Luxury market holding firm

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33874, 20 June 1975, Page 4

Luxury market holding firm

A small British company which specialises in making replicas of the luxury and higherperformance cars of the 1930 s—offering a combination of 30’s elegance and 70’s performance and comfort for up to $40,000 a copy—is planning to expand.

Panther Westwinds, Ltd, of Surrey, says its most popular model is the J 72 sports-car, a Jaguarengined model based in appearance on the famous SSIOO Jaguar sports. Production of these $20,000 models (for the Vl2 version) is now running at eight cars a month.

The latest Panther model is the $40,000 Panther de Ville saloon — a supremely elegant reproduction of the top Bugatti of the New Escort sells well

The new Escort has become the best-selling car in Europe in its first three months, according to Ford. The car, which is made in West Germany and Britain, outsold the VW Golf throughout Europe in April, and topped the British model sales list in May. It will be announced in New Zealand next month.

Fuel from trees? Rubber trees, and some other plants in Asia could possibly be source for a future liquid hydrocarbon fuel, a Nobel prize-winner, Professor Melvin Calvin of the United States, has said. Professor Calvin, who won his prize for his work on photosynthesis, told the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia that a rubbertree was one of the world’s most efficient known systems for capturing solar energy and turning it into hydrocarbons. Study of the way in which rubber trees and

other plants did this could lead to some plants providing chemical and fuel resources which could be harvested at will, Professor Calvin suggested. He urged that more attention be given to research into jungle plants, in particular, because of their high efficiency at turning solar energy into other materials.

19305. Production of the Jaguar-engined car is running at three a month. Last year the company, which employs 90 craftsmen to make its cars by hand, earned about $1.3 million in exports, with cars going to North America, Japan, and Europe. Future prospects look good: the company has about 25 orders for the Panther de Ville from a variety of countries, and the waiting list for the J 72 model now stands at eight months. Because of the demand for its expensive products, the company has now appointed 20 agents throughout the world, and it is negotiating with about 70 more potential dealers. The company expects to double its turnover this year. The demand for the Panther models parallels the experience of other British and European makers of very expensive luxury cars: the lower end of the car market may be sagging badly throughout the world, but the demand for the world’s most expensive cars continues unabated.

Not surprisingly, a significant part of the demand comes from newly-pros-perous Middle East oil potentates.