,048,851 cars sold so far, it’s the first time Brazilians bought more than 1 million cars with just a third of the year gone by. But there are some black clouds over the market. Sales fell 22.4 percent in relation to March as incentives and incentive motivated pricing peter out. The market will feel the full brunt of the end of the incentive program in May.
Top ten cars sold in April in Brazil:
1 – VW Gol 22,176
2 – Fiat Palio 13,381
3 – Fiat Uno Mille 13,049
4 – VW Fox/Crossfox 12,603
5 – Chevy Celta 11,545
6 – Fiat Siena 10,817
7 – Fiat Strada 9,037
8 – Chevy Corsa Classic 8,794
9 – Ford Ka 7,636
10-Ford Fiesta 6,948
With the launch of all the new old cars mentioned in my previous article, the market is in flux. There’ll probably be some major shake up next month because of the new Uno.
More by Marcelo de Vasconcellos
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Maybe things have changed, but I never had warm beer in Germany. In fact, the weather was too damned cold for anything to warm up. On the other hand, maybe you're implying that it's that way in Brazil? Never been there. Hot or cold, Golf or Palio, it wouldn't matter as long as Eliane Elias was driving.
Just came back from Brazil after spending a weak with a 1.0L rented Gol in Rio. The experience goes like this: Crank crank crank crank crank crank crank followed by what can only be defined as a sluggish start smelling like rum with traces of sulfur. Like, Captain Morgan meets Pele somewhere around Kilauea. Then a 10 second rough idle followed by, uhm, saudade of my 330Ci The engine feels like it has about 48 or so hp attached to a 450lb flywheel. Belt squeaks, car shakes and there goes about 200rpm when the AC compressor kicks in. Oh boy. This is what you get when you depart with the the equivalent of $16,000 USD to VWB. Floor the gas pedal to regain those lost 200 rpm and engine speed follows continental drift on its way north. Press clutch pedal and suddenly you feel like you have quadriceps femoris about as big as Schwarzenegger's during his glory days: it's that light. Then Lovely Brazilian-Brown-Hair-Hazel-Eyes Female Companionship sits at the passenger seat, adjusts her sunglasses looks at you and smiles: forget about AC, 48hp, engine shudder, $16K or whatever. Who cares? Really. Life's great. All cars are great. There's plenty of time. It's all congested anyway. Say, what perfume is that you're wearing ? On the Gol 1.0 at least I was not afraid of being robbed. You're just really not into anyone's radar when driving one. People feel sorry for you in general. Its especially safe when compared to much more luxurious rides found in Brazil nowadays, like, say, the armored 2008 Corolla in front of me with tinted windows whose driver seemed to be in a panic every time a motoboy with a passenger went too close his left side. 1st gear is so short it's evidently there because a)there was space for it; b)someone may actually one day consider driving a Gol 1.0 with 5 passengers and luggage in it so.... overcoming inertia will have to be on the agenda on that day. I commented with Lovely Brazilian-Brown-Hair-Hazel-Eyes Female Companionship that the Gol first gear seemed to be as short and as useful as the reverse gear on the Sturmgeschütz III, but she did not seem to understand. It's that short. Then you are left with 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th gears to be used in whatever order you prefer in a mad succession of shifts with little to no effect at all in forward progress. Think about what would consist a Walter Röhrl nightmare and there you have it. It's that slow. You play catch-up to everything at all times, while the AC belt squeaks whenever the compressor clutch decides to engage (only when you lift or part-throttle) and the hatch rattles and the shocks hit the bump-stops and the 2-speed non-intermittent wipers go swush-swush-swush ....it all does not matter at all cause you have Lovely Brazilian-Brown-Hair-Hazel-Eyes Female Companionship next to you describing her future plans, the Novela, and her impeding trip to NY. The Gol is that good. It really does not matter. All cars are wonderful.