Car sales collapse, your savings aren’t safe, 25 percent of all wild mammal species will soon be extinct, and of course the earth is now hotting up so fast that Sussex will soon be the new Sahara. And that was just yesterday’s news headlines.
So let me give you some good news. The current crisis will be good news for good cars. Like Michael Fish’s 1987 hurricane, which wiped out the old and sick trees, and the late ’90s dotcom bubble burst, which cleared out the digital deadwood, so it’s the crummy cars – sold on credit not on credibility – which will suffer most now.
Those cheap finance deals, those tempting offers, zero interest for cars of zero interest. They will disappear just as assuredly as the booming price of oil killed off the guzzling macho motors earlier this year.
Pain – but gain, too
There will be temporary pain, even for the purveyors of good cars. But commendable cars – those that genuinely attract rather than have to be sold – will still sell and, when the recession eases, will prosper most.
The challenge now is not to give up on those segments most depressed – SUVs, fast sports cars, big saloons. People still want them, as much as ever. The challenge is to fix the constraints that prevent people buying them – their cost of running and their eco Armageddon reputations.
The answers are at hand. Those who offer solutions first, will prosper most. This is not a time for imitation; now more than ever, innovation matters. That’s why it’s a good time for good cars.
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