Porsche Boxster

When a car is first launched, it has no image, no character, and no pedigree (unless of course, the manufacturer is a professional racing team). Over time of course, a car gains its image and its persona. Look at the Ford Mondeo for instance. Conceived in the early 1990s, it was a great car. Nice looking, good engines and a driving style that appealed to young sporty drivers as well as old biffers. But then what happened. It became tarnished with an image it is only just beginning to shake off. The infamous 'Mondeo Man' was created. A man with a Mondeo is a boring man, with the average 2.5 childeren, a simple house and a Mondeo in the drive. He works in accounting, his wife lives at home, and he likes to wear beige. Now this is all true of the Mk 1 Mondeo, but in 2001 a new version, the Mk 3 came out.

This was created right when Ford was going through radical changes in its design house. Angular yet smooth lines were adorning the bodywork. Triangles and curves working together in the panels to create something truly for the 21st century. This was a car that looked not only good, but way better than the competition. It was also fitted with powerful engines, so it was fast. And it was a Ford, so it was cheap to buy, run and insure. And yet, it was still tarnished. Anyone who bought one was labeled as a Mondeo man, despite the fact that the true persona of the Mondeo man had moved on to some Korean import.

As you can tell by the preceding sentences, car image is very important. Often, after a few generations of the same model have been released, the manufacturers tailor the car to market demands and the consumer view on the car. For example, Ferrari will still rack up large sales for any car they release, even if the car is a complete horror story. In the 1980s, they created such atrocities as the Mondial and the 400, and the Testarossa. Despite these being truly awful cars, they still sold well, due to Ferrari's image, an image of style and speed that most would believe would feature on any model sporting the Prancing Horse.

So what of the Porsche Boxster? Well, this is an interesting car. It was first launched at the very end of the 20th Century when the entire world was in party mode, and in fear of the so-called Y2K Bug (a devastating thing that would supposedly cause the world's computer systems to shut up shop just because of a deadly three extra zeros on the date. Anyway, the Boxster was hailed as a replacement (if a bit late) for the similar 1970s Porsche 914: a car which shared the exact same two seat, mid engine layout as the Boxster. It (the Boxster) quickly gained a healthy reputation as a fun, cheap alternative to the rather expensive and serious 911. But this is where it all went wrong for the Boxster. In the early 2000s, the two seat sports car market found itself crammed full of alternative drives, most of them much cheaper (and in rare cases faster) than the Boxster. As Top Gear's Richard Hammond sadly stated in one of his reviews of the Boxster "the only reason you would buy a Boxster, is because you cant afford to buy a 911" Jeremy Clarkson (from the same programme) then went on to say that "buying a Boxster is advertising the fact that your life hasn't turned out as well as you'd hoped"

Now, I value the opinion of these two expert motoring journalists most of the time but really, these comments had me annoyed. For one, they were viewing the Boxster as a sort of 'cheap 911' which is plainly isnt. They also said that buying a Boxster would give a person a bad image. This is clearly ludicrous. If you saw two people at the traffic lights, one in a Boxster and one in a Hyundai, whose life do you think has worked out better? Sadly, their silly opinions seemed to have turned into fact, and the merits of the actual car in question have been forgotten about.  

The Porsche Boxster has a been honed, refined and improved on all levels in its four incarnations to date. The new one for instance is a real looker, and the essence of James Dean's 1950s Porsche 550 Spyder have been woven into the bodypanel shapes like silver thread on a wedding dress. The design also shows a bit more of its own personality which is much more creative, seeing as previous Boxsters just looked like shrunken 911s. The Boxster could be one of the finest sports cars ever made. Its balanced layout, good looks and great engine note make it a truly excellent car. Its just a shame everyone seems to laugh at it, and write it off as a "poor man's 911"

What a shame.

Citroen GS

Being weird is one thing. Being strange is another. And being different is yet another. Citroen cars of the 1950-1990s were generally all three of these things. Often the technological hallmarks and stylistic gems unique to this out-there French car maker, were overlooked by a world that simply wasn't ready for them. Indeed, the unique market situation that Citroen faced in the aforementioned time period, was conservative and upright- no place then for cars with sci-fi dashboards and suspension that allowed the car to drive without one of its back wheels if necessary.

Citroen made most of its money at home- in France. A place where most of the wacky Citroen features were lauded and praised. Of course, selling a car at home is not always profitable and Citroen was keen to export their products overseas. Where they were not made welcome at all. The UK car market was full of rustic wretched rustbuckets, and a fresh new continental car seemed like a way forward. Wrong. Citroens proved to be just as unreliable as all the other British Leyland tripe coming out of the Midlands of England.

