Modern cars are safe...

[Alexg]

... unless you live in South America

 

 

http://uk.autoblog.com/2010/10/27/geely ... rash-test/

 

 

Totally amazing to see some of the worlds biggest car makers allowing life saving safety features removed in countries where there is no regulation or testing (up until now that is)

 

Euro Peugeot 206 - 4 stars

Latin Peugeot 207 (a 'modernised' 206) - 1 to 2 stars, depending on airbags (an optional cost extra)

 

[garethj]

Totally amazing to see some of the worlds biggest car makers allowing life saving safety features removed in countries where there is no regulation or testing

Do car makers exist to:

 

a) make a profit

keep people alive?

 

If you think it's ( I suggest you put your more cynical head on when watching their TV adverts.

 

Until recently they still used to churn out cars with carburettors; think of the kittens who've died because of it. But because a carb is cheaper than injection plus emissions, that's what they did. They might still do for all I know.

[Pete-M]

Good. It's simply Darwinism in effect. If anyone buys a Geely, they're likely to die. I really don't see a problem with this, although I'd have been a lot happier if Geely had simply bought all the old scrappage stuff that worked and taken that to China instead.

 

If you're cheap enough to buy NEW a shite Chinese / Korean / Jap / Diesel car, then you really shouldn't be allowed airbags. A huge great sharp spike should be hidden behind an 'AIRBAG' cover on the steering wheel, and when you crash it you die. Impaled on your own cheapskatery.

[Alexg]

Right

 

a bit of a simplistic way of looking at it Garath. Whilst I'd expect European cars to be safer than those sold in poorer regions I'd still has expected car companys to work with some level of ethics and not excuse all proven live saving safety features when no ones there to check. But I guess I live on some other planet.

[Guest]

China has their own NCAP testing system now, I haven't heard that mentioned at all in the "OH GOD CHINA DEATH TRAP" UK motoring press. It's a shame to see Geely are the ones who are getting their export success seeing as they appear to make the most rubbish cars, they're giving a reverse halo-effect (if such a thing exists) to the entire Chinese car industry.

[Pete-M]

I suspect that even if the Chinese were making stuff like the Rolls Phantom, but making it better, and making it do 500 mpg and charging £0.75p for it they'd still get it in the neck for something.

 

Lets face it, once the Chinese get their foot in the door you can say goodbye to most of the western motor industry as they'll make cars for the dullards of this world to cherish. They'll make sensible, reliable, cheap to run, cheap to service shite with no soul and flog it for about a third of the price Europe could make it for, with a 20 year warranty. It'll be stuff I'd rather commit suicide than drive, but stuff that the great unwashed will want.

[garethj]

a bit of a simplistic way of looking at it Garath.

Perhaps, but I'm not without experience in the Auto industry

Whilst I'd expect European cars to be safer than those sold in poorer regions I'd still has expected car companys to work with some level of ethics

Hmmm, is there a column marked "Ethics" on the spreadsheet? If not, it won't be done

[Mr Lobster]

Car manufacturers give the market what it wants. They won't fit airbags in countries where buyers don't expect / want them. And they exist primarily to make a profit.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

I reckon if my 14 year old car hit the EuroNCAP wall it'd end up looking something like that Geely.

[Pillock]

In ten years time, someone will be churning out cars that make Renaults and Volvos (both safety champions) look like a Model T Ford with a boot full of Hydrogen. Those Chinese motors are no worse than European cars from a few years ago, my Golf is pre-airbag and that's a 90s car.

People will buy what they want, families will still go for airbags everywhere and crash ratings whilst people on a budget will get something cheaper.... less equipped..... less safe in a crash.

[Guest EccentricRichard]

Good. It's simply Darwinism in effect. If anyone buys a Geely, they're likely to die. I really don't see a problem with this, although I'd have been a lot happier if Geely had simply bought all the old scrappage stuff that worked and taken that to China instead.

 

If you're cheap enough to buy NEW a shite Chinese / Korean / Jap / Diesel car, then you really shouldn't be allowed airbags. A huge great sharp spike should be hidden behind an 'AIRBAG' cover on the steering wheel, and when you crash it you die. Impaled on your own cheapskatery.

 

Dismissing Korean and Jap and diesel cars is pretty narrow minded... diesels have won at Le Mans for several years running... a diesel won the Paris-Dakar recently... the Japanese build some bloody good cars, even the cheap ones... and the Koreans are on the rise too.

 

Remember, some people are forced by work to have a modern company car on lease - even if they wanted to be driving a Nissan Cedric, they just wouldn't be allowed. I remember my dad telling me there was one time when he was working for British Aerospace that he had to drive up with three other people from their Kingston base (the old Hawker factory, where he worked) to Wharton in Lancashire, would have killed to have been able to use his own V8-engined Rover P6 but had to take a Montego instead because the company wouldn't pay for the petrol on the P6 and the company insurance wouldn't cover the P6 or its occupants if they took that either.

