Back in London this week, enjoying autumnal weather and ogling supercars.
It always amazes me that there are so many ultra expensive cars parked on the streets of central London. Sitting on meters, I’ve seen a €1m Bugatti Veyron as well as countless Rolls Phantoms at a mere €500k a pop. I could show you a car park behind Selfridges that is permanently stuffed with Maybachs, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis and Bentleys. I often pace its four stories in awed reverence pretending to fumble for my keys, and remember where I left the Aston, when occasionally I bump into a police foot patrol. All cars are good. These cars are, well, super.
There are those who would rain on the parade. Gas guzzling motors are bad for the environment they say, and would have us all plugging little Postman Pat cars into the mains every night. I do have some sympathy with this view – no-one wants to destroy the planet. It’s just that they present man-made climate change as indisputable fact, ignoring a significant element of reasonable doubt and any opposing scientific theory. If you dare attempt to debate the topic you face a barrage of vitriolic abuse. That hectoring style doesn’t wholly convince me.
What about usage? Pottering about locally in the Jag to pick up the shopping once in a while surely can’t be as polluting as a more eco friendly little white van zooming back and forth across the country all day.
But then even when we accept the environmentalists’ opinion, along come the hugely insane car scrappage schemes. We’re constantly lectured by politicians – those responsible for the economic mess we’re in – that we should all stop wasting the earth’s scarce natural resources. At the same time they introduce a preposterous cash incentive to destroy perfectly functional and serviceable older cars. That’s a blatant waste of natural resources in itself, but it doesn’t stop there; you need to waste even more to create a new car to replace the one that just got scrapped. Have I missed something? Is this the most stupid and self defeating initiative among the recent plethora of ill conceived bungling bail outs?
Cyprus has abandoned the scheme, citing the financial crisis as the reason for withdrawing the budget of €8.5m. Some of the 25,000 cars that were trashed may well have been dangerous or overly polluting, but all of them? Hmm. The Green Party are actually up in arms calling for the reintroduction of this wasteful destruction – I could show them more pressing environmental issues in our own backyard on a short stroll through the Akamas forest.
In the UK, Gordon the Moron is actually extending the initiative. Ahead of December’s UN climate change summit he has once again stepped in to save the world with a warning to fellow leaders that “there is no plan B.” If smashing up useable vehicles constitutes his Plan A, gawd help us all.
There’s not even any evidence that it helps the new car industry. What sales it stimulates are merely brought forward and would have been made later anyway. Most sales in the UK are imported cars at the lower price range, and here in Cyprus there isn’t even a domestic car manufacturer to support. No, there are much better ways to stimulate car sales to help bolster the local economy.
Firstly get rid of, or reduce, the extortionate import tax. The case for this is particularly compelling for imports of used car originating from other EU countries.
Secondly, and forgive me this is quite radical idea, actually train the staff in prestige marque salesrooms to sell the vehicles. At present those bestowed with the honour of representing these pinnacles of automotive engineering and luxury carry the prestige with all the enthusiasm of teenagers on a Saturday job in a pizza takeway. I must make one notable exception here of the Lexus dealership in Nicosia. Their passion, knowledge and enthusiasm for the brand makes you want to own a Lexus just to share the experience. Their competition usually hasn’t even read the brochure.
Markets feed on human psychology. The UK is in trouble but you wouldn’t know it to walk the streets of central London and see the glittering wheels on display. Maybe that illusion will be enough to spark a recovery.
And maybe, if supercars were more accessible here it would work too. If so I’d go for a Bentley – one must do what one can.
