CN CONFIDENTIAL: Interesting pick-ups

Ford engineer a joker in the pack; Great Wall pricing is no hurdle at all; Skoda Yeti is no LandCruiser

Whether it's from the www, the latest motor show or the back doors of a carmaker near you, Carsales Network Confidential features the good oil other sources either won't publish, don't care about or don't know. Heard an automotive rumour or new model tip? Then let us know - editor@carpoint.com.au

Amarok's feet of clay; HiLux receives a bashing
Lots of praise for Ford's new Ranger — and not from the usual suspects in the Public Affairs department at Campbellfield either. On a recent visit to the 4WD park at Werribee in Victoria, motoring.com.au happened to get talking with a Ford development engineer who was happy — actually 'delighted' is probably the operative word — to provide some interesting background on the T6 design.

The Ford man was at the park to demonstrate the new Ranger (pictured) to a fleet customer, which was why there seemed to be a full deck of Ford's new LCV present.

Since motoring.com.au was at the 4WD park to compare the Ranger XLT against a host of its competitors (stay tuned to read the results), the Ford man had been drawn to us by the sight of the said competitors.

Clearly the gentleman, who hails originally from Germany, loves his work. To him, Australia is "a paradise" for vehicle testing. He cited the muddy tracks of the Otway ranges, the rocky granite surfaces on the Anakie side of Port Phillip Bay and the sandy stretches of Central Australia. There are just so many challenging environments available to local engineers without even leaving the country he explained.

And if you enjoy camping under the stars, there's nothing like working on the Ranger/BT-50 development project. For what it's worth, Ford Australia's engineering team is the only one anywhere in the Ford world that has a component of its budget allocated to camping equipment.

It's not always happy trails, however. The engineer claimed to have been left stranded by a left-hand drive VW Amarok privately imported by Ford before Volkswagen introduced the RHD Amarok to the local market. Apparently the VW blotted its copybook when clay from a 4WD track found its way up between the engine and the radiator. The electric-powered cooling fan jammed in the clay and the Amarok overheated.

Our friend from Ford also had some words concerning the bashplate of the Toyota HiLux, another benchmark vehicle for the Ranger and BT-50. Ford's engineers, developing a prototype bashplate for the Ranger, basically copied the pattern of the unit under the HiLux. A trip to the 4WD tracks around the ghost town of Walhalla resulted in the prototype coming back in a state best described as "stuffed". It was tossed on the responsible engineer's desk with the admonition "Don't copy Toyota!"

A new bashplate was developed, with round holes in lieu of the long, slender slots used previously. According to the engineer, the unit with the round holes allows cooling air to flow in and water to drain out, but is less susceptible to stress and fatigue in offroad conditions.

At any one time, anywhere between 500 and a thousand engineers were assigned to the development of the T6 Ranger/BT-50. It's hard to put a precise figure on it, since some of the work was being simultaneously handled overseas. Safety testing, for instance, was carried out by Ford in North America, since the facility there is the COE (Centre of Expertise) for safety. Something like 30,000 cars have been tested there since the facility first opened.


Price no object for Great Wall buyers?
We always assumed that people on a tight budget would always demand some serious discounting from the salesperson at a new car dealership, but that's not necessarily so, it seems.

Word from the MD of a local (prestige) importer proved quite illuminating during a recent new-car launch. Over dinner he revealed that the automotive retail equivalent of a licence to print money is a Great Wall dealership. One of the MD's own dealers is a multi-franchiser, with a Great Wall dealership also under his wing.

According to the dealer principal, sales volumes for the Great Wall product are hitting targets and the buyers are already sufficiently convinced they're getting a bargain that they don't haggle.

It's common, apparently, for buyers to walk in off the street and ask the price for a particular GWM model in a specific colour with whatever options the buyer may want. He asserts the negotiations end at that point, if the dealer has the right vehicle in stock…


Brutus and the Yeti
As we've reported already, Skoda's drive program for the local launch of the Yeti SUV was ambitious… For a number of reasons!

For starters, not many serious offroad fans would expect the tiny car to haul its way through soft, boggy sand over stretches measuring hundreds of metres without the occasional tow. We're reasonably confident in fact that some 4WD enthusiasts would have expected the Yeti convoy to be scuttled, with the journalists flown out by chopper. In fact that didn't happen…

And it was probably ambitious to leave the camp site just before 8:00am for an 11:00am check-in for the one and only flight to Melbourne that day — with a demanding 22km offroad flogging ahead, followed by 120km of open-road touring. The track through the river gorge was badly chopped up from the previous day's driving and it took over two hours to complete the offroad section — not without extricating a couple of Yetis at the end of a towrope either.

We would say too that it was probably ambitious of Skoda and Volkswagen's event staff to expect all the journalists taking part to be won over by the beauty of the countryside, the lavish dinner under the stars and the genuine competence of the Yeti. Especially after digging it out of deep sand earlier in the day.

So, for what must be the motoring journalism faux pas of the year, the award goes to the senior writer who offered up his view for the edification of his fellow journos — and the VW/Skoda event staff and management present...

That his return to the Finke Gorge would be: "in a Toyota".

Whoops…

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