Britain can build supercars but not family cars!

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
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Thu 10 Sep 2009 16:23
Britain can build supercars but not family cars! - movilogo
With the recent unveil of McLaren & Noble's new super cars, people started shouting that British auto engineering is far from dead.

Yet, we can't produce a decent family car.

Is it easier to produce a super car than a family car. I can never ride a super car, so won't know how good they are actually [have to rely on motoring journos to test them] but I can test any family car to its limit. So, probably producing a mass market car is more difficult then?

After all, it is always easier to please only 100 people than a million people.

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Thu 10 Sep 2009 16:27
Britain can build supercars but not family cars! - maz64
Isn't the problem that we might be able to produce one, but not manufacture and sell it at a competitive price?
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Thu 10 Sep 2009 16:29
Britain can build supercars but not family cars! - Brian Tryzers
>Is it easier to produce a super car than a family car[?]

Yes. It is much easier to set up to build a small-volume, high-cost, high-margin product than to try to take on the established big players in the mass market. It's the same in other markets too - there are any number of small makers producing low-volume, high-quality food or furniture; the mass market will always be dominated by high-volume makers whose economies of scale the specialists can't hope to match.
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Thu 10 Sep 2009 16:38
Britain can build supercars but not family cars! - old crocks
So probably producing a mass market car is more difficult then?


If people pay £100,000 for a super car they seem happy to take it back for a £ 2000 service every six months where all those things that weren't sorted in the original design can be dealt with.

If they pay £10,000 for a family car they object to paying more than £200 for a service every two years.

So yes it is more difficult.
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