Hello Mark, On 5/01/2013 10:26 PM, Mark Trickett wrote:
Obsolete merely means it works, but that approach is not good for ongoing sales. STC used to make refrigerators, but the business folded, they lasted too well, so too few replacement sales. If you can do a relatively durable product that is also acceptable in other ways, and get a reputation, there is a space in the market.
Yes, it has to be a fair balance.
The Golf would be safer than the Commodore, it actually handles. GM and Ford have improved, but still a long way to go. It does have "crumple zones", and is quite economical, never under 600Km for the 45 liters of diesel, and it will stretch to over 1000Km, with a little care. The Golf was the first of the cars where they used Finite Element Analysis to tune the body shell structure. As a result, the stresses are reasonably uniformly distributed, it does not have the stress concentration points. Also it has near zero torque steer, and does not pull when one side is slipping under braking. Some quite fancy design that has stood the test of time. Newer does not mean better.
Well overall I am pretty happy with the VE, it does have all the safety stars and handles fine the way I drive it. I run 100% propane usually and get up to 500km [sometimes a bit more] with a 72 litre tank (with a little PULP 98 octane petrol). So, even though it isn't diesel, it is cheaper to run overall and it is a full size car. I did look at the Golf GTi at the time, but decided they were too small for my needs. Cheers A.