These perennial whingers in relation to exhaust emissions are not unlike politics, the more you hear someone talk and talk and talk, the more you turn off and furthermore, the factual nature or otherwise of the spruiker makes no difference.
Moreover, the very conservationists who squark the most about such larger vehicles and their emissions are inevitably the ones who loves the outdoors wilderness experience in their 4x4's. It's hilarious if it wasn't so painful to hear such bleating over and over again.
The first area of interest was published in a News.com article discussing the fall in new car sales as a result of the Labour Government's new FBT laws. (www.news.com.au)
This article listed August's top 10 car sales figures and surprise surprise, six of the 10 were of a larger range of vehicle and 4 were small town cars.
Toyota HiLux and the Holden Colorado were on the list, both representing the large dual cab very popular generic all purpose vehicle. Not your little run about for mum.
Four were your newer style suburban SVU car such as the MazdaCX – these are the new look family vehicle, high off the ground saving that inevitably push up from a sedan's seat, they have everything that walks and talks, and again they are not a little car at all.
There you have it – all bigger than smaller, all energetic beasts of one kind or another, all massively pumped with every good and perfect fuel saving electronic gizmo with every half decent new car sales person ready with a sales pitch to sell you the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Then there is another lot of statistics which is equally enforcing that of the August company car sales. This is fascinating for two reasons, first it illustrates where the sales are pitching and the nature of the purchases across the nation – pretty well on par whether its its Cairns in Queensland or Albany in Western Australia. (www.caradvice.com.au)
Advertising
But its then more interesting to see how advertising and sales match up. Anyone in Australia who even watches a very little amount of television would not have missed any number of the Jeep advertisements. I cannot recount the number of times I and others have jested by repeating the line: "Richard, I bought a Jeep!"
This scenario would have to be an ideal research project for a "statistics" student or a "social engineering" student or a "business school student" as it has all the hallmarks of looking at the underlying parameters between advertising and results. (www.jeep.com.au)
As a result of this advertising campaign their February sales figure for Jeep was a 91.4% increase in sales.
A student would be researching such topics as: Who did the Chrysler company target in this very successful advertising campaign for Jeep; What percentage of the purchases were men or women. In what seminal locations were the Jeep's most prolific sales (coastal, city, regional, rural) ….
Again, the Jeep is not a small car.
Having said all that, churches and missions could take a good long hard look at this new car sales statistics phenomena and draw some conclusions. The bigger traditional car is by no means passed it used-by-date. Intelligent targeted promotions produce astonishing results.
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html