The Interceptor returns...

[homeforsummer]

I don't agree with that statement at all. Brits = Successful could be more far removed from the truth when it comes to the UK motor industry as basically all British car companies went bust under their own steam. Foreign investment AND foreign design and engineering are needed to be globally successful. After all this is now a global market.

Wouldn't say foreign design and engineering are needed - don't see much of that in any of the current Jags or Land/Range Rovers. If you think about it TATA knows very little about aiming for the top of the market - all their current products are aimed at people who only just about have the money to afford a car.

If anything, TATA is relying on the expertise of JLR to help them crack the burgeoning luxury market in countries like India.

The Brit car industry can nicely be summed up by saying they know how to make good cars, but don't really know how to make good money. That's where foreign ownership comes in. Maximising the potential of the great cars and minimising the cock-ups that used to punctuate their ranges.

That and not having a 1970s union mentality.

 

[Robin]

Wouldn't say foreign design and engineering are needed - don't see much of that in any of the current Jags or Land/Range Rovers. If you think about it TATA knows very little about aiming for the top of the market - all their current products are aimed at people who only just about have the money to afford a car.

If anything, TATA is relying on the expertise of JLR to help them crack the burgeoning luxury market in countries like India.

The current Jag's and Landy's are pretty much UK engineered but if you look at the Ford era (including Aston Martin) there was lots of US parts and design going into those cars, some even had US and German engines.

Another example is Rover, the only decent car and arguably most successful they made before they went under was the 75 which was pretty much entirely German engineered. So having foreign input other than just investment can be a good thing and it kept many UK brands afloat through hard times.

TATA does want to bring the luxury market to India through JLR but they also want to put input into future products such as the next Defender for example. It will be aimed at a reasonable price bracket specifically in those markets where such a car is essential.

The Brit car industry can nicely be summed up by saying they know how to make good cars, but don't really know how to make good money. That's where foreign ownership comes in. Maximising the potential of the great cars and minimising the cock-ups that used to punctuate their ranges.

That and not having a 1970s union mentality.

I agree, the unions ruined most of the car industry because although the designs were reasonable the productivity and quality control was horrendous. Companies like Honda and Nissan showed that under foreign guidance and investment they can do excellent work (like the Qashqai for example).

Robin.

 

[Dan_]

For the better, they are going to make billions in the Chinese market designing Volvo's suited for that market and if it stayed the same just being popular in a few EU countries it would (did) go under.

Disagree, the biggest appeal of Volvos is their subtle extravagance, I'm not saying the new Volvos are bad ( I'm saving for a C30 and the S60 is neat ), I just think they are turning into a regular luxury car brand, which suits the tastes of the chinese market. Not my type of car...

I don't agree with that statement at all. Brits = Successful could be more far removed from the truth when it comes to the UK motor industry as basically all British car companies went bust under their own steam. Foreign investment AND foreign design and engineering are needed to be globally successful. After all this is now a global market.

Perhaps I haven't put it clearly, british manufacturers aren't there anymore and that's a testament to their lack of competence, but the lack of prowess is mostly on the adminstrative and engineering fronts. Segments on which the germans are very competent. Brits are successful in keeping up with their design philosophy, along with renewing their style from time to time. Foreign companies usually screw up with that balance, just look at MG for example, their cars scream Chinese from every angle.

However, JLR still maintains british designers and engineers in charge on the design decisions. Look at the XJ or XK for instance, their attitude hasn't been changed from their predecessors. They still are proper british luxury cars on the inside and outside, their underpinnings are made from outlandish expertise and the marketing campaigns that sells them too, but nevertheless they sound and look british, and that's enough.

 

[homeforsummer]

Another example is Rover, the only decent car and arguably most successful they made before they went under was the 75 which was pretty much entirely German engineered. So having foreign input other than just investment can be a good thing and it kept many UK brands afloat through hard times.

That's a little unfair to all the British engineers who worked on the 75, but I see what you're saying. There were definitely some BMW influences in the car (large central tunnel in the chassis, Z-axle rear suspension, some old diesels etc).

It was largely just BMW's money though, rather than their expertise:

BMW CEO, Bernd Pischetsrieder, made it very clear to the press from the beginning of BMW’s tenure of Rover that BMW had complete trust in the UK company’s ability to produce exciting and desirable cars without any German interference.