What about the US, another hugely promising market. At the time of the GS, oil was hugely expensive, and a small 1.2 litre engine would surely drink way less juice than the 7 litre land yachts it would be on sale with. Well, the GS would have been hugely successful and indeed economical, if it had been able to get into the country in the first place. In the 1970s, a man called Ralph Nader suddenly made cars his worst enemy, and introduced hundreds of new safety regulations in an attempt to curb the huge road toll in the US at the time. Sadly the Citroen GS met none of these regulations. Ironically, the GS was actually safer in a crash than pretty much all of its US rivals.

Being weird is one thing. Funding this weirdness is another. Citroen was a small French company, with a limited customer base: namely French farmers and French heads of state. The farmers liked the clever suspension and frugal nature of the cars; the heads of state liked the more prestigious models for their incredibly stylish lines and the fact that they were driving around in something from home. Yet despite the rather varied popularity, Citroen was beginning to make losses. Their only way forward was to make a small, predictably popular family car. Hopefully it would sell well, and give Citroen the cash injection it so desperately needed. It did.

Name another car that can do this

The GS was an enormous success. But only hindsight. Despite selling nigh on 2 million GS models, and winning the 1971 European Car of the Year award, Citroen had declared bankruptcy in 1974. So what on Earth went wrong? Here we have a car that was way ahead of its time in nearly all aspects. It was one of the most aerodynamic cars in the world. It was one of the safest cars in the world. It was one of the best handling family cars of the time. It was a car that could be driven around with one of its back wheels missing, thanks to the groundbreaking hydropneumatic suspension. It wasn't just different, it was revolutionary.

A dashboard so modern we're still not ready for it

Sadly, these innovations were costly and hard to maintain. Citroen spent millions developing their innovative features and even more funding warranty claims when things went wrong. They had also spent millions developing the GS to originally have a rotary engine, which ended up selling very poorly. They had also splashed out on a brand new factory for the upcoming luxury Citroen CX: another weirdo which again cost Citroen millions to develop. The GS was also strangled by the car legislation in France at the time. Big engines meant big taxes on your car, and in order to boost sales, small engines were fitted to the GS, to ensure that owners weren't stung with a harsh bill from 'le tax Monsieur' These engines may have saved fuel, but didn't move the GS very fast. The fuel saving small capacity was mainly defeated by the fact that you had to rev the GS to near breaking point in order to go anywhere, meaning fuel bills were uncannily high.

In my mind, the GS was a sad story. Citroen went to all that effort to be different, and it should have been hugely profitable. But despite the high sales and the innovative features that no other cars had at the time, it left Citroen broken and begging for a bail-out.
 
It is interesting to note that now the car has a semi-cult status, with devoted owners all over the world. Perhaps Citroen was just ahead of its time. Again.  

Mercedes-Benz S-Class

Before we start, I'd like to announce the fact that this post is about the entire Mercedes S Class range from the first version in 1959 to the current 2012 S-class.

1959 Gen.

Technology development around the world is much the same. The military or the company who made it usually get first dibs, followed by industrial companies, commercial companies, the public as a whole and finally the poor people who buy it, 20 years later as a $3 bargain at an op-shop. Think of fax machines. In 1964, the first fax machines were huge, and cost huge sums of money to large multi-national companies (who were the only people who could afford them) Then, they became smaller, cheaper and slowly they became printers, scanners and faxes all in the same machine. Finally, Facebook and Twitter arrived with swords and pitchforks, ready to render the poor defenceless fax machine obsolete and doomed to the most horrific and humiliating of any technological lifestyle: The op-shop shelf.

This kind of technological timeframe can be applied to pretty much any type of technological breakthrough. When the original iPhone first came out, it was a hugely advanced and hugely expensive piece of kit, out of reach for most individuals. But then everyone had one, and soon the generation 1 iPhone became a $1 reserve item on eBay. What I'm trying to describe here, is the classic trickle-down effect that technology perfectly demonstrates. And there's only one car that perfectly demonstrates the car technology trickle-down effect: The Mercedes S-Class.

