Alpina & Brabus – more alike than it seems!

      
They have rarely been directly compared as companies, nor have their cars been pitted against each other very often.
Like Smart (Wikipedia) and Mini (Wikipedia), one similaity can be found in the relation of both Brabus (Wikipedia) and Alpina (Wikipedia) to Mercedes (Wikipedia) and BMW (Wikipedia) respectively. They are independant and in eternal coopetion with AMG (Wikipedia), Mercs housetuner, and BMW M GmbH (Wikipedia), the maker of the famous M-Series.

Brabus is maybe “just another tuner”, but it is the most famous one with a great brand recognition. And, on special projects, it is not AMG but Brabus being Mercs premium brand – think of Smart.

Alpina sells cars through the BMW network including warranty. The cars are manufactured under the name of Alpina, unlike all other BMW specialists, who “just” modify cars.

• Both are quite old compared to other car specialists, Alpina is 42 (1965) and Brabus just turned 30 (1977).
• Both are very distinctive and exclusive, more so then AMG or M-Series.
• Both emphasize torque, whereas M and AMG play the sporty high revving game.
• Both have a more subtle body style for their cars compared to the loud AMG and M-Series.
• Both have recognisable characteristics and styles: both have special wheel styles, both have their favourite colours, Alpina has got the elegant blue and green with light cream interior, whereas a typical Brabus is black.
• Both enhance and improve the basic car characters of BMW and Mercedes. Brabus is the classy brute, powerful and impressive, yet representative and relatively understated. Alpina has got finesse and elegance. Alpinas have got relaxing power delivery compared to the hyper-nervous Ms. Alpina is proud of sophisticated engineering, often shining with lower fuel consumption then lesser powered factory Bimmers.

Some prefer the AMGs and Ms of this world, I am more the Brabus and Alpina guy. I particularly like the Brabus C- and CL-Versions with big engines and the Alpina B3, B5 and B7. I usually have a penchant for estates and if a convertible is on the wish list, there will be no competition between the B3 and the future M3 Cabrio. Convertibles are about enjoying and savouring the ride, not chasing and racing.

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Tags: BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Brabus, Alpina, BMW Alpina, B3, B7, B5, Cars

No deal with those

So let’s present the not-really-candidates to buy either Jaguar, Volvo and Land-Rover or all of them together!

The unlikeliest are:

DaimlerChrysler – well, Daimler has decided to loose the Chrysler name, so why on earth should Daimler make another marriage when they just divorced their 10-year long partner? Also Mercedes is far to close to the three brands, Land Rover, Volvo or Jaguar.

BMW – some seem to like such a deal, I tend to differ. Land Rover or Jaguar are not interesting to BMW, remember Rover? And btw, BMW already owned Land Rover and seemed quite happy to get rid of them. After all, they could have kept Land-Rover just like Mini.  Volvo? They are front wheel drive cars, so what platform or component advantage would such a deal have for the BMW? Although some analysts speculate that Volvo and BMW customers are different, in our increasingly heterogenic world, who knows. So such a deal is not going to happen.

Volkswagen – Skoda and Audi are the Volvos of VW. So why adding the real thing, when Skoda and Audi are selling nicely? And VW has other problems to think about, the shareholding structure and Porsche, productivity and cost efficiency as well as the reshaping of the VW make.  How aboutLand Rover and Jaguar? Land Rover is a niche player and in combination with Bentley might be an interesting luxury option for VW. Jaguar is loosing money, rear wheel drive and therefore difficult to swallow. So, a VW deal is unlikely.

GM- oh please !

Japanese – Honda and Toyota don’t seem to wish to buy in general and show that brands can be developed from scratch quickly and successfully. So why on earth should they buy problems when they don’t have any?

technorati tags:Ford, Jaguar, Volvo, Land-Rover, BMW, Mercedes, Daimler, Toyota, Honda, Porsche, Skoda, Audi, Automobile Industry, buyers

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Let’s have some fun with Volvo, Land Rover and Jaguar

OK, so now we know officially that Fords wants to sell it’s silver. Everybody has known that for quite some time and if somebody had made Ford an interesting offer they would have sold those three long ago. But nobody seems to make an offer interesting enough. Why?

Industry “insiders” play games and publicly try to marry especially Volvo to some other car firm, like Renault-Nissan, PSA or BMW. For whatever reason, the big Japanese are not in the game. Maybe because Japanese firms have never really bought any big rival, considering those actions and the consequences too messy. And as they have shown, it’s easier to create brands like Acura or Lexus from scratch.

So let’s have some fun and explore some options over the next days. I have my favourite solution which I will present at the end of this “series” and I sincerely hope that Ford doesn’t make a deal before we finish our speculations. That would indeed spoil the fun

technorati tags:Jaguar, Land-Rover, Volvo, Ford, Automobile Industry

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Wie smart ist Daimler-Chrysler?

Einem Blogpost folgen typische Kommentare zur Marke smart und deren Autos. Die smart Kritiker teilen sich üblicherweise in die, die die kleinen Flitzer nicht mögen und die, die smart eine Teilschuld am wirtschaftlichen Mißerfolg von DC geben.