In the wider world this view was met with a degree of scepticism, but Pischetsrieder was true to his word – and from February 1994, BMW’s only tangible involvement with Rover was to provide a much-increased amount of investment.

Source: ARonline.co.uk

Beyond the stuff mentioned they pretty much just helped ensure the car was up to BMW levels of quality, making suggestions here and there.

 

[Robin]

Disagree, the biggest appeal of Volvos is their subtle extravagance, I'm not saying the new Volvos are bad ( I'm saving for a C30 and the S60 is neat ), I just think they are turning into a regular luxury car brand, which suits the tastes of the chinese market. Not my type of car...

Appealing just to European tastes lead to its downfall. Volvo under new ownership does not care less whether the car is appealing over here because they can sell thousands a day elsewhere in emerging markets. Design goes where the markets demand is, even Rolls Royce said its going to make its future cars appeal to the wealthy in those markets. Its a bit like whats already happened with luxury cars appealing to middle eastern billionaire tastes.

Perhaps I haven't put it clearly, british manufacturers aren't there anymore and that's a testament to their lack of competence, but the lack of prowess is mostly on the adminstrative and engineering fronts. Segments on which the germans are very competent. Brits are successful in keeping up with their design philosophy, along with renewing their style from time to time. Foreign companies usually screw up with that balance, just look at MG for example, their cars scream Chinese from every angle.

The MG 6 was entirely designed and engineered in the UK and even has a UK engine so your comment about it 'screaming Chinese from every angle' is obviously coming from some other hang up about who owns it.

It looks no more Chinese than a Ford Focus, actually its looks very much a typical euro design.

However, JLR still maintains british designers and engineers in charge on the design decisions. Look at the XJ or XK for instance, their attitude hasn't been changed from their predecessors. They still are proper british luxury cars on the inside and outside, their underpinnings are made from outlandish expertise and the marketing campaigns that sells them too, but nevertheless they sound and look british, and that's enough.

Old Jag's, Rolls Royce's, Land Rover's etc used to break down all the time so I do hope they have changed their attitude and 'outlandish expertise' when is comes to engineering! With the design side however I do agree that it is something which has always been well done.

I don't see how British engineering can be revered in mass production cars when history has shown they have been pretty poor compared to rivals. Of course today things have massively improved but only after Japanese and German cars came in decades ago and set new standards.

I feel British design and engineering can only be world class when its do with very specialised high budget items such as fighter jets, aero engines, big building projects etc but for mass production a Jag for example is no more high quality than any other european car, what it has got over them however is a name.

 

[Dan_]

Old Jag's, Rolls Royce's, Land Rover's etc used to break down all the time so I do hope they have changed their attitude and 'outlandish expertise' when is comes to engineering!

By 'outlandish expertise' I was trying to say foreign expertise, my bad.

On the MG6, styling is pretty much subjective and regardless of having british components and a british designer, I still think it looks chinese ( specially the front end and the notchback body, why not to do a hatch? )

The Focus is a global car, there is no specific market to associate with it's design and no significant styling clue to determine it's origin. I don't think it qualifies as a yardstick for british design either...

 

[Robin]

On the MG6, styling is pretty much subjective and regardless of having british components and a british designer, I still think it looks chinese ( specially the front end and the notchback body, why not to do a hatch? )

They made it a 'fastback' to make it stand out from the crowd in a pretty competitive segment. There's also a saloon version which looks more normal.

There will be plenty future MG models which will be hatchbacks so I guess they wanted to save that segment till next time.

The Focus is a global car, there is no specific market to associate with it's design and no significant styling clue to determine it's origin. I don't think it qualifies as a yardstick for british design either...

The Focus' design language ('New Edge' and later 'Kinetic') both originated in Europe and it is very much a European design. That look has spread around the world so it can be considered a global look now, even Ford in the US adopted the European Ford design language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Edge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Kinetic_Design

The original Focus was considered a pinnacle of European design and engineering as it was a car that blew everything else out of the water in 1998. The Focus is considered a yardstick for small cars even today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring...ple-who-designed-the-original-Ford-Focus.html

Robin.

 

[homeforsummer]

To be fair on old British cars, the engineering wasn't the problem - in many respects it was up to the standards of any other cars of the day, especially when it came to innovation.

