Cars – praag.org

Formula One chief proposes F1 for women

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has proposed a controversial world championship for women drivers as part of grand prix weekends.

Ecclestone, who has two daughters but once infamously compared women to kitchen appliances, suggested they could race before the main event on Sunday or on Saturday.

“We have to start somewhere so I suggested to the teams that we have a separate championship and maybe that way we will be able to bring someone through to F1.”

“I thought it would be a good idea to give them a showcase,” British media quoted the 84-year-old as saying during the Malaysian Grand Prix.

“For some reason, women are not coming through — and not because we don’t want them,” added the Briton. “Of course we do, because they would attract a lot of attention and publicity and probably a lot of sponsors.

No woman has competed in a Formula One race since Italian Lella Lombardi in 1976.

Lombardi scored half a point in 1975 when she finished sixth in a Spanish Grand Prix shortened by a fatal accident.

The last woman to try and race in Formula One was Italian Giovanna Amati, who failed to qualify with Brabham in 1992.

However, Susie Wolff is development driver at Williams and last year became the first female to take part in a grand prix weekend in 22 years when she drove in Friday free practice.

Spaniard Carmen Jorda, whose record in other series is unimpressive, has also been appointed a development driver at Lotus.

Wolff, wife of Mercedes motorsport head Toto, gave Ecclestone’s idea short shrift.

“It’s most definitely not the right way forward,” she told the Daily Mirror.

“First of all, I don’t know where you’d find a full grid of female drivers who are good enough. Secondly, I have raced my whole career in motorsport as a normal competitor. Why would I ever look for a race where I was only competing against women?

“I can hand on heart say it would not interest me at all to win such a race. I would rather not be in the race because what am I winning? A race where they’ve just looked for any girl to make a grid up.”

Source: Reuters

Merc to launch bakkie

Mercedes-Benz plans to enter the mid-sized bakkie, or pick-up, market as South Africa is regarded as one of its key markets, along with Latin America, Australia and Europe.

Mercedes-Benz sees strong sales potential in this one-ton segment and the new entrant will be positioned at the premium end of the Hilux/Ranger/Amarok, and developed by the Mercedes-Benz Vans division.

Given that the new bakkie is still years away, many of those specification questions will remain unanswered for now, as will the production locations.

It looks unlikely that East Londen would be picked as the plant simply doesn’t have the capacity.

MB Vans head Volker Mornhinweg expects the bakkie to offer a “high level of utility” as well as the comfort, safety and design attributes that one would expect from a Mercedes passenger car.

Board Chairman Dr Dieter Zetsche added: “We will enter this segment with our distinctive brand identity and all of the vehicle attributes that are typical of the brand with regard to safety, comfort, powertrains, and value.”

Mercedes-Benz sees this as the perfect vehicle for expanding its global sales footprint, given that around the world more and more people are using these pick-ups as leisure vehicles and that buyers, both commercial and private, are increasingly asking for “car like” specifications.

Are cars in SA too pricey?

Not really, says Motormanpete

On the face of it, and certainly the emotional response will always be a resounding yes!

While SA seems expensive it may be because we are basing our opinions on misguided ramblings of people who have not done their research.

A Toyota Yaris costs less in some obscure country than in South Africa but when you have a look at the big picture, our cars are on balance, very competitively priced.

Don’t believe me? Firstly let’s get rid of the “cars are so cheap in America” issue. Cars are cheap in America because they sell upwards of 20 million of them per year – its simple economies of scale.

But have you looked at how much more cars cost in some European countries? Check out the pricing of the Mercedes-Benz A250 7 G-Tronic: South Africa: R450 900, Portugal: Euro 42 700 (R619 150), France: Euro 36 300 (R526 350), Germany: Euro 38 437 (R557 336), UK: GBR 26 640 (R717 681).

Cough, splutter! The Mercedes is cheaper in South Africa.

Granted, this a small sample, but the point is clear. There are simply too many manufacturers present in the market for there to be room for much pricing abuse.

With over 50 brands and thousands of models on offer – it’s way too competitive out there.

All things aside, did you know that the 70th percentile benchmark dealers are lucky to achieve a 3% PBT? That makes the business very, very marginal and frankly I would invest my money somewhere else.

So if you want to question whether we are getting ripped off, let’s have a look at a few other industries.

Our cell phone calls are some of the most expensive in the world. Don’t even mention Apple computers.

And a litre of coke by the way costs more than a litre of petrol or a litre of beer. Why? Both the latter have far more complex processes and to add insult to injury, a litre of soda water costs the same as a coke.

DSTV must rank as one of the bigger rip-offs. But then they do have an absolute monopoly so when they stop flighting movies on TV made this century and put all the good stuff on Box Office at extra cost – what can we do?

But the ultimate problem does not lie with the pricing itself. The harsh reality is that all these products and services seem so expensive because we earn so little compared to Europe and the US.

So next time you question pricing in South Africa, don’t immediately jump to conclusions about everybody being a rip-off.

It may be a case of confusing “expensive” with “can’t afford”. Not all of us are ANC-cadres.

East, West, which one is best?

We have written quite a few times on our Afrikaans site about the trend in the car world for car makers to reduce the size of their egines. This is motivated not only by technologicial advances, but also by the increasing legislation on environmental pollution.

This week we are looking at three cars which are supposed to be compact family sedans, but that could almost serve as full-size sedans. All three have four dours, five seats and gigantic trunks. Those are attributes of a family sedan, but all three are driven by ultra-small enjins producing more power than the Toyota Camry 2.2, which for many years was the best-selling family sedan in South Africa.

We road-tested the Chevrolet Cruze 1.4T LS, the Opel Astra 1.4 Turbo Enjoy Sedan and the GWM se C50T Elite for a few days. Our full report will appear here shortly, but our editor was in such a hurry to show these three cars to our readers that we posted this teaser for the moment!