Tell me, are there lots of 'American' cars there? What is the reaction to the car, to american cars?[/QUOTE]
Tell me, are there lots of 'American' cars there? What is the reaction to the car, to american cars?[/QUOTE]
Thanks for all the kind words guys. To answer this question, no there are not that many American cars on the road. Remember, to be sold in South Africa a car MUST be Right hand Drive, so that exclud3es most US cars. It has been incredibly frustrating these last few years to see the US arms of GM and Ford not bothering to make their cars RHD. Chrysler was the first to make RHD cars and as a consequence huge numbers of Grand Cherokees, Cherokees and Neons were sold. They also sold a fair number of 300s, Voyagers. The Dodge brand was introduced recently a you see a fair number of Nitros and lots of Calibers (they sell probably 1300 Calibers per year). The problem is that all of a sudden Chrysler (and Jeep in particular) has gotten a very bad reputation for reliability- its even worse than Land Rover in our local surveys. The poor quality of plastics in the Sebring, Calibre, Compass, Patriot etc has also dented Chrysler's reputation, and thus its market-share. In my opinion Mercedes/ Daimler stuffed up this great company. Other than the Chrysler group cars, the only American cars on the roads are very few STS (I have only seen one on the road) and SRX (see about half a dozen). As for the reaction to US cars, it really differs according to how brain washed the person is- lots of car enthusiasts get all their information from Top Gear and British publications, and lots of our own car journalists are of British origin, so the anti-US bias comes through thick and fast, which regular people parrot. I have also found that people's taste in styling has been conditioned by exposure to European and japanese "jelly bean- feminine" styling, so reaction to the styling of the 300C and CTS is not always positive. That being said, there are lots of people who remember the US cars of years ago and love to see Cadillacs and Chryslers on the road. Lots of people hate the dominating German luxury trio and welcome something different, and of course, lots of people have open minds and will try something different. The reaction to my CTS has been very positive- regular people tell me they love it all the time- in traffic cars pull up to have a better look and give me a thumbs up. The most enthusiastic are the African and Indian population groups, the Europeans are more subdued. The only slightly negative reaction was from my boss - she called the styling "too American". She drives a Merc CLK.
Oh, two of our car magazines tested the CTS against competitors- Car Magazine tested it against the 3 litre Jag XF, Volvo S80 and Lexus GS300. The CTS came second behind the Jag although it kicked its Indian-Brit ass in all the objective metrics, including price- one more example of pro-British bias in our auto press. Cars in Action magazine tested the CTS against the 3.2 FSI Audi A-6 and the BMW 330- the CTS won that comparison easily.
As for smoking the rear lights- no I think I will leave them as is, at least until I see what other owners do- if they get them smoked and they look good, I'll consider it.
Thanks again for the compliments, and thanks to the guys at the Lansing Grand River Plant for producing this great car.