The 1970s-1980s British car industry was brought down by lack of investment and poor quality control. Many of the products themselves were technologically pretty advanced - even much maligned stuff like the Austin Allegro. They were just scuppered by being built by monkeys who were managed by idiots.

As for the Focus, I'd suspect that the Ford Focus is mainly a German product at the moment as I think that's where Ford's European headquarters are.

Not that anyone should be taking credit for Kinetic as it's bloody awful. I guarantee that in ten years time when a Mk1 Focus, Mk1 Ka or Ford Puma is still looking great, Kinetic cars will have dated horribly.

 

[Mazerati]

Really?

Sorry, you might not have caught any of that:

Lotus. Aston Martin. Jaguar. Land Rover. All of whom produce some of the best cars in their respective classes at the moment.

Plus all the classic sports cars I mentioned, without which most modern day roadsters probably wouldn't exist in their current form. Bang, no Boxster, Z4, MX5 et al. No Shelby Cobras without the AC Ace. Hell, even the Chevrolet Corvette was originally GM's response to British and European sports cars, so you can forget about the last half century of those too.



You're failing to explain what part of deciding to bring up the name of a classic GT is actually bad. If someone has rights to a name they can do what they like with it, and I'd rather them try and resurrect one of the classics than let the name rot in an intellectual property vault somewhere.

Stop. Please(!) Just Stop. British cars are a nuisance, a badly made, crumbling nuisance. And soon, the world will realise they want a GTR, GT or M3 instead of a piece of British c***. Made of Steel, and held together by glue. And one by one, each and every one is beginning to fall into the 'bankruptcy' section. And THAT makes the world a happier place, not an old badly-made British company. Que the reply...

 

[homeforsummer]

Stop. Please(!) Just Stop. British cars are a nuisance, a badly made, crumbling nuisance. And soon, the world will realise they want a GTR, GT or M3 instead of a piece of British c***. Made of Steel, and held together by glue. And one by one, each and every one is beginning to fall into the 'bankruptcy' section. And THAT makes the world a happier place, not an old badly-made British company. Que the reply...

My reply: You clearly haven't a blind clue what you're on about.

When you start coming back to me with intelligent, researched responses rather than conjecture then we can continue this discussion further.

 

[Mcjoz88]

DAMN! I thought you meant THIS Interceptor:

^ That is far beyond bad ass. That is past the subzero fridge and well into the next galaxy on the cool wall. It is even cooler than the Cadillac Sixteen which also needs to be built. I would love for Ford to build that concept...

Now on topic, the sketches look sweet so hopefully the final product will be at least half as good and double more reliable than the original.

Whoah! Where did you get that picture? That car looks insane! Do you know when that picture was taken? I've heard of a Ford Interceptor concept before, but that was years ago... If that picture is more recent, then there is still hope!

 

[homeforsummer]

Whoah! Where did you get that picture? That car looks insane! Do you know when that picture was taken? I've heard of a Ford Interceptor concept before, but that was years ago... If that picture is more recent, then there is still hope!

Google and Conceptcarz.com are your friends. That particular Interceptor was revealed in 2007.

 

[Mazerati]

My reply: You clearly haven't a blind clue what you're on about.

When you start coming back to me with intelligent, researched responses rather than conjecture then we can continue this discussion further.

What is there to talk about? Why dont you just accept the fact that MOST British cars are put together with glue, cheap plastics and tape (TVR, Lotus, MG etc.)

If you like them, fine. But don't patronise me because I dislike them so much feel embarrassed at being associated with them.
(Can we please end it there without you, once again repeating your list of British manufacturers with a highlight on Aston Martin)

 

[Famine]

You know Top Gear is for entertainment rather than a factual source, right?

 

[homeforsummer]

What is there to talk about? Why dont you just accept the fact that MOST British cars are put together with glue, cheap plastics and tape (TVR, Lotus, MG etc.)

If you like them, fine. But don't patronise me because I dislike them so much feel embarrassed at being associated with them.
(Can we please end it there without you, once again repeating your list of British manufacturers with a highlight on Aston Martin)

You know, I'd be prepared to drop it if you showed any sign of having a clue what you were talking about.

Firstly, it wasn't myself who highlighted Aston in bold, it was someone else, and I quoted them.

