The p76 Awards for outstanding mediocrity
The Sydney Morning Herald
Friday December 9 2005
TONY DAVIS and the Drive team present the seventh annual P76 awards, Australia's only motoring honours where the losers are winners.
The bronze awards
For keeping P-platers safe ... not: the NSW Government
Here's a good idea: write a list of dangerous and evil cars and make sure that they stay out of the hands of Pplaters.
Start with, say, the 110kW Volkswagen Passat station wagon, Saab 9-3 or Mercedes-Benz C200
Kompressor (each equipped with a jumping-castle worth of airbags and impressive safety credentials), whose
engines are assisted by either a turbocharger or supercharger and yet are less powerful than the latest sixcylinder
family sedans from Ford and Holden.
Instead of following a simple power-to-weight formula (as used in Victoria) the RTA fumbled its way through
the entire list of available vehicles and came up with some glaring anomalies. An old six-cylinder Ford or
Holden with no airbags and no anti-lock brakes is OK for a novice driver but a car with five-star safety and less
power than most other cars is not. Nice one.
For half-lighting up our lives: Jaguar
When Jaguar's XK coupe concept was driven onto the stage at the Detroit motor show amid Hollywood-style
razzamatazz, audience members noticed that only one headlight was working. Jaguar's chief designer Ian
Callum immediately announced that: "This car represents the very essence of Jaguar, its heart and soul", and
nobody felt the need to argue. Callum also said the ALC concept looked good simply standing still, which in a
Jaguar is always handy.
For failure to avoid a collision avoidance scandal: Mercedes-Benz
When Mercedes-Benz prepared a demonstration of its flash new crash-avoidance technology for one of
Germany's highest-rating television programs, there was only one small problem - the system wouldn't work
because large steel surfaces in the test centre were interfering with its radar system.
The solution? Turn the system off, get the journalist behind the wheel to brake manually and, er, lie.
Unfortunately for Mercedes, the journalist didn't hit the anchors hard enough and collided with the car he was
meant to miss, while the TV crew's microphones picked up engineers discussing their ruse. The result:
journalist sacked, Mercedes red-faced.
For high-speed stupidity: Formula One management
The biggest motor sport farce of the year was a Formula One race at the iconic Indianapolis site that involved
just six cars. The F1 circus had finally pulled a decent US crowd - a claimed 120,000 - but proceedings
descended into a fight over whether a temporary chicane could be built because Michelin tyres were breaking
up on the track's surface. Ferrari and the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile refused, forcing the seven Michelin-equipped teams to pull out on safety grounds.
The only possible bright spot was when Michael Schumacher almost smashed into his team-mate, Rubens Barrichello. This would have given victory to Tiago Monteiro in a Jordan and put a Minardi on the podium. As it turned out, Schumacher gained his only victory of the year and the most hollow win of his career.
For clutching at straws: Ford
Just after our 2004 P76 awards, motoring journalists started reporting clutch problems with Ford Performance
Vehicles' high-performance F6 Typhoon. Ford and FPV countered that there was absolutely no problem with the
car and any faults lay squarely with driver abuse.
It was mere coincidence that the company soon recalled the 128 cars on the road and didn't re-release the
model until May this year - with a modified clutch.
To his credit, FPV managing director David Flint said the incident "did highlight there was something wrong
with our testing procedure. It will give us a much stronger process in the future."
For dying as it had lived - gracelessly: MG-Rover
After decades of defying gravity, the bloated rump of the British car industry finally started pushing up daisies
this year. MG-Rover, the successor to what was once one of the world's biggest manufacturing conglomerates
and the owners of more than a dozen notable automotive brands, collapsed. Huge government (and BMW) grants had been swallowed, several executives had made themselves rich while filling fields with cars that nobody wanted to buy and thousands of workers were thrown out of work.
For flat running: BMW
BMW came up with a clever way to give its new 3 Series a bigger boot: by discarding the spare tyre. BMWs
(and Minis) are now fitted with run-flat tyres which can be driven for a short distance (up to 250km) if
punctured. That's the good news. The bad is that they are substantially more expensive than standard tyres, are not
available everywhere and legally must be thrown away once driven on while "flat". And there is a point on Highway One that is just over 2000km from the nearest BMW dealer in either direction. BMW Australia spokesman Alexander Corne defends the tyres, saying they offer safety and convenience
advantages. "And our customers understand that the best costs more than the mainstream." We'd agree with
the last bit - every BMW owner finds it out at the first service.
For becoming the world's biggest basket case: General Motors
The reason GM is in financial tatters, and soon to be overtaken by Toyota as the world's biggest car maker,
goes beyond making cars - and more specifically, trucks - that people don't want and doing it inefficiently and
with low quality. This year the US company had to pay $US1.55 billion ($1.84 billion) to extricate itself from its acquisition of Italian financial kamikaze, Fiat. GM also sold its 20 per cent stake in Subaru, losing more than $800 million in
the process.
