HACKS BEHIND THE WHEEL
Digby Anderson at the
Motorfair observes the oddities of the journalists
OTHER people's enthusiasms are always puzzling, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at how extraordinary Motorfair is, at least on press day. Both the car stands and the corridors betwen them are very empty. The stands have groups of café tables at which knots of, I assume, journal- ists, many in grey leather shoes, quite a lot in blazers, often with a rose buttonhole, sometimes with a top pocket handkerchief in a slightly different shade of red, sit looking rather bored, their faces occa- sionally lighting up when they see an old friend.
At the counters there's a little more animation, provoked by the champagne, but it's intermittent. I once looked down the whole arcade by the Ferraris, Porsches and other things which are supposed to be sources of joy,and saw not one happy, smiling face. Bellowy laughter occasionally, but little happiness. There's not much reason why there should be. Most of the journalists had written their copy already, using the press releases, and this was a cross between a ritual and a reunion. In fact one rarely sees people genuinely smil- ing at any exhibition and even more rarely at reunions.
There again, it might be put down to the food. At the counters where bumf was available, there was also food. The motor industry appears to think, correctly for all I know, that motor journalists like pork pies — in refined slices, of course. There were lots of pork pies, quite a lot of 'cocktail' sausages, some sausage rolls and brown bread sandwiches. Crisps were also popu- lar. And peanuts: the Ninety-Six Club Go Le Mans 88 had lots of peanuts. Renault and many others had chocolate biscuits. So it was champagne and crisps, champagne and sausage rolls and champagne and chocolate biscuits, except at the Skoda stand which seemed to be serving fizzy communist wine. As one went up the price range, there was less food. Rolls-Royce, I think, had none. It was not easy to tell since the stands have little assembly points above them and recesses behind the coun- ters. One, a Japanese one, had a sort of tent with a menu. Volvo, appropriately, offered soft rolls and jam in individual sealed packets.
The motor industry also thinks, and here there is no doubt that it is correct, that journalists like ladies. The biggest crowd with a photographer perched up a step ladder was reserved for a blonde lady in a red swimming costume who sprawled ab- out on bonnets. Something called TVR sported two ladies in short black PVC dresses. The one in fish-net tights near Vauxhall was also popular. Whenever one saw a crowd gathering and cameras flashing, there was a lady.
Despite or because of and in most cases before all the pork pies, ladies and noise, the journalists manage to distil it all into the wisdom of their columns. At first sight, it is an odd wisdom. 'As soon as peqple discover the awful truth that one earns a living by writing about motoring . . . the question that follows is "Now which car would you really have if you were given a free choice?" ' I am sure that John Lang- ley, writing in the Daily Telegraph, is telling the truth and that is indeed what `people' do ask him. But I, and other chaps I know, would put an entirely different question to him and his colleagues. We may not know much about cars and are not much interested in them but motoring correspondents are a different and more interesting matter. The question is why they write as they do.
How do they write? Well, contrast, for example, the way political commentators write about political events and the way motoring journalists, in the very same newspapers, write about cars. The first thing which strikes one is that the motorists are much nicer, much kinder. They enth- use about cars. I was going to say, they enthuse about all cars. That's not true, but the uncomplimentary remarks are gentle and infrequent. Roy Harry in the Guardian last week gushes:
No other form of transport can offer the same freedom to travel as the motor car . . . manufacturers make even greater efforts to respond to . . . a community ever more aware of purchase prices, economy of run- ning, lower maintenance costs, the need to preserve the environment, all in the shadow of dwindling traditional fuel resources.
It's not far from what the industry might put out as public relations.
The Independent's man, like many of his colleagues, found the show 'bigger and better than ever'. He was very excited about the Peugeot 205 GTi, the 'king of the hot hatchbacks', and the 309 and 405. He had nice things to say about the Citroen AX especially the GTAX, about Mitsu- bishi's 'Japanese wizardry', about Honda's new Prelude, the Lotus Esprit Turbo, the Senator, the Panther and several others. Criticism, when made, is gentle and reluc- tant. It is 'unfortunate' there is not a new Cavalier and 'a shame' that the coupe version of the Rover Sterling was not launched. John Langley answers his own question with lots of examples of cars he likes and, on the same page Colin Dryden adds his enthusiams. It's not only that they are enthusiastic but there is very little difference between the different papers. At Motorfair time anyway, there is next to no politics in cars. And there's a motor writing style. It's not just the jargon and heartiness though they are there in plenty. Mr Dryden points out that the Peugeot owes its performances 'of course, to the old pugilistic principle of "a good big 'un always beating a good little 'un" '. He `particularly liked the chunky, leather- bound steering wheel'. One rather thought he might.
I used to think that it was a simple matter: newspapers had their interesting bits with tough comment and some style, and then there were the knitting pages with food, cars, gardening and travel, all frothy, cliché-ridden and spineless. But it is not as simple as that. The political pages have their own clichés and tired formats and much of the toughness is but posturing. Moreover the topics in the knitting pages can't be lumped together. There is little reason for quality newspapers to stick to the tired and restricting recipe format in food writing, though to give it its due, the Guardian has broken away from it, albeit predictably into vege-politics. But there may be a good, though not totally adequ- ate reason for the motoring journalists writing as they do. They seem to write as a sort of consumer service and the car review is a format which may well fit readers' needs.
It is possible too that there may be a good reason for their enthusiasm for so many cars. The motor industry is highly competitive and is a mass production in- dustry. It has also recently put on a genuine spurt from technological change. It is then quite plausible that its models will, most of them, be good and be fairly similar. Certainly the cars at Motorfair are, even to a layman, impressive and the journalists' treatments of them perform a useful consumer service. But even granting all this, what is it that is stopping any guts, polemic, imagination, humour or new for- mats? Is it conservative editors or the cumulative impact of years of exhibition pork pies?
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