A brand-new Mercedes-Benz, straight off the production line, for under R200,000? Count me in. A small American or Japanese sedan for less than R20,000? I’ll take two. But be quick about it because the local manufacturers are all about to collapse or disinvest.
We’re undertaking a major clearout at home and I’ve just discovered a boxful of newspaper and magazine cuttings dating back to the mid-1980s, when I started writing about the South African motor industry. They make both encouraging and dispiriting reading: the former because the industry has developed so much over the years, and the latter because the same underlying battles are being fought over and over again. Only the battlefields are different...
With an update the Joule could really work