This Week's Driving - Feb 13th, 2000 - Log 17

This long gap between driver'slogs was due to technical reasons, one of them being that we were out on a vacation working hard, no, we are not oxymorons either. A lot has happened in the last few weeks since the last log, and we would have kept quiet about it had it not been for the questions we received from you. Here, therefore, in a new approach to the truth, are answers to the questions all of you are asking . . .

Maruti has managed the impossible, like the Indian cricket team, of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Crashing down in market share, they've returned to the field, but a bit too late it would seem. Decades of indifference towards the real customer is now beginning to show up in how people are moving towards other brands, especially with the upper end vehicles. It will require more than changing the shape of the headlamp or other external gimmicks to make people who have moved away come back.

And with what, the Wagon-R? An obvious van with a bonnet, albeit a snazzy engine under the bonnet, this is the car with which they hope to turn the market around. Extolling it's tall boy high-volume high-roof design, forgetting the "low is safer and better" campaign for the Zen, it seems they've shot themselves in the foot again with the price positioning ABOVE that of their own Zen.

A packet from General Motors arrived, showing what looks like an obvious Wagon-R badged as the opel Aguila. Does this mean that GMIL will also manufacture the same car at Halol? Is the Pope Polish? Again, isn't it too late, after all, whatever happened to branding? The answers are with the MUL delegation touring USA right now.

The controversy about the possible import of 2nd hand motor vehicles takes a new turn with planted "evidence" being received from sources unknown about how two Japanese manufacturers are promoting this concept. Well, whether it is these two manufacturers, or whether it is the whole lot of them, if importing 2nd hand motor vehicles makes for better transport for the people of the country, then so be it!

But in the bargain, we should not forget that prices on 2nd hand vehicles will go up, drastically, the day India enters the market. This is, apparently, already happening in anticipation.

Oh boy, is it fun being a dot-com lately, especially an automobile dot-com with a past and a future? Media reports on the venture capital scene make it appear as though money is there for the grabbing. Well, maybe it is, but it comes with strings as strong as mountaineering nylon ropes used in the parachutes they don't give you when the e-commerce free fall will hit us.

To all those uninitiated, this is how it works: say you promise me Rs 500 crores for 20% of your equity and I promise to cover you for 16% of your equity for Rs 400 crores from me. Then we have a deal for Rs 9 crores, and we throw a press conference to off-set taxes on profits made in the toddy-tapping business. The stock market then grabs this news and goes ape in nothing flat.

Everybody who can check this out, meanwhile, is busy attending seminars on e-commerce.

The one major benefit of e-commerce will be the logistics and transportation industry. Buy automobile component shares now, quietly, while everybody jumps the Internet gun. Who is going to deliver all those goodies, right?

The motorsports guys have done it again. After making up in October last year, they've split again. We have really got nothing to say except that we pray some good comes out of it. As of now matters are not clear, so we go and cover the Rally for the Raj. Check it out elsewhere on our pages.

And while we are at it, here is a short but sweet swan song from our side:-

Destiny is for dogs, we make our own future.

Hits is a measure of how many people walked past your shop, we measure walk-ins.

This is what our first year looks like.

No free t-shirts, no rigged prizes, no chatting with aliases, no invasion of privacy and no collection of registeration data or e-mail id. No measuring the number of 2nd hand vehicles as a yard-stick. No charge for anything.

Nothing except content.

That leaves all of us content.

Now at cybersteering, much more than just cars. Two-wheelers, the biggest and the best section yet.

Public transport, the first. Consumer reports, nobody else but us.

History from 03/28/99 -- 02/19/00
Overall

The figures are for real and we are very proud of them!!!

Long time no stoopid ad from the automobile world, so this time's honours go to the one and only . . . a new category this time of lubricant companies . . . our very own age old Caltex Havoline engine oil. It states "save upto 6% on petrol" and expects us to go all the way with copy which would, even on a day when paper boats sail the seven seas, sink without a splutter. Trikaya Grey are presumably better off not sticking their key to this ad which is, yet again, not more than an insult to our intelligence.

Bumper sticker on car belonging to friend who is a dentist: 2thdoc. Funny?
Not if you've been out of action with toothache, promise weekly editions now.

Drivers Log
Veeresh Malik
The Edit Team
bluepencil@cybersteering.com

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