Comments on: Hold The Presses

By: Tom Johnson

Sun, 06 May 2012 21:13:22 +0000

By: Mazdalover

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:43:46 +0000

Leaving after Le Mans following a proper announcement before would really make at least some sense. The way, Peugeot opted to leave the scene makes it one of the least reliable and trustworthy company in the world. If they were able to do this, how could one be sure, if buys their car, he would get spare parts next year or even week? My trust to this French company is gone and is now zero. They could hardly left the scene a more stupid way. Their only fortunate is that there are not many people aware of how the company behaves, or at least how badly they are able to behave here and there. They killed all their great five year achievements in five minutes by one terribly stupid decision. How silly…. 🙁

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By: John Brooks

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:47:18 +0000

In reply to Colin.

Colin

I think the problems at Peugeot are on a much grander scale than we see at present. Motorsport is the least of their concerns.

As to Autosport, strange to say I have been buying the magazine since 1969, but recently cancelled my subscription. I found that I was not getting much out it each week. I am not interested in the bland F1 content…not the fault necessarily of the journalists, as the press police monitor and control everything that comes from the teams…………

Thanks you for the kind words………….we try and do our best.

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By: Colin

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:27:38 +0000

The surprise to me was that they didnt choose to stop after L eMans, and have that as their sole final race – the costs would have been minimal, and everything else could have been cut out, they may even had had some good publicity, and at a cost of probably less than 5m euros, which they would have to pay to break contracts etc anyway…….i did predict this to DSC last year, as its exactly what PSA did with the 905s in the early 90s.
A well planned exit would have been understood, just stopping like that was weak, and didnt even make sense financially,

Final point, why even read Autospod? They have a sun like journalistic style, and Watkins, whilst he is supposed to be a sportscar specialist is a lightweight, I gave up reading the comic before the millenium and havent missed it, whereas DSC, and all its previous incarnations as sportscarworld, totalsportscar etc with contributions from folks like yourselves is a must.

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By: @gilesguthrie

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:58:14 +0000

Great article. While the Western car market is horribly depressed, there are two factors not mentioned in your commentary that bear consideration:

1. Due to increasing wealth in the far east, particularly China, the global car market is net increasing.
2. Some car manufacturers are growing their market segments in Europe.

Both of these point to an inescapable truth: Peugeot makes cars that people do not want. There are plenty of them on the roads, but so too are there plenty of them at all ages in the classifieds. This points to the fact that salesfolk are applying deep discounts to move units, but that owners are dissatisfied with their purchases and are moving the vehicles on quickly.

The actions that you list are tantamount to fiddling while Rome burns. It is never good to see market suppliers fall by the wayside – for each manufacturer no longer trading our consumer choice is commensurately reduced. I therefore hope that PSA’s economic retrenchment can enable them to revitalise their product range, returning to their 1980s/1990s heyday, where they had a range of cars that covered many bases, and which appealed to consumers.

Looking over Peugeot’s current range of blandmobiles with too-small diesel engines it seems scarcely conceivable that the 205GTi, 309GTi and 505GTi estate were some of the most hilariously entertaining cars money could buy, each of them proudly displaying a lion on its bonnet.

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