 

Also, there are a lot of companies that just have a big tank of diesel in the car park, so you've got no option over what fuel your company car burns... plus then there's the cost of leasing. Some nice quirky but reasonably economical cars are ridiculously expensive to lease because of their residuals... I recall reading that a Citroen C6 cost almost double to lease what a Merc C63 AMG costs to lease...

[oldford]

Don't be surprised to see cars from Great Wall on sale here in the near future. They will be comparable to the established manufacturers in terms of safety and engineering, and they will certainly be prepared to throw some money around to establish themselves.

 

It's history repeating itself, the Japanese in the 1970s and the Koreans in the 1980s, their cars were maligned when they appeared over here.

 

Manufacturers will only spend money where they have to, if there is no legislation demanding that they have to supply a higher engineering specification for a particular market, then they won't.

[Guest EccentricRichard]

Don't be surprised to see cars from Great Wall on sale here in the near future. They will be comparable to the established manufacturers in terms of safety and engineering, and they will certainly be prepared to throw some money around to establish themselves.

 

It's history repeating itself, the Japanese in the 1970s and the Koreans in the 1980s, their cars were maligned when they appeared over here.

 

Manufacturers will only spend money where they have to, if there is no legislation demanding that they have to supply a higher engineering specification for a particular market, then they won't.

 

Remember, the Hyundai Pony was strongly influenced by George Turnbull, who had brought a pair of Marinas to Korea... and never mind Great Wall, already we're seeing with the MG6 what SAIC is capable of (even if the engine is loosely based on the K-series and the chassis loosely on the R75).

 

People used to dismiss Honda... but they made some thoroughly decent cars, especially the CRX, then, according to no less a man than Mr McLaren F1 himself, Gordon Murray, tore up the supercar rulebook with the NSX, making a car nimbler and more civilised than any Ferrari or Lambo or Porsche of the time. Of course, it also helped that they were powering the McLaren Formula One team, and had access to one A. Senna as a development driver on the NSX project... now, if only Austin Rover or whatever they were called then could have rebodied the NSX as a successor to the stillborn Rover/Alvis P6BS/P9 project...

 

Plus, of course, there's Datsun/Nissan, with its various Z-cars, Skylines, etc... pity the 240Z rusted so badly, it was a great car in most other respects.

 

Now the Kia Cee'd does most things that a Golf does, just as well and rather cheaper (to buy and run), the Hyundai Genesis is giving the Merc E-class a run for its money in the USA, the Genesis Coupé is giving the Nissan 370Z a run for its money too... plus the new Kia Optima and suchlike are about to give the Passat et al a run for their money.

 

Anyone who dismisses the Chinese, the Koreans or even the Japanese (there can't be many Jap-dissers left, surely?) is a mug.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

if only Austin Rover or whatever they were called then could have rebodied the NSX as a successor to the stillborn Rover/Alvis P6BS/P9 project...

 

I think the NSX was inspired in a big way by the Austin Rover MG E-XE concept.

[Guest EccentricRichard]

if only Austin Rover or whatever they were called then could have rebodied the NSX as a successor to the stillborn Rover/Alvis P6BS/P9 project...

 

I think the NSX was inspired in a big way by the Austin Rover MG E-XE concept.

 

I forgot about that! Bloody hell... if we could have had the E-XE body on the NSX floorpan and mechanicals... holy cow would that have been good. Such a pretty car.

[Gompo]

 

I forgot about that! Bloody hell... if we could have had the E-XE body on the NSX floorpan and mechanicals... holy cow would that have been good. Such a pretty car.

 

Would have probably ended up even more of a 'failure' than the NSX was.

[Guest EccentricRichard]

 

I forgot about that! Bloody hell... if we could have had the E-XE body on the NSX floorpan and mechanicals... holy cow would that have been good. Such a pretty car.

 

Would have probably ended up even more of a 'failure' than the NSX was.

 

The NSX, a failure?! I got the impression it was a roaring success... the last years saw it rather overtaken, admittedly, with rivals offering more power, and the faired-in headlamps looked awkward compared to the pop-ups it originally had, but it was still bloody good.

[scruff]

Who gives a shit?

[Guest EccentricRichard]

Who gives a shit?

 

Us? The NSX is a modern classic, and some are fairly cheap (by supercar standards, anyway!). Borderline shite... it first hit the market in 1990, remember! Looonggg time ago...

[Albert Ross]

ER, there is NO "us"... There is you. And Other people. Just because WE let you play on our street, does not suddenly create a bond. There is no friendship, your opinions belong to someone else. You are a troll. Stop it.

