Light at the end of the tunnel

There is truly a bright light shining at the end of the dark tunnel. Despite the fact there is actually a recession, the local automotive industry is still active with new model releases here and there, albeit on a smaller scale. It is still nice to see something new in the industry nonetheless. Sales figures aren’t all that bad either as performance is still within the forecasted flat growth levels.

The more active brands are interestingly the luxury brands. One of the more active brands has been Mercedes-Benz through its distributor CATS Motors which has released two models already (CLS and S400 Hybrid) and will be introducing another model next week, their third car in the last three months; the E-Class Coupe.

Lexus recently introduced the IS300 Coupe to go against the Mercedes-Benz SLK and the BMW 325i Coupe.

Asian Carmakers Corporation, the distributor of BMW recently came out with their new flagship 7-series and more recently introduced the new Z4 Roadster. Meanwhile, its sister company Columbian Autocar Corporation, rolled out the new Kia Soul last month.

Toyota has made some model introductions with the facelifted Camry, a new Fortuner variant and some improvements to its Innova and Hilux.

There are also brands that have performing very well despite the crisis, which is very positive in times of trouble. Mitsubishi has managed to climb to the second spot in the overall vehicle sales charts led by its popular Montero Sport. Still on a high from successful sales figures last year, Motor Image Pilipinas, distributor of Subaru is once again expected to post record sales figures this year.

Last but not the least, congratulations is in order for Top Gear Philippines which recently celebrated their 5th anniversary at the NBC Tent highlighted by a quiz show entitled “Are you smarter than The Stig?” of which I was actually part of and won. So there, I am smarter than The Stig. But he’ll outdrive me on any given day.

Editor’s Blog