Some award winners better than others

Press, 16 December 1988, Page 36

Some award winners better than others

BEHIND THE WHEEL

Peter Greenslade

Given the list of cars submitted to motoring correspondents by importers and local assemblers during the year, it was almost inevitable that the 5 Series BMW would emerge as the New Zealand Motoring Writers’ Guild’s Car of the Year. The 5 Series met all the criteria that together added up to an exceptionally fine motor car, better than any other new model.

BMW New Zealand, Ltd, launched the 5 Series at the end of June. It was introduced on to the German market in January and, after it was launched in the United Kingdom, New Zealand was the second country in the world to get the right-hand-drive version.

In September, the 100,000 th 5 Series rolled off the Bavarian production lines, three weeks ahead of schedule. It was just 200 days after series production began. Looked at in any way, that is a truly magnificent record and, I should imagine, is one that has been surpassed only by some volume popular car manufacturers.

In the minds of the reading public, it is perhaps incredible that motoring writers should' pitch for a car that is available in three engine sizes and ranges in prices from $74,500 to $124,500, for such tags are obviously beyond the scope of most New Zealand car buyers. Nevertheless, BMW dealers sold 127 cars between the late June launch date and the end of November.

Bearing in mind that there are three 5 Series

cars available in this country, I cannot help wondering on what basis guild members came to the conclusion that the BMW 5 Series was the best car of the year. Having driven them all, I’m firmly convinced that the 535 i is the only variant that really matters. The two-litre 520 i, with its manual transmission, is certainly a very nice car that looks the part, but really can’t play it. And although the most popular 5 Series version in New Zealand is the 2.5 litre automatic 525 i, priced at $94,500, to my way of thinking it lacks the dynamics and full measure of performance that the extra 1000 cu cm of engine capacity has given the 535 i.

I suspect that guild members’ views were coloured to some extent by their experience with the 535 i, the variant that BMW New Zealand used as a press car, in the main.

That was the reason why I abstained from voting. Having put myself in the position of an individual who had driven the

520 i only, I felt that there were other cars that had some claims to the guild’s accolade, one of them being the Toyota Corolla, which the monthly motoring magazine, “New Zealand Car,” chose as its own Car of the Year. But one must ask oneself whether a vote for Corollas per se is good enough? After all, there are a number of them, and even Toyota, like BMW, seems to be unable to make them all as good as each other.

Ah, well,' at least a couple of Car of the Year awards give the scribblers something more to scribble about.

Incidentally, in the United Kingdom the Vauxhall Cavalier won the British Guild of Motoring Writers’ United Dominions Trust Top Car award this time by a wide margin from the BMW 5 Series and the Fiat Tipo.

The seven other cars considered were the Alfa Romeo 164, the Mazda 121, the Mitsubishi Galant, the Peugeot 405, the Toyota Carina (Corona in this country) and the Volkswagen Passat

As some of these, although not the Cavalier, will be on our roads a year hence, the grounds for a continuing argument at least look promising.

“There is no way that a man can understand what it feels like to be a woman and to go into a car dealer’s yard to be treated with ignorance or contempt or be patronised and told to go home and discuss it with your hubby,” writes a reader who is obviously upset about the treatment meted out to her by motor traders. “What is it about motor tradesmen?” she says. “They do, of course, have a reputation of being devious, plausible con men, but that is with men! Let me assure you that this is super service compared with the attention meted out to women on car lots.”

So, what’s new? That question is addressed to Eleanor Horne, who has aired grievances that I, as a “Press” motoring correspondent, if not the motoring editor, male or female, as the cor-

respondent allows, have been asked to answer.

This, of course, is not easy to do, as her grievances are unverifiable, which is, perhaps, as it should be in the interests of self-protection in the courts of law.

As a Christmas shopper for the females in the Greenslade menage, I am encountering much the same sort of treatment from condescending females in antique dealers’ emporiums, boutiques, department stores and the many other trading establishments where Christmas gifts are alleged to abound. Annoying though it may be to be mildly insulted by a salesperson and to leave the premises emptyhanded yet again, it is, I fear, a simple fact of life in this country, where some sales people labour under the impression that to give a shopper courteous service is personally demeaning. Ford New Zealand’s external affairs manager, Russell Scoular, is strongly of the opinion that everyone, irrespec-

five of sex, race or creed, is entitled to the best and most courteous service when shopping for a motor car or. for that matter, anything else, and if that service is not forthcoming then one should shop elsewhere.

It may be that New Zealanders are too easygoing or too timorous to voice legitimate complaints. Such individuals as the correspondent would be, therefore, serving the national interest by airing complaints that can be authenticated and eradicated. But if such complaints serve merely to advance a particular cause of one sex at the expense of the other, the motivation must, perforce, be regarded as questionable in the extreme.

Nevertheless, if Eleanor Horne is prepared to supply verifiable details of the grievances mentioned in her letter, there will be space available in these columns to supply details of an investigation by one of this newspaper’s allmale motoring contributors, even if the results be to the general detriment of males!