1979 Gen.

Luxury cars are a perfect platform for any car company to introduce a new piece of technology that will eventually make its way onto the manufacturers entire car range. Very few manufacturers (usually conservatives like Rolls Royce, Bentley and Bugatti) leave their top models with few creature comforts and technological advancements. The Mercedes S-Class was famous for being the car with the most 'firsts' on any car at any given decade. In fact, when you look at what most manufacturers are installing onto their cars nowadays, you'd be surprised to know that the S-Class had most of those so called 'new features' a whole decade before anyone else.
Just to illustrate the point, here is a list of features that the S-Class was first to be fitted with:

Three point seatbelts, airbags, anti-lock brakes, electronic stability program, automatic climate control, double glazing on all windows, rain sensing wipers, dark-sensing headlights, infrared night vision system, cruise control and radar guided cruise control, a car TV and to top it off, satellite navigation and voice activation.

1991 Gen.

Now, I'll be honest here, this is a hugely impressive list of firsts. Especially when you take into account that Mercedes had the ability to fit the mind bogglingly amazing radar guided cruise control system (which effectively allows the car to drive itself, though in straight lines only) in the 1980s S-Class, but couldnt because the radar system needed military clearance first. Remember that 1980s cars were considered high tech if they had anti lock brakes, and here was a car that could come to a complete stop from 100kph ALL ON ITS OWN!

So what do we have here? A yardstick? A flagship of progress? Or is the Mercedes S-Class just another luxury barge for the world's bankers and dictators to be driven around in? I believe that the S-Class is a perfect tool for predicting future groundbreaking advances in car technology. Every S-Class since the first one came out in 1959 has had some sort of new technology that no one else has had at the time. It is a way of looking into the future to see what sort of features will be fitted to everyday cars of the future. The S-Class may not have the same luxury spirit as a Rolls Royce, or the occasion of a Bugatti. It may be out of reach for most people (unless you get an old one) but for me, the S-Class remains the ultimate in technology and luxury. Plus, what other production cars need military clearance before they can be sold?

2011 Gen

Maserati Bora

During the 1970s, cars were badly built, unreliable, impractical and slow. And this is not a downside: its a distinguishing characteristic of the period!
A certain genre (if you can call it a genre) could be labeled as 'Italian Exotica'. Cars of this genre generally had classic 70s wedge body shapes, muddled dashboards, bumpers which defied US traffic safety laws, vacuum powered pop-up headlamps which took ages to pop-up, hopelessly unreliable mid-mounted engines (in a low-capacity high-stress configuration) and electrical systems that never worked at any point during the cars life. They were also built in strictly limited numbers. The high price tag when new, coupled with the lack of rust proofing (which generally meant cars disintegrated after just five years life; Alfa Romeos were good at doing this) meant that there are few of these 'Italian Exotica' cars left today. Only 564 Maserati Boras were ever made, meaning that the chances of owning one today are quite slim.

This is a huge shame in my view. Cars like the Maserati Bora are in a class of their own. They aren't supercars, but they aren't hypercars either. They fit somewhere in between. This may, and probably will sound weird. Think of an orange. Full of Vitamin C for the immune system and a fresh, tart flavour that tingles the tastebuds. This is a supercar. Now think of a lemon. This is like an orange with all dials turned up to the max. More Vitamin C, a powerful hard to handle sour flavour that burns the tastebuds. This is a hypercar. Now think of a lime. Still a citrus fruit, but very different in flavour and the feeling on the tastebuds. This little analogy (hopefully) has explained the 'Exotica' genre.

The Maserati Bora is (in my view) the best representation of the 'Exotica' genre. It was Italian. It was mid-engined. It had a hopelessly unreliable 5 litre V8. It was beautiful. It was shaped like an aircraft wing. It featured slow pop-up lights. It had a dashboard that only the manufacturers could understand. It also featured a beautiful brushed stainless-steel roof, which was there purely for extra style and finesse. All of these things culminated in one of the most beautiful exotic cars of all time.

There are a few sad things about the Bora though. As mentioned earlier, the car lacked proper low speed crash protection, or 'bumpers' for short. The Bora passed all low speed crash regulations in all countries apart from the US, which was a huge market for all European car makers. Rather than risk losing huge profits by not selling the Bora in the US, Maserati fitted US bound cars with very ugly and unflattering black rubber spongey blobs on the front grille, and a hugely ugly black rubber bumper thing on the rear end of the car. This piece of ruinous legislation (which was really to reduce insurance claims from low speed accidents rather than passenger safety) meant that many stylish and elegant European cars were treated to ungainly and awkward black rubber bumpers which ruined the style and elegance which made the car attractive to the US market in the first place!

