WRITE TO autocar@haymarket.com
LETTER OF THE WEEK
Appreciating value
Whatever happened to cheap, reliable transport? These days, it seems that barely a week goes by without some new technology breaking into the headlines, either as a result of legislation or the manufacturers telling us that it’s what we all want.
LED matrix headlights that project a pretty pattern onto your garage wall, so-called driver aids that we all turn off, a choice of four different speed and RPM displays… Why would I want any of this?
Don’t misunderstand me: I’ve owned plenty of cars at the top of their markets and there is a definite feel-good factor in some of these things. But now that I choose my vehicles based on value and effectiveness, it grieves me that I can’t escape the consequential cost of these ‘features’.
Buying a car from the bottom of the range is no way out: the software development overhead is borne by the whole model range, not the individual variants, and in the case of subscription services, the component cost remains unchanged.
When will the manufacturers start to ask what we really need, instead of forcing us to into ever more profitable models?
Mark Barrett
Via email
WIN
Letter of the week wins this ValetPRO exterior protection and maintenance kit worth £48
Give up the ghost
As surely as the new year rolls around, so comes news of the latest predictable non-starter from TVR (News, 10 January).
The story always writes itself: still no factory, no production line, no cars, no money and the same six-year-old Griffith design representing “cutting-edge sports cars” and “the highest standard of performance and quality”.
It’s time to give up, guys. The world has moved on. We can’t go through this for another year. Time to return any of those deposits that prospective buyers have been foolish enough to let you keep all this time.
Ian Barclay
Angmering, West Sussex
Missing Peter Wheeler
When I read these TVR stories, I always think about my old chum Peter Wheeler. What he did with TVR was simply outstanding. Okay, the cars were – what can we say? – a bit unreliable. But Peter’s force of character and the fact that everyone loved and admired him made the problems go away. He wasn’t a bad driver, either – particularly when he had one of his ‘development’ engines under the hood of his Tuscan!
Nikolai Smolensky [TVR’s owner from 2004 through its demise until 2013]