For sprocket science: BMW
The BMW M5 is a technological tour de force but the company proved that you can get too much of a good
thing. The M5 has two transmission formats and 11 shift modes. The stability control has two settings; normal
and M-Dynamic. There are three engine power modes and three settings for the suspension and there is a
"launch mode" for fast getaways. Pity, then, that should you attempt to use its power and ability that the mechanical workings can't cope. Drive is aware of at least three media outlets that have tested the "launch control" mode, only to have the system overheat and seize up immediately afterwards, leaving the car stranded while it cooled down. In at least one case, the M5 finished the test by being sent home on a tow truck. So much for being the world's fastest sedan.
The silver awards
For identifying who is buying four-wheel-drives: Toyota
The new Toyota HiLux's catchcry "Get in or get out of the way" is another illumination of the real target market
for 4WDs. The brochures promised "intimidating styling", an "aggressive bonnet scoop", "dominating moulded
front bumpers" and various other things.
Not since Jeep ran slogans such as "Give Way - Not" have we seen such obnoxiousness, though some came
close this year. A Honda 4WD commercial used the slogan: "CR-V - more intimidating than ever", while
Hyundai marketed the Tucson soft-roader with the slogan "Own This City".
For seizing the Daewoo: Holden
Soon after taking over Daewoo in Australia, Holden closed it down. It seemed a wise decision, as Australians
had comprehensively demonstrated they didn't want Daewoos at anything more than a giveaway price.
Then something odd happened: Holden decided the problem with the cars wasn't that they were boxy, flimsy,
agricultural and without flair. No, the problem was that the little chrome badges didn't say Holden. The result?
Two Daewoos cynically rebadged as the Holden Barina and Holden Viva, selling on nothing more than price and
looking suspiciously, stop us if you've heard this before, boxy, flimsy, agricultural and without flair.
For dodgy discount deals: Hyundai and a few motoring journalists
The most contentious new car deal of the year was made by Hyundai. Journalists about to file their reports on
the crucial all-new 2005 Sonata were offered a half-price deal by Australian boss, Bong Gou Lee at the end of a
beer and whisky fuelled end-of-launch dinner.
The deal came with conditions, such as the vehicle had to be kept for a year but when the story was picked up
by the Herald, the company claimed the apparent $17,000 discount was all a joke. This was a huge surprise to
the small number of journalists who had given their credit card numbers and specified models and colours.
And the winner of the gold P76 is ...
For crimes against the state: The NSW Government
These awards finish much as they started: with a state government that manages to be at once anti-motorist
and anti-public transport user.
When it is not berating motorists for refusing to get out of their cars, the State Government is doing deals with
tollway companies to restrict public transport so that they have little choice. Indeed, the Government has
increasingly engineered things so it benefits from greater car use, as the bonus provisions in the Cross City
Tunnel contract make so abundantly clear.
If the idea of agreeing to not expand the woefully inadequate public transport system in areas where there is a
tollway isn't loathsome enough, the winning deal over the Cross City Tunnel (that is to say the deal in which
everyone was a winner except the end user) included a secret protocol: to close down perfectly serviceable
roads and thereby force people to use a tollway they didn't ask for and in many cases didn't need. And if you
think the Cross City Tunnel was bad, wait for Lane Cove.
In seven years, Drive can think of no more worthy recipient than our 2005 winner. Honourable members of
cabinet, your Gold P76 awaits.
They also swerved
Dishonourable mentions
* The only car in Subaru's Australian range not to benefit from side airbags is the fastest, most sports-oriented
model: the WRX STi.
* Porsche announced that it would produce the four-door Panamera from 2009 and, at the same Frankfurt
press conference, gave details of a forthcoming hybrid version of the Porsche Cayenne. When a journalist
asked whether the newly announced Cayman coupe would eventually be available with a turbo engine, Porsche
boss Dr Wendelin Wiedeking snapped back "we do not discuss future model plans".
* The JiangLing Landwind, displayed at the 2005 Frankfurt Motor Show and slated to be the first Chinese
vehicle on sale in Europe, underwent European crash tests and recorded a score of zero. German automobile
club ADAC (a Euro NCAP-approved tester) announced "In our 20-year history no car has performed as badly".
Presumably the Landwind will be popular with BASE jumpers and ultra-light aircraft devotees.
* Most outrageous option price? Maybe satellite navigation for the Audi A4 at $8500. Or those optional
prancing horse decals on the guards of the Ferrari F430 Spider. Take a deep breath, they're $3500. Or then
there's the Ferrari 612's matching luggage set: $40,000. The car is $650,000.
* Hyundai pitched its Getz model to television audiences to the tune Zippety Doo-Dah, best known to
Australians as the jingle for Victa lawn-mower ads. A two-stroke of genius from ad-land.
* What do Volvo, Land Rover, Jaguar and Saab all have in common? Their sales have either remained
stationary or are going backwards despite the strongest new car market in history. Perhaps it's because they're
all owned by those masters of the prestige car market, the Americans.
* Ross McKenzie, head marketing honcho at Holden quipped that Saab was the company "with more models
than customers". Saab is a sister brand of Holden. McKenzie is retiring at the end of the year. We'll miss his
candour.
To err is Leyland
These awards proudly take their name from the Leyland P76, a car that was designed to save the struggling
Leyland Australia operation but managed to help bring about its end within 15 months of launch. As anyone
associated with the build quality could attest, the car's advertising slogan, "Anything but Average", was spot
on.
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