Das Auto: The Germans, Their Cars and Us

[Wilko220]

Article here from the BBC News website headlined "How German cars beat British motors - and kept going"

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23406467

 

It's basically an elongated plug for this programme which is due to be shown on Sunday at 9pm

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03866cj

 

Could be interesting.

 

[Ghosty]

What's the relevance of Kraftwerk and World Cup 1966 to cars, aside from a long piece of music about motorways?

[HMC]

IIRC James Ruppert formerly of CAR magazine wrote and published a book on similar lines

[londonm]

The BBC and motoring? Oil and water, at some point they'll start on about climate warming or whatever cobblers it's called this week.....

[Wilko220]

Yes, because T*p G*ar are always going on about global warming.

[londonm]

Top Gear is the only exception to the BBC global warming propaganda machine, mainly because it makes them so much money selling to other networks abroad. This is despite the fact it's now really dull. The BBC also allows adverts on BBC world, so why not her in the UK? They also don't allow comments on their taxpayer funded websites, in case people don't agree with the hidden agenda they promote at our expense and say something about it.

[Spiny Norman]

I watched a bit of a live Kraftwerk gig on telly last night.

 

Their cars might have been better than ours but their 'music' was shite. Give me The Who any day....

[brickwall]

German porn is dubious as well.

[trigger]

Too much hair in German porn.

[chaseracer]

Bloody mullets.

[garethj]

I watched this last night, it was quite interesting but like lots of programmes today, seemed to have more presentation than content.  You could have done the facts and opinions in 20 minutes, leaving the rest of the crap out and 40 minutes for watching porn on the internet.

 

The thing they said about the unions in Britain was interesting, or at least I hadn't thought about it - because the class system was at full pelt in the '50s and '60s there were lots of (working class) workers who wanted to kick out the toffs in management, or at least make them suffer.  Germany didn't have this problem.

[chaseracer]

There were also still a lot in management (and government) who thought the workers should know their place, and continue to put up with unequal pay and outdated (and often dangerous) working conditions.

[Lord Sterling]

RIGHT....

Now, before all of the passed 2 weeks posts went AWOL, I complained that I'd not seen this programme due to being abroad and that I'd set it on record but I feared that either MAW or SISTA Sterling would have scuppered my plans and ruined the recording. Thankfully they hadn't. The day I touched down back in the LAND of ENG, I tried to watch this, but I got to about 20 mins before MAW_Sterling started asking me yet more questions about Belgium and telling me about whats been happening here as if I'm interested.

Today, I actually found the TV vacant from SIS constantly watching music channels and MAW watching whatever it is she watches, I finally got the chance to see this.

Please be advised, this is largely my opinion, so I hope no one feels offended....

Zo, ich bin having einer gut look at this programme; I agree with some of the now AWOL comments that too much was focused on the bad points of der Britischer car industry, nothing was seen of the innovations and the stuff that got rejected to at least show that we weren't as behind as is often always made out.

I agree with the points in the programme that the management didn't have a clear, consise path to follow and they often thought that the worker should know thier place whereas the Germans engaged with thier workers, even today here in England this still hasnae been learnt. Seemingly, life is less stressful in Germany, you feel more appreciated as a worker and that your job is as important as those 'above' you. Here in England you are often looked down on, feel a huge amount of pressure and stress and be expected to meet often impossible deadlines whilst meeting 100% targets, the stress that people are seemingly dragged into certainly shows here in this country.

BMWs head of marketing (some Welsh geezer?) actually admitted to something I'd always thought; That BMW have very carefully crafted their image to the public, partly through giving the public what they want but largely through careful-thought about marketing unlike other manufacturers who seemed to only think up of quirky one-liners or artistic videos for their adverts. A lot of 1980s BM adverts consisted of making buyers thinking that they were buying into well-engineered cars, then later, when BMs became popular amongst yuppies, BMW marketing people seemed to craft an image of their cars being some sort of 'status symbol' This, of course still goes on today, many people still see the BMW as a 'status symbol' car despite them now being as common as the Vectras and Escorts were around 10/15 years ago.

I can see why people in the 70s started buying foreign cars. Like trying foreign foods/wine/destinations, I guess the public were probably eager to try something new and different.

I also noticed what with BMs headquarters and whatnot proudly displaying their cars in in-built museums, the Germans seem very enthusiastic about their own cars. We here in Britain are not. Its seen as an embarrassment and something weird to like British-built cars. What do we have to commemorate the past car industries we've had? GAY DON? That museum in Coventry? They are all half-arsed attempts at celebrating what we once built. GAY DON seem uninterested in keeping many of the test/prototype cars covered and protected. Sooner or later they'll start to rust and fall apart. 

 

The mouth-breathing public's attitude to British cars is pathetic. Crap overpaid England football team? Yeah, we'll support them to the hilt, crap British cars? Nah, send 'em over Weigh Bridge, not even fit for scrap etc...