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LE MANY commercial de manufacturers limp g, Mercedes-Benz in the ad Kingdom has never had it
Dod. Erich Krampe,
aging director, chose an • lolstered cellar" in one of Ion's smart hotels iembered for the
ssination of a foreign ntate on its doorstep) to dcast its good fortune. ith the main Mercedes-Benz mercial vehicle plant at rth working to full capacity, fear's registrations in the iad already been exceeded f last month and this year's aver would slightly exceed I million, said a proud aging director. This might ne of the reasons why the pany's display at this year's ar Show was 25 per cent er than in 1980. Another is a a. range in models.
'here are no secrets left in rade," Erich observed in eying the latest ilopments. Whether he was ailing the demise of :edes-Benz's extensive and I insive research and ?lopment department was o the imagination.
an Grigg, product marketing ager, also made slight ands on the imagination a fascinating expression, itimeability." Without ling to look a gift horse in nouth, I doubt whether I I be using it.
aches delay rail e rise
_ PASSENGERS have coach .ators to thank for the ponement of the next )ase in fares from this ember until January 9. sh Rail, which has already a great deal of traffic ugh strikes, was afraid that more passengers would
defect to the coaches over the Christmas and New Year holidays. It is also possible that intense cornpetiton from road transport has influenced the decision to restrict the increase to an average of 7 per cent — the lowest for 10 years.
As news of higher fares was being announced, leaders of the SDP travelling from Derby to Great Yarmouth on their six-day "rolling" conference were champing for an hour and a half in a broken-down train in darkest Cambridgeshire. As delegates at Yarmouth threw out Roy Jenkins' incomes policy, this was perhaps one of those occasions when it was better to travel hopelessly than to arrive.
There's no busyness like Show busyness
SO THE ATTENDANCE at the 1982 Motor Show was down on 1980 and below expectations. Were you surprised? — Not us — we anticipated it. Apart from the fact that the man in the street is now a more careful spender than he once was, the pre-show publicity was very low key. And yet ..
"We've been taking orders." That was the report on every stand. We hear that one visitor wanted to place an order for the Bedford HA electric van without knowing the price or the delivery date. Everyone had a good show so perhaps it was a quality—if not a quantity audience. I put the point to Erik Johnson of Mercedes Benz. "That's it" he said, "all interested parties. It's only the tyre kickers who have stayed away."
All aboard for a shopping spree
TRANSPORT is ceasing to be the aim of the cross-Channel ferries. Instead they are becoming floating cut-price stores. I look to the day when Sainsbury's will take up the challenge and push a supermarket into the sea at Dover.
Woolworth's might reestablish itself by converting its stores into floating emporiums at 3p and 6p, although the new owners would probably look askance at the economics of P and 0 Ferries' gifts of spirits and cigarettes valued at £20 to passengers who take a £13.50 day-return trip from Dover to Boulogne during the winter.
Give a lorry a bad name. . .
THE UBIQUITY of the lorry as the nation's freight-mover has resulted in its association with crime in a popular euphemism for theft. I was reminded of this by an article in The Daily Telegraph on the "black economy," which the Inland Revenue estimates is losing the country £4,000 million a year in taxation.
The writer recalled: "In less taxing times we grew up aware there was a netherworld in which shadowy types made impressive sums which were never reflected in any Board of Trade tables ... people who were there when stuff fell off the backs of lorries, fences and crooks.
"Nowadays ... barely a third of the unreported income stems from illegal activities. The millions of people raking in grey money are otherwise respectable types engaged in aboveboard professions and occupations . .."
They may even include hauliers, whom idiom has already given a bad name, so they may as well be hanged for sheep as lambs.
Buses warn against university cuts
THE GOVERNMENT will be reminded daily for the next year that cuts in higher education are unpopular. The Association of University Teachers has taken poster space on two buses that pass the Houses of Parliament to declare: "Britain needs its universities."
"If [the campaign] is successful it will spread to other London buses and possibly the provinces," said The Guardian. This would surely be a classic example of overkill.