Scenic view
Alan Judd
To Sweden earlier this month for the launch of the new Renault Scenic. The Scenic I, which set the trend in miniMPVs, has sold over 200,000 in the UK since its 1996 launch and still sells strongly (40,000 last year) despite competitors and the forthcoming Scenic II. This is partly because the market for compact MPVs continues to grow — up by ten per cent in 2002. when total market growth was four per cent. If you're thinking of buying a Scenic it's worth citing the 19 September launch of the new model as reason for a discount.
Presumably profit from the Scenic I helped fund development costs of the Scenic II, and presumably launch costs are but a small fraction of those. Nonetheless, flying more than a thousand journalists to Sweden over a four-week period, entertaining them generously, accommodating them in an expensive waterside Stockholm hotel and providing a regiment of test cars with technical and administrative support must have cost not far south of half a million.
We flew by chartered jet from Biggin Hill, the old Battle of Britain fighter station just above Churchill's home at Westerham, in Kent. You park about 20 yards from the departure lounge, have a coffee upstairs and walk another 20 yards onto your plane. That's how air travel should be but it's taken for granted by some of the motoring regulars, the oily rags who do at least one such launch a week. 'Which country are we going to?' asked one as we headed out across the North Sea.
Driving the Scenic II in Sweden was almost as easy as getting there. We picked up our cars and sat-nav'd our way around some sample countryside and then through the centre of Stockholm to our hotel. The landscape is fairly flat, well wooded, watery and tidy (only two abandoned cars spotted in two days), a mixture of arable and superior hay fields for some pretty superior-looking horses. Virtually all barns and most rural houses were painted an unobtrusive rust-red, the roads were well maintained and uncrowded, yet traffic was generally slower than here. We were warned of zealous police but none was sighted. The overall speed limit must be pretty low; very likely, we were told about it. Stockholm in the rush hour was as London will be after the next big bomb, And the car is a good drive, easy, carefree, comfortable. If you like the Scenic I, you'll like this more, though some will be uneasy about the invisible electronic handbrake that applies and releases itself automatically. I like a handbrake I can see and feel — but, then, I'm one of those sad cases of modern motoring who has never really accepted fully synchromesh gearboxes and can't entirely give up double-declutching. Like most advances that permit you to proceed in the usual way while doing less, it'll doubtless catch on. Many drivers — not only the handicapped — will welcome it as a relief from embarrassment or awkwardness, one thing less to do.
The truth about these launches, though, is that you get to know the vehicle less than if you had it to play with for a week, which is the usual alternative. You remember the launch more for its packaging than for what occasioned it. The long, relatively deserted rural drives on the second day, for example, the lunch by the lake, the good-natured tolerance of the poor girl from the caravan magazine (there aren't many female motoring writers) who had to endure all the predictable jibes about caravans. She should have brought one with her, to cramp the tyre-squealers' style a bit.
Most memorable was the seafood dinner in the island restaurant, reached by launch. Our doyen, a noble and venerable lord, gave a masterly speech. He stood, thanked our hosts, said he wasn't going to make a speech because speeches were boring, then told us about an elderly couple, one of whom, sensing a welcome revival of friskiness, said to the other, 'Shall we go upstairs and make love?' Pause, while the other reflected. 'Can't do both,' came the reply. `So, thank you very much. That's it,' concluded the noble lord, and sat down. Rarely is the old army injunction to stand up, speak up and shut up so effectively demonstrated.
I have the impression that there are fewer jokes around than there used to be. Certainly, you don't often hear motoring jokes, though they do exist. An American farmer and a Yorkshire/Suffolk/Devon or what-have-you farmer are in a pub, comparing their farms. 'Put it this way,' says the American proudly. 'I can drive, I can drive all day and I still ain't come to the boundary of my land.' The English farmer sips his beer and nods. 'Oi know, Oi know. Oi had a car like that once.' Some of us still have.
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