German car makers: Boring or Clever?

 German car makers: Boring or Clever?

I have been thinking for a while about German car makers and their success. We all know about their engineering skills and the reliability of their cars. There is something though that I personally want to get off of my chest. I’m bored of their Epson design skills, all of their range looks like it has came out of a photocopier but in different sizes! I consider myself to be an observant individual and I have a good attention to detail but I’m struggling to distinguish them. I often have to look twice and three times to see whether the car behind me is an Audi A4 or an A6? Just like the car in front, is it a BMW 3-series or a 5-series? There are all too similar. Mercedes is still recognisable but slowly is getting into the boredom area. It goes the same for their interiors, a £60k Audi Q7 has the same steering wheel of a £17k A1. The awesome looking £180 thousand Mercedes SLS has loads of dashboard components found on a £20 thousand B-class. Even the new mk7 VW Golf  looks like a Passat without a boot and no car wants to be as dull as a Passat. I could go on for ages with examples!
However, in a proactive way, I’ve been asking myself about the sales figures of these German makers compared to their competitors and the answer is simple: They make a car for anyone’s budget and desire, from a 1.2ltr Audi A1 to a 6.2ltr Mercedes SLS supercar. Audi has 20 different bodies of cars available in their range, BMW has 18 and Mercedes has 19 and their engine range is endless.
The competition simply can’t handle it, some car makers like Alfa Romeo have minimised their range to 2 models without replacing cars like the 159, Brera, GT and so on. Probably they will replace them in the future but, at the moment, they discontinued them and buyers go elsewhere and stay elsewhere. Like a shop that doesn’t open in regular basis, people simply won’t shop there anymore. Even big names like Jaguar only have an handful of models, clearly missing on a 4x4, a family hatchback, a substitute for the X-Type and clearly leaving gaps in the market which the Germans are quite happy to fill. When I was a child, Mercedes was a luxurious maker of big saloons and when I firstly seen the mk1 A-Class, I thought it was a poor and desperate bet to reach another niche in the market but times have changed and people need to adapt. Jaguar needs to step out from the usual and start to make more cars like the new XF Sportbrake and quickly catch up with the successful Germans. After all, the latest A-Class shows that even a successful car maker like Mercedes can adapt and change the A-Class from being a small people carrier to a very stylish hatchback and very soon the CLA four door coupe. The bottom line is that people will go to the shop that it’s always open and sells a big variety and range of products, Sainsbury’s “Basics” is the range of products for people on budget and “Taste the difference” is the range for the indulgent customers and everyone is happy. MG