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| ashley's Diary |
| Date |
Sunday, 12 Feb 2006 |
| Country |
Egypt |
| Weather |
Sunny |
| Diary |
LR 110CSW writes: Had a lot of fun in the desert at Wadi Rum, I certainly taught those camels a few things about desert travel! I was a little bit lonely after Amman as suddenly everyone seems to be driving Toyota Landcruisers and the Toyotas have terrible trouble understanding my Brummie accent. It seems to me that the dominance of Land Rover ended more or less overnight in about 1978…all LRs up to then and then all Toyotas…Did we (LR) take our eye off the ball, was it a price thing? Perceived reliability? What should we do now? One idea would be to provide all the desert guides at Wadi Rum and other “opinion formers” to buy Defenders at cost with a trade in allowance for their hopelessly outclassed Landcruisers. These Toyotas carry 1000s of foreign tourists on desert safaris every year and the knock on sales for us would be considerable. Why provide LRs to the England rugby team, you automatically alienate the Welsh, Scots, Irish, Italians, New Zealanders, South Africans and Australians to name but a few. Better to concentrate on regaining market share lost to the Japanese & German softroaders. We should take the Toyota Hilux pick-up and produce a vehicle which is slightly better in all departments and using the worldwide clout of Ford sell it in kit form for local assembly in developing countries. Throw in attractive financing options and LR would once again be king.LR is a well respected brand name throughout the Middle East and Africa…we just need to build on this strength. Maybe our owners, Ford, just think this is all too difficult with little short term reward but something needs to be done as 4X4s are as popular as the plague in Europe as I found out when only two months old, someone scratched my door with a coin when parked in Bath. In developing countries, however we are free from these attitudes. Come on LR, lets go for world domination now! |
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