Secondly, at no point has being "put together with glue, cheap plastics and tape" made something like a Lotus Elise or TVR Sagaris a bad car, which anyone not living under a rock should be able to tell you. In fact, I'm still waiting for someone to produce a better lightweight sports car than the Elise, even 15 years after it was first released. And deny it all you like but Lotus, MG and TVR - and dozens of others - have made a significant contribution to the motoring world, even if not all of them have always been built to the highest standards.

Of course, if you'd bothered reading the discussion over the past few pages you'd have seen that was generally a management issue and not an engineering one.

Thirdly, tape? What tape?

Fourthly, just because you say that "most" British cars are held together with glue, plastic and tape, that doesn't actually make it true. I'll say it again: Land Rover/Range Rover, Aston Martin, Jaguar etc. All develop cars near or at the top of their respective classes. Including in terms of quality.

Fifthly, I'm not surprised you dislike them so much, as it's pretty clear from every post you've made so far that you've not made the effort to educate yourself on them. I dislike golf, but then I don't know much about that, either. Not to mention that your pre-judged dislike of this Jensen is entirely based on conjecture that some other manufacturer once made a car that possibly wasn't built very well.

Whether it's a commercial success or not, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a) bringing back the Jensen name, b) Making a sports car called the Interceptor or c) It being British. You can chuck GT-Rs at the conversation all you like but it's a bit irrelevant given that you're creating rivals for a car that doesn't even exist yet.

 

[rocko100]

Aston Martin actually does use glue...

 

[homeforsummer]

Aston Martin actually does use glue...

It's not exactly Evo-Stick though is it?

The "glue" argument is completely irrelevant when discussing cars that have torsional stiffness and strength as high as anything on sale.

People saying "oh, that car's just held together with glue" is no more relevant or accurate than saying "oh, you know that hand-crafted interior is just a cow, right?"

 

[E28]

Aston Martin actually does use glue...

So do Ferrari. If I remember correctly, glue was the cause of the Fireball 458 issue. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of manufacturers that use glue somewhere in their cars.

 

[S13DRIFTSPEC]

I thought u meant this interceptor. Can anyone tell me the movie without googling? hint: "winning" is in this movie.

 

[Famine]

Yes, it's the Dodge PPG Turbo Interceptor from The Wraith.

 

[S13DRIFTSPEC]

yes, it's the dodge ppg turbo interceptor from the wraith.

winning!!

 

[Famine]

Bi-winning.

I recall it's listed as the "Dodge Interceptor PPG Pace Car" in the credit sequence. The Wraith is one of my favourite B-movies, along with Remo Williams: Unarmed and Dangerous (called Remo Williams: The Legend Begins in the US).

 

[niky]

[off-topic]The one where Chiun was played by a Chinaman? With short hair, to boot? Chiun was not pleased, as I recall...[/off-topic]

 

[Famine]

Joel Grey isn't Chinese. And he killed Buffy.

 

[niky]

Chiun's words... not mine. From "The Assassin's Handbook".

Though, yes, I'll give him props for maintaining his dignity while walking on water.

-

Oh, and slightly on-topic... does each Interceptor come with free aviator frames and fake moustache?

 

[Venari]

So do Ferrari. If I remember correctly, glue was the cause of the Fireball 458 issue. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of manufacturers that use glue somewhere in their cars.

Every manufacturer uses glue. It's a necessary evil.

However, you're talking about glueing chassis together, in which case Lotus Elise, Audi R8, all Aston Martins since Vanquish (real ones, anyway) and a variety of new Ferraris (among others) are bonded with extremely potent varieties of epoxy resin.

However, this glue was not to blame for the Ferrari incident. This was another, thermoplastic glue that was used to laminate parts in the wheelarch liners. Poor design engineering and DVP&R work.

 

[homeforsummer]

all Aston Martins since Vanquish (real ones, anyway)

You mean the Cygnet doesn't have a bonded aluminium chassis?

 

[AMCNUT]

The new Interceptor looks good except for the back end. It stretched out too far - I think it would look better if it were truncated somewhat

 

[chalmich5]

Wow it looks amazing!

 

[huskeR32]

http://www.jensensportscars.com/[/U... will admit, that new one is an eye-catcher 👍