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THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC
Page 151
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• Just who is selling all those extra vans this year? The market is up by about 15% on the same period last year, so which manufacturer has gained? The answer has a depressing predictability to it for anyone who has observed the van market in the past few years. Most of the manufacturers have gained, with Ford leading the fray, but Bedford is the exception to the rule.
In the 1.8-3.5-tonne sector, which rose 15.8% to April this year over the same period last year, the Ford Transit has increased its share to a whopping 44% from 38.5% last year. Bedford, with the Japanese-built Midi van in this sector, has dropped from 5.7% to 5.3%. It's hardly a shocking loss of market share, but sadly ignominious. The story in the lighter market sector (up to 1.8-tonnes GVW) is no better for Bedford, in spite of the fact that here the Luton company offers the Vauxhall-built Astra van derivatives, the Isuzu-built Brava pickup, and the Suzuki-designed Rascal van. A gentle slip in Bedford's market share from 29.6% to 26.7% in the same period to April as last year has been reciprocated by a 6.7% increase in Ford's market share this year.
Surprisingly, there have been gentle declines in the fortunes of Rover, Renault, Peugeot Talbot, Nissan and Citroen in this small but important market sector. Fiat has done extraordinarily well with its new Fiorino and Citivans — the Italian company's sales have doubled to a 2.2% market share. Even Lath has almost tripled its sales, although its share remains a lowly 0.36%.
While the truck market is widely predicted to be headed for a downturn later this year, the van market may maintain its current high levels of sales, if not its levels of growth. The thinking behind this is that the van market is more closely allied to the prospering service sectors of the economy, while trucks cannot sever their links with the declining manufacturing sectors.
Within the healthy market there doesn't seem to be a single manufacturer with a product that can attack the Ford Transit's stranglehold on the 1.8-3.5-tonne sector, and the Dagenham boys seem to be doing similar things with the Escort and Fiesta vans in the under L8-tonne sector. Bedford is still trying to reverse a slow decline in its fortunes, with some success of late. Renault, despite the protestations of UK managing director Loic Caperan, is still fighting for supplies, and undergoing a model change in the Trafic and Master van ranges.
Leyland Daf (née Freight Rover) has diverted some of its UK production for European export, hence the static sales figures in the UK. Of the other players, the SEVEL-built vans (Fiat Ducato, Peugeot Talbot Express and Citroen C25) have a 5.4% share of the 1.8-3.5-tonne sector, which could improve dramatically if the trio sort out issues like servicing and prices. Nissan has done particularly well with an ageing series of vans and pickups, probably due largely to the competitive price of the vehicles, and Toyota has shown strongly in the heavier end of the market with its Liteace and Hiace vans.
The van market might remain stable, but several outside factors will cause the manufacturers some headaches in the near future. Foremost among these is the EC legislation on diesel particulates and white smoke. Meeting the legislation can involve some heafty investment from vehicle builders, and co-operative deals will probably become more common to offset the costs of producing the relatively small volumes of engines required for vans.
The cost of fuel is unlikely to remain static for much longer, by next year the fashion for more and more power should have run its course, with the emphasis swinging back to economy. There are several new ranges of vehicles on the way, notably from Leyland Daf Vans and Volkswagen. Leyland Daf looks set to fund the whole of the new van project in-house, so the new model might be less ambitious as was at first thought.
Volkswagen remains a dark horse in the reckoning. It has a front-wheel-drive Japanese-type bodyshell that is expected to appear in the 1990s. Time will tell if its close work with Toyota on the Taro pickups (built at VW's Hanover factory) will continue with the replacement for the Transporter van, now in the twilight of its life.
Building light vans remains a black art for on-lookers from the car industries. Sales volumes hardly justify the sort of massive investment that is needed, so model lives have to be long to recoup at least some of that money. Co-operation seems to be another way of maintaining profits, but will this lead to a paucity of models, and a return to the sort of "badge-engineering" that would make even the British Motor Corporation blush?