`UNWORTHY ALLEGATIONS'
Sus, -I wish to endorse the views expressed in Francis Noel-Baker's recent article on the inade- quacy of the British motor industry's export efforts.
Within the last year, I have covered several thousand miles on the roads of West Africa and of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. Everywhere, even in the Crown Colony of Kenya, British cars are outnumbered by French and German cars.
It might help the industry if it took the trouble to find out why other cars sell in Africa, and then to do something about it. As it is, British firms appear to treat the African market as an after- thought.
The most popular car in most of the African countries I know is the Peugeot. The reasons are:
SPECTATOR, DECEMBER 29, 1961 fairly cheap parts easily obtainable, low petrol con- sumption, independent suspension on all wheels. servicing needed only at 1,500-mile intervals and its size and price—it is very roomy.
By contrast, most British cars still have leaf springs and a rigid rear axle—which give both car and driver a thorough shaking on African earth roads. Spare parts are not always available—and they are expensive; whereas Volkswagen send their own trained mechanics to their agents in West Africa.
It is surely time that the British car manufac- turers turned their eyes from the US, which, after all, has a vast car industry of its own, to the great potential in Africa. If they cannot sell cars in the Commonwealth, with no home industry to compete with, there seems little hope for the future at all.
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