Thankfully, less than half of all Boras made were fitted with these ghastly additions, as few went to the US. Sadly, like an antique, few bought them when they were new and cheap, but this rarity has led to the value of mint condition Boras soar in the past few years. I saw one for sale in the US for NZ$200,000. Bear in mind that even a mint condition Bora will still be hard to drive, expensive to service and maintain, hugely costly to insure and finding parts when something drops off is damn-near impossible. And yet, I believe this is a blessing. Any normal person will heed these risks and only drive the Bora on special occasions. They will look after it with utmost care and attention. They will drive it with the utmost care and attention. In return, the car will make the driver feel special.

Because thats what Italian Exotic cars do. They make their drivers feel on top of the world.      

Alpine-Renault A-310

Why is it that when a product stands out from the crowd, it usually ends up with hardly any buyers, a company in severe debt and a tarnished reputation when something goes wrong. Think of the Concorde- the world's first and probably last supersonic airliner. It had hardly any passengers (despite being able to cross the Atlantic in three hours) hardly any airlines bought it and when ONE, yes only one crashed, the whole project was slowly dissolved into the pages of history.
Not only was Concorde fast and ground-breaking, it was different. It looked beautiful when standing on the tarmac next to boring, fat old 747s. It was more of a living thing, according to pilots, than an Airbus: which is more like a tool with no soul. And yet, it still died a horrible death: It ended up in a museum when it was more technologically advanced than the planes that took the museum goers to see it, standing on the museum floor with its engines never to breathe another molecule of air again.

Another product that was ground breaking was the Citroen SM. Not only did it look extremely stylish and aerodynamic, it was fast and it had the best suspension system ever invented: Hydro-pneumatic. A hugely costly system (which is why few cars these days use it) it enabled a comfortable ride at low speeds, but a firm and rewarding feel with minimal body-roll through corners at higher speeds.
It also had a 2.7 litre Maserati V6 engine, sending power to the front wheels. This last fact, coupled with the strange interior with unfathomable dashboard dials, and a high price when new, meant that the SM found few buyers.
This also makes me sad. Why, when Citroen went to all that effort to be different, was no one interested? This clearly indicates a level of ignorance among most car buyers: everyone chooses price first. This is obviously a huge part of buying a car, but it should be second or third on the priority list. When most people look for cars on eBay or Trade Me, they set a price bracket then check what type of car it is. I browse cars the other way round.

So what about the whole point of this post? The Alpine Renault A310. This was a weird car. No doubt about that first fact. It was based on a race-winning, rear-engined car called the Alpine A-110. This was a car built by  French company, Alpine (being French it was pronounced "Alpeene")
This car was built in the early '60s, and die out in the early 70s, but in the late 70s, the brand was bought by Renault, and they resurrected the brand and began churning out new versions of the original A-110. Called the A-310, it was absolutely brilliant. It was still as rear engined as the original, and Renault had focused it more toward the GT, luxury supercar end of the car spectrum, as opposed to the bare-no holds racer on which it was based.

So why do I like the A-310 so much? It was hugely different to all the other supercars being designed at the time, which were all mid-engined wedge shaped boxes, (step forward Lamborghini Countach and every Lotus built in the 70s) It was also deceiving. It had huge flared wheel arches and a very smooth aerodynamic profile (which earned it the title of having the lowest drag co-efficient of only 0.26) this meant that passers-by saw you driving along and believed you were in some exotic Italian supercar, costing far more than what you paid. The rear engine gave the Alpine unique handling. Massive amounts of fun oversteer thanks to the rear engine, rear drive layout but tamable and rather safe thanks to the excellent suspension and chassis setup.

Sadly, like the Citroen SM, it was a revolutionary car that no one was interested in, despite the valuable racing pedigree. It had a weird name that no one (except the French, who bought most of them) wanted to pronounce. It was also expensive for what it was ( the engine was the same 2.7 litre V6 once used in the Renault Espace people-carrier) and this engine didn't produce much power. The positioning of this engine also meant practicality was sort of non existent. In the 80s, a new Alpine A-610 was born, this time with a turbocharged 3 litre V6 and a new, perhaps even better looking body shape. This also found few buyers.

Like Concorde and the Citroen SM, the Alpine-Renault A-310 was a shot at being different that was instantly shot down by the masses. It was a shot at the weird and wonderful that many didn't care about.
This makes it rare, exclusive, and above all- different.