Testing day for car hacks

Ferrari 360 Spider F1: The world's fastest cash cow?

Last week, the motor industry set out to create a car-nut's heaven at the Millbrook test track in Bedfordshire. BBC News Online's Jorn Madslien joined an army of journalists for a day out in the sun.

Imagine that all the shops in your local high-street have been replaced by car showrooms, filled to the brim with the world's finest motors.

You can purchase... [this] top-of-the-range Spider version with the Formula One transmission system for about £120,000, and you can make substantial profit on the car at the moment

Adam Rowley
Ferrari

Enter one of them, and you are met by a salesman with a big smile, who hands you a set of keys and says: "Why don't you take it for a spin - there's a race track just up the road".

Nah. Wake up. Couldn't happen.

Unless, that is, you are a car journalist, and you've been invited to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) annual Test Day.

Millbrook heaven

When an army of keen motoring journalists gathered at Millbrook late last week, we were presented with a high-speed track, an off-road patch of mud, and a hill route with twists and turns and bumps and bends.

BBC News Online's Madslien wearing shades, looking rich.

At our disposal was an impressive array of Maseratis, Jaguars, Alfa Romeos and Porsches, flanked by less sporty but equally luxurious models from the likes of Lexus, Mercedes, Volvo and Audi, as well as by off-road kings like Range Rovers, Chrysler's Jeeps and Mitsubishi's Pajeros.

And, according to Audi's man on the ground, Jon Zammett, what was on show was a vision of the future.

"The biggest trend we can see at the moment is that there's a polarisation happening, where many manufacturers are racing for the high ground," he said.

"The buyers these days are looking for premium products, premium brands, and the middle ground is going to get thinner," he said, predicting the death of the mid-market vehicle.

Shared attributes

A quick spin in an Audi TT roadster, roof down and sunshine, and it seemed obvious that he might be right.

Ferrari's Rowley wearing even better shades, looking even richer.

This luxurious convertible bears little resemblance to the VW Golf, the Seat Leon or the Skoda Octavia.

But, in fact, they are all built around the same platform.

Even the TT's engine has been based on a 1.8 litre block that makes up the main part of many other engines slotted into cars made by the VW group.

Such sharing of expensive parts has made it easier and cheaper to create new models without having to build them from scratch.

And this has enabled car makers to target niche markets that were previously served almost exclusively by entrepreneurial car makers such as the UK's TVR.

"I think the market [for sports cars] has expanded, but a lot more of the bigger manufacturers have seen the small niche they can sell some cars into. That's made it a little bit more competitive," screamed TVR engineer and die-hard car enthusiast, Neill Anderson, trying to shout louder than the roar of his TVR Tamora engine.

Look no roof

The wide array of convertibles whizzing around Millbrook pointed to another reason why the shift towards luxury cars has become more than a possibility.

Criminal: The Skoda Octavia and the Audi TT have a lot in common

Modern, light steel has made light-weight convertibles cheaper and easier to make.

So many a sun-seeking journalists spent the day climbing in and out of a range of relatively affordable, small topless tigers by MG, Honda or Toyota.

With a lucky few even getting a chance to take the supercharged Ferrari 360 Spider F1 for a spin.

And as is often the case with journalists: They could not spot a business opportunity even if they were sat in one.

Which, in this case, they were.

Rolling cash-cow

"We have a three-and-a-half year waiting list for the Spider version and about a three-year waiting list for the hard-top version," said Adam Rowley, technical director for Ferrari UK and the Middle East.

TVR's Neill Anderson and his baby

"Demand is so high that quite a few customers are not prepared to wait and will pay a premium to buy a car."

"So you can purchase one of these cars today for £105,000 for a hard-top with normal transition, or this one being the top-of-the-range Spider version with the Formula One transmission system for about £120,000, and you can make substantial profit on the car at the moment."

"Some people are actually making a £20,000 profit," Mr Rowley said.

Money-go-round

But most motorists live in the real world where, according to an SMMT report, a car generates more than five times its showroom price during its life.

SMMT's Christopher Macgowan wants motorists to pay less tax

And whereas this may not be the case for Ferraris, the SMMT chief executive Christopher MacGowan pointed out that:

"Over the course of the... life of a car, we actually all pay an enormous amount of money for the various things that car consumes, and that's the cost of motoring."

Mr MacGowan was referring to costs such as insurance, petrol, parking, servicing.

And tax, which is what he preferred to focus on, stressing that a quarter of all the money paid out by motorists end up in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's pockets.

The SMMT's Test Day: A playground for motoring journalists

Other costs were seen as welcome contributions to the economy as a whole.

The argument may have seemed to simplistic, but we journalists did not challenge his views.

We were too busy spending the day looking rich, wearing shades and whizzing around in flash bits of metal that roared like large, angry animals.