Car crash

Switzerland isn't a great place to feel poor so it seems unfortunate that the world's car bosses find themselves meeting in Geneva this week, at probably the auto industry's lowest point since the 1970s.

The mid seventies was a terrible time for the car industry, as the makers of our machines of movement walked dazed from the reverberations of the oil crisis of 1973 and the fuel prices and recession that changed both the type and quantities of vehicles buyers wanted.

Even by 1976 things were still hard - perhaps the only great machine of that year was the Porsche 928, from West Germany where car production in general was soaring on the back of a combination of product, quality, investment and general industriousness. In contrast the British industry was a mess. Austin Princess sales were peaking (if such a word is appropriate) and the manufacturing case study that is the Rover SD1 was being launched. Ford was slightly sharper - launching the Fiesta.

Design priorities change in times of big change. Currencies swing and oil prices bounce up and down. Financial services deals dry up through unstable valuations and poor access to capital, so established sales mechanisms fail.

New technologies change how and why we move, too. Perhaps not by coincidence the first personal computer (yes by that lot) was launched in 1976. Today, our lives are often half physical, half virtual. The Facebook generation has new ways to demonstrate its individuality without buying a Clio or a Focus or an MX-5. We interact differently and spend differently - and this is going to change more in future than it has already.

And then there's eco-awareness.

Porsche 928. Camberwell, London, October 2008. Note the surrounding leaves aren't so much green as golden.

Living the good life

Through both that era and this there was a swelling of sustainability awareness. From 1975 to '78 Britain, for example, was riveted to The Good Life, a TV sitcom describing a suburban husband and wife going sustainable in the heart of commuter-belt outer London. They had no car and grew their own food. Of course, in the end they relied on the neighbour's Volvo estate at various points. And oh how we all laughed.

Back to 2009 and no-one could have predicted quite how deep and how quickly the economy would fall and the world's vehicle (and city) designers have been caught short too. Because mobilising resources to design, engineer and market products takes time and today's organisations can't do it as fast as the economy can now change.

For the car industry the big challenge is that it's structured as a car-sales industry. I joked a few months ago to Bob Casey at the Henry Ford Museum that if only man had started discovering other habitable planets, then Detroit would still be expanding. Otherwise the basic numbers don't stack up, 100-odd years on.

Right now, there are moves on several continents to introduce huge incentives to scrap current vehicles, so people have the need for a new one. This is a rotten tactic - I simply don't believe that for a modest motorist who is happy with their existing 8-year-old car, scrapping it to buy a new one is more environmentally sustainable than keeping it.

The reality is, large scale scrapping is the only economically sustainable strategy for the auto industry right now.

But is there an alternative? There is an opportunity - right now - for the industry's design talent, and indeed the vast amount of design talent beyond that is currently locked out of making a difference, to apply their skills. But they need to step beyond just influencing styling and product category decisions. They need to adapt the very essence of what cars mean to us.

I drive an Alfa Romeo but I don't want a new one right now. In fact, Alfa doesn't even know where I live. What I do want is to be able to drive an Alfa in any city I visit in Europe, from the airport. I want to order a taxi and have a Jaguar arrive. I'd like to try the new Fiesta and take my mates somewhere. In fact I'd like to try loads of new cars for which I'd pay, and be able to rent them from Cornish railway stations at the end of a 5 hour rail journey. I'd probably buy an Alfa Bicycle, too.

But I don't want to take out finance on a new car that is my one and only car. I'd rather get a MacBook Air and keep driving the car I've got. But I don't want the car industry to die. Is it up to me to throw away my old car, or can car companies find new ways to make my life fun?

The '70s ended with the 1980s. Hairspray, Porsches and Dynasty. Can we have plan B this time?*

Posted by Mark Charmer on 6 March 2009

*The Swiss, of course, have remained comfortably wealthy throughout.

Comments

[Drew Smith]

I've recently had some heated debates on this issue with my current clients.

We're all design strategists but one one side we have the old-school view that if kids are falling out of love with owning cars, then we need to find ways to make them fall in love with owning them again.

This is fine for the short term but it's this kind of myopic approach that sees us in our current position and explains why the Geneva show was such a let-down. The industry in its current form can't see beyond the end of it's nose (is it the next reporting quarter?)

I've been trying to argue the case that now is an opportunity for fundamental change (as you suggest) but I've been hounded down as extreme and unrealistic.

In any case, a great piece as usual and props for getting my dream car in there. The only thing you missed as a fabulous legacy was Grace Jones. Grace + 928 = Happy DownsideUpDesigner

[Mark Charmer]

Thanks Drew. Great to hear you're thinking this way too - and that most people look at you blankly as well.

Surely we should save Grace Jones for a discussion on the Citroen CX? :-)

[Drew Smith]

Mark, don't even get me started. Seriously... ;)

[Robin Brown]

Ah, La Beaute Sauvage. I wrote an article about that Grace Jones/CX advert, I was so intrigued by it.

I don't have much to add that hasn't been said already, apart from stating that I love the SD1 and would probably buy one if I came across a good enough specimen.