MOTORING: Instead of brand new uglybox, go for old car with built-in quality

Amid all the high tech and hyper cost of modern cars,  it is tempting to dream of a return to something simple and cheap.

Dream on. The quest for a vehicle design stripped of everything but the absolute essentials — and therefore super low cost, robust, reliable, simple to service and an ideal utility — has delivered so many eureka moments for so many years that there has long been a name for the concept:  BTV. Basic Transport Vehicle.

Over the years, dozens of designers have told us they have found the formula. None has. Because there isn’t one. No backyard boffin can build a viable, replicable “car” more cost-efficiently than the world’s leading mass manufacturers. The laws of industrial economics and scale forbid even the possibility, never mind the actuality.

Take any current brand of car you like.  Pick any model you like. Strip it of every luxury, every refinement, every accessory, every non-essential component so it is nothing more than a box-with-a-lid-and-windows on wheels, with rudimentary seats, an engine,

gearbox, fuel system, steering, suspension and brakes, and have it made by a small independent operator. Establish the lowest possible production cost.

I promise you, a mass manufacturer could put all the luxuries and refinements and accessories back, and still build it for less. Often a lot less. Any claim to reverse that reality is either a pipe dream or a scam.

This fact does not deny the potential value of simplicity and spartan utility. It is ardently to be hoped that leading manufacturers (old world and new) will use their technical prowess and huge scales to put and keep such models on the menu, with quality.

And if there is sufficient market demand, they will. The Tata Nano illustrates the principle, and how low the costs can be… even without being ultra basic. And what can be done with a little town runabout could also be done with a pick-up, or (somewhat cost-

contradictorily) a 4WD utility (aka a reincarnated Series 1 Land-Rover or a “modernised” Model T Ford.)

But among many crucial points the independent BTV boffins miss is that there isn’t such demand in any market — least of all among low budget motorists or downright poor non-motorists!

You’re in the right place for an abundance of both those categories. So look around. Most of the cars coming into Kenya cost a lot less than the cheapest ever new BTV. And almost none of them is the simplest or most spartan.

Even at the bottom of the bottom end of the old banger budget ladder, bling and frills are marketing must-haves.

If you go below that, to the non-motorist looking for truly “basic” transport/mobility, what you get is (mega-mass produced) boda bodas and Sky-Go piki carts. The lowest cost BTV currently grasping at headlines, and so cost-saving obsessed it only has one windscreen wiper, costs 10 times as much as them. Anyone with nearly a million shillings to spend doesn’t go looking for a brand new uglybox.

For prestige, buyers in that bracket have unlimited numbers of highly sophisticated mitumba cars to choose from. And if utility is the priority, for Sh1 million you can get a 10-year old Hilux or Land-Cruiser with built-in quality and decades of high-capacity life

to spare. Super simple, super spartan is in some demand. But the people looking for that are highly sophisticated users… and have plump wallets.