 

Oh. And 20 years might be a LOOOOOONG time ago for you, as you try to count all three of your pubic hairs, then realise you piss out of one of them, but to me, I was out driving cars to pubs, meeting girls and shagging them, and getting pissed, all for a fiver or so a night. One of them might have been your Mum. So fuck off with your distorted reality and silly timescales. You're a knobhead. Fuck off.

[Gompo]

 

I forgot about that! Bloody hell... if we could have had the E-XE body on the NSX floorpan and mechanicals... holy cow would that have been good. Such a pretty car.

 

Would have probably ended up even more of a 'failure' than the NSX was.

 

The NSX, a failure?! I got the impression it was a roaring success...

 

Depends what you class as a failure, and the reason why I put it in quotation marks. Great car I know, but how many people back then lusted for one? Not many, or atleast not in the same way as it's rivals. How many do you see in the UK? Not many, I think I've seen 2. I believe they sold more in the US admittedly. I dont think it would have done any better badged as an MG/Rover/Austin with those looks, which would have probably been diluted significantly by the time it reached production.

[Guest EccentricRichard]

The NSX, a failure?! I got the impression it was a roaring success...

 

Depends what you class as a failure, and the reason why I put it in quotation marks. Great car I know, but how many people back then lusted for one? Not many, or at least not in the same way as it's rivals. How many do you see in the UK? Not many, I think I've seen 2. I believe they sold more in the US admittedly. I don't think it would have done any better badged as an MG/Rover/Austin with those looks, which would have probably been diluted significantly by the time it reached production.

 

I dunno, I see them fairly frequently. Several dozen round here... but then Jags, Astons, Porsches, even Ferraris are mind-numbingly common around here.

[Guest EccentricRichard]

ER, there is NO "us"... There is you. And Other people. Just because WE let you play on our street, does not suddenly create a bond. There is no friendship, your opinions belong to someone else. You are a troll. Stop it.

 

Oh. And 20 years might be a LOOOOOONG time ago for you, as you try to count all three of your pubic hairs, then realise you piss out of one of them, but to me, I was out driving cars to pubs, meeting girls and shagging them, and getting pissed, all for a fiver or so a night. One of them might have been your Mum. So fuck off with your distorted reality and silly timescales. You're a knobhead. Fuck off.

 

Well, frankly, to be so downright insulting reflects rather more badly on you than on me... and, in terms of car development timescales, twenty years absolutely IS a long time.

[Albert Ross]

Several DOZEN round your way? Where do you live? Riyadh?

 

I have a new name for you. Egocentric Dickhead..

[Albert Ross]

I never insult anyone on the internet any differently to how I would insult them to their face. I'm sure anyone from here who has actually met me will confirm the same fact. I call a spade a spade. Sometimes I find different ways of saying it, many times over, until it REALLY knows it's a spade. Think yourself lucky you are miles away.

[Alexg]

Lucky we don't keep guns on this forum.

[Gompo]

The NSX, a failure?! I got the impression it was a roaring success...

 

Depends what you class as a failure, and the reason why I put it in quotation marks. Great car I know, but how many people back then lusted for one? Not many, or at least not in the same way as it's rivals. How many do you see in the UK? Not many, I think I've seen 2. I believe they sold more in the US admittedly. I don't think it would have done any better badged as an MG/Rover/Austin with those looks, which would have probably been diluted significantly by the time it reached production.

 

I dunno, I see them fairly frequently. Several dozen round here... but then Jags, Astons, Porsches, even Ferraris are mind-numbingly common around here.

 

That is a lot, but it's fact that they didnt sell as many NSX as 348s/355s or 993s, which would be considered its main competition. Maybe you need to open your mind a little. They've also depreciated more which could be another sign of failure.

 

Several DOZEN round your way? Where do you live? Riyadh?

 

I have a new name for you. Egocentric Dickhead..

 

Obviously somewhere with no jobs/industry yet with very cheap Honda NSXs (and any other 'desirable' car)..

[garethj]

It's history repeating itself, the Japanese in the 1970s and the Koreans in the 1980s, their cars were maligned when they appeared over here.

 

What he said. And poor old ChinaTom will have a price on his head because he's been pedalling stories of Chinese cars before they're up to Western standards.

 

RIP CT

[Mr Lobster]

I dunno, I see them fairly frequently. Several dozen round here... but then Jags, Astons, Porsches, even Ferraris are mind-numbingly common around here.

 

Thats because you never get out from the pages of Autocar / Evo magazine isn't it.

[fiatdaft]

i'm suprised those cars are common round your areaola,as with the insurance figures you have been quoting,you must live in a right shithole area.