Monday, February 03, 2014

News from Dubai

If you confined your field of research to France, you would find it hard to believe all this talk of crisis in the French car industry. The roads are brimming with gleaming new Peugeots, Citroëns and Renaults. Sometimes when I cycle to and from St Jean I arrange "matches" between PSA and all foreign cars and I have to say that the former see off the latter with the greatest of ease. Crisis, what crisis?

It is only when you come to a place like Dubai that you grasp the full extent of the disaster that has overtaken France. In a city of over two million persons, I have yet to see a single French car. There are Toyotas, Nissans, Hyundais, Hondas, etc. everywhere, plus a healthy sprinkling of Mercedes, BMWs, Porsches, Audis and Chevrolets, not to mention quite a few RRs, Bentleys and Jaguars. Moreover, Toyota has gained a virtual stranglehold of the thriving taxi business.

France has quite simply missed out on the export market.
     
at

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:44 pm

    Well, more fools them in their Chelsea tractors.
    Little do they know of the comfortable bliss of a Megane .............

    But I think much the same is happening in India. The beloved old Ambassador cars (Morris to you and me) are now as much a matter of curiosity as those old American cars in Havana, replaced by the Indian versions of Toyotas etc.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Subliminal Mr Dunn6:27 am

      I myself am the proud owner of a Hyundai, another brand that is well represented here, although I have yet to see our particular model gracing the streets of Dubai.
      Not even the merest hint of a Daxia here. I shall never forget the satisfying clunk of my test-drive Logan Loggy as I slammed the door shut at the second attempt.

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

A Few Late Chrysanthedads

No one person's experience of dementia is quite the same as another's, but the account given below, within the confines of a shortis...