Saturday, January 31, 2015

Koi karta nahin vaada nibhaane ko

koi karta nahin vaada yahan nibhaane ko 
aur bhool se jaan leta hoon main zamane ko 

Jo baha aaya tha main samandar mein 
wo tere khat aaj laute mujhe jalaane ko 

tere peeche kisi se roothta bhi nahin 
ab na aayega koi mujhe manaane ko 

pata hi nahin kab saans rok di meri wo haath aaye thhey sar dabaane ko 

vehshat hoti hai jab khamoshiyon mein 
bachchon se kehta hoon shor machaane ko 

humare darmiyaan faasle ki kami na thi 
so main bhi chal padaa use mitaane ko 

'Quateel' koi rasta nikalo ki manzilein 
milti nahin raaston ke diwaane ko

Auto Reverie and Rant 2

SUV Sporty Urban Vehicle (warning: This may be indirect and long) 
Sleep deprived people should write things of more creative nature and import. However, having once seen the picture, I have realised that the world has now crossed a certain point of no return. The old order can never be restored. So let me lament. Bentley wants to make an SUV.( If that is not a very big deal to you, please stop and read something else. this will be boring.) I saw a picture of a prototype. Planned to be the most expensive SUV in the world. This beautiful defeat of logic and reason will probably sell out. And be acclaimed as a unique achievement. But for people like me who have admired the brand even when it was a means for Rolls Royce to shore up failing numbers, its another sell out. To know the true story lets rewind a few years back to another country and another marque. Porsche, the partner in crime for balding dentists provided them with chick magnets like the 911 which were death traps in more ways than one and only those of a recent vintage got a decent steering system. Recently in my book is 20 years ago. But these were cars people salivated over. Porsche like a few illustrious marques was desirable. Crazy yes, impractical yes, but by God! people wanted one. The only ones you saw were bright, bug eyed, had a loud roar and an old guy in it with a young woman. So what did the Porsche people do? Porsche had one best seller, a few middling ones, and nothing selling the numbers they wanted. So they ( greedy parents Volkswagen) decided Porsche would be in all big segments of automobiles. Enter the 4WD devil, the Cayenne. I can see Mephistopheles having to hire a truck just to carry away the Porsche contract. He was true to his bargain and soccer moms and other such low motoring castes who buy an obscene number of cars started buying the practical Porsches. The sales went through the roof, still are very high and likely to be like this in future too. Not content with committing this sin, the accountants who run Volkswagen decided to launch another vehicle in the biggest segment. the Sedan. By the way, their own luxury Volkwagen Phaeton despite being a very good car could not sell enough pieces to survive. Enter the Porsche Panamera. Uberluxurious. Superfast. 4 door. Nausea inducing sight. I learnt that it's more spacious than a regular 7 series! I am reminded of the tale of the man with the goose that laid golden eggs. The 911 has been compromised. Do these people think at all beyond one development cycle? Are sales numbers so important that the future has to be mortally wounded? Is the sports car market a stagnant one? No. Maclaren, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Noble, Spykar and God knows who else is making progress by selling more cars than before. So its not like the segment is shrinking. But people like the folks at Volkswagen/Porsche are not thinking straight. One question. Where do luxury brands emerge from? answer: Some company or investor takes over a small sometimes unknown brand making say shoes and nothing else. very small and very exclusive with high quality craftsmanship and service. No matter how high the price the revenues of this business will never be like Bata will it? its happening right now with Berluti, the Italian uber shoemaker. But i think now they (LVMH) are going a bit easy on the 'massification' (read that as opening hoity toity stores in cities such as Shanghai and New Delhi and selling everything. from scarves to wallets to bags to pens to clothes and of course shoes). so they will wait a bit longer. better but not by much. So back to Porsche and actually back to Bentley. But it was not a Bentley whose picture I am talking about. Everyone knows the Italians and cars have a good relationship. Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Lamborghini are all stars of automobile history but none enjoys the prime position that Ferrari enjoys in the mind of the enthusiast. And while we may consider Ferrari as a product of pure passion only, there are many reasons why the marque has been so for decades. It has made mistakes but on no account has it deviated from the straight and narrow. We were taught how it never advertised. and how its events were the only marketing it did. It didn't need to do that. Its a bit like Harvard. It has enough alumni who if they just send their kids, Harvard will not need students from outside this network. So if Ferrari enthusiasts love the marque it is not just because of the model they owned, it because of the entire story, experience, exclusivity of the brand. The magic. The chap who understood this and ran Ferrari on these lines for many years, Luca Cordero de Montezemolo (we'll refer to him as Luca, as we are always on first name basis with him) never messed with the brand. He knew what Porsche did was delayed suicide. He knew that his audience wanted a car that stood for what Ferrari means. But the Bosses at Fiat Chrysler (once great, now like Marge Simpson's two sisters who get married to each other) decided that he is not implementing strategy. So he should make way for someone who does. I wouldnt be surprised if Ferrari sometime in the future launch 'the worlds raciest 4 door'... Vinashkaale vipareet buddhi. ( it means when your destruction is fated, your power to think goes away first.) So far I haven't heard any news of an impending launch sedan or suv from Ferrari, but i fear that with Luca out of the way, it's but a matter of time. So the picture I would have seen is not of a Ferrari. So what was the picture i saw,? It was about the soon to be launched Jaguar SUV. soon to be the world's SUV. I was immensely disappointed in JLR when I saw that, but as I come to the end of this piece, I realise that unlike other makers Jaguar never promised great exclusivity. And I remembered that they are owned by Tata Motors. Which isn't a car company in any case.