French cars fade

The French are turning away from their Renaults, Peugeots and Citroens in record number and buying foreign cars. After years of declining interest, only 54 percent of French car buyers bought the national marques in 2006. Hardest hit was Renault, which lost 10 percent of its national sales and four percent globally.

Two or three decades ago, eight out of 10 French bought the native product. Even if the cars of the time -- such as Renault 5, Peugeot 305 and Citroen GS were poorly made, they had flair. Before that, in the sixties, Europe marvelled at the style and inventiveness of Citroens' spaceship DS [pictured] and humble 2CV, Peugeot's solid estates and dashing cabriolets and Renault's clever hatchbacks.

Buying French until recently was a patriotic duty and opting for une voiture étrangère was a little eccentric. You can still see garages in the countryside with signs that say "foreign cars serviced", as if they were something exotic.   

Of course Britain, which has almost no brands of its own any more, would love to have France's problem. But what has happened?

[great old Citroen]

[Boring French car: Renault Laguna] 

Globalisation is part of the story. Toyota's Yaris is made in Valenciennes, France, while the new Renault Twingo is being built in Slovenia. Like drivers everywhere, the French are shopping around.

Another reason, though, is that French cars have lost their flair. Renault may have won the 2006 Formula-1 championship with Fernando Alonso at the wheel but all those mono-espaces (people carriers) and Renaults with silly names like Mégane and Clio just don't do it any more. French cars have also failed to match the Germans and even Italy's long-ailing Fiat as they have caught up with Japanese quality.   

I keep hearing about new cars stopping mysteriously. In a taxi on the Paris périphérique the other day, the driver was cursing his new Peugeot.  "Never, ever, will I buy one of these. It keeps breaking down," he said.

The turn-off began in the 1980s, when poor quality forced Renault and Peugeot out of the US market. "I had a Renault and a Peugeot and they broke down," says a Paris friend who edits dictionaries. "Then I bought a Toyota and it ran for 12 years without stopping. But my father has always bought Citroens and will go on buying them,"  she says.

Even the Gendarmerie's highway patrol has joined the buy-foreign trend. They have acquired Subaru Imprezas to replace Peugeots which are not fast enough to catch lawbreakers on foreign wheels.

There has been much agonizing over the Gallic automotive soul this week. The experts are faulting Peugeot-Citroen (PSA) and Renault, the two firms,  for ageing models, boring design and poor quality.

"Les constructeurs are lacking in creativity," says Didier Laurent of L'Auto Journal. "Styles have not changed much. There is little originality or edge in the design."

Recent attempts at innovation have flopped. Over-sophisticated electronics have landed many a Renault Laguna and Peugeot 206 at the roadside. The new  Renault Modus and Peugeot 1007 -- mini-people carriers -- have lingered unsold in the showroom.

An attempt by all three marques to break Germany's grip on the luxury market have failed. With its Darth Vader design, the bizarre Renault Vel Satis, is an embarrassment. Long in the tooth, the bland Peugeot 607 is favoured only by high fonctionnaires and patriots in their sixties.

Citroen earned critical praise for the C6, its elegant new battleship with retro 1970s design [below], but sales are limp. The big flaw in this new "Concorde of the autoroute" is that it is not a Mercedes, le Monde said last month.  The once pioneering car maker is pinning hope on the April launch of the C4 Picasso, a five-seater people mover.

The French makers are also absent from market segments that are important for cutting a dash:  sports cars and 4x4s. Behind the curve again, Peugeot and Citroen are about to remedy this with Asian-designed 4x4s. Citroen's version carries the ugly name "Crosser." This is unfortunate for the UK market where rhyming slang is likely to replace the "Cr" with a "T".

Prospects for these are not great because France has turned against les quatre-quatres. Big SUVs are increasingly seen as dangerous, anti-social trottoir tractors. In Paris they are often vandalised.

The makers have also failed to grasp a trend among French buyers back to  basics. "French cars are too expensive, too complicated and loaded with gadgets that are often overdone," Les Echos, a business daily, said. "They are out of tune with the prevailing concern for simplicity and modest pricing." Renault has managed to score in this department -- though its success is an own goal. The company's Dacia Logan, a no-frills car built in Romania for poor countries, has become a surprise hit, cutting into the sales of domestic Renaults.

In case anyone asks, The Times here has a Ford Mondeo. The French police now drive the same model after Brussels forced the state to open bidding for its fleet to all European products. The Belgian-built Mondeo beat out the French brands that the police had used ever since la voiture was invented.    

    [Un-French French police car]

Comments

[Frank Schnittger]

I suppose you could take a Nation's car industry as a metaphor for its national character and characteristics. The Germans were always good engineers, and latterly have taken to designing with a little more edge and verve as well. However even the great Mercedes went though a period of daftly over complicated electronics and crap quality in the 1990’s: So much so that even their own taxi drivers deserted them.

The Brits were always great at finance and marketing – but actually making things was a lower class activity to be outsourced to Asia once the plebs stopped knowing their place in society. The last great Brit car was the Mini – launched in the early 1960’s I think, and since then there was a steady story of crap quality, boring design, and over-hyped marketing.

Ford of Europe has been a bit of an exception, producing genuinely good “world cars” like the Cortina, Escort, Fiesta, Focus and the Mondeo. Indeed Mondeo man has become the standard moniker for snake oil salesmen of limited creativity and imagination. (Sorry Charles – I have one myself as well!).

The Americans built oversized monsters that wallowed about the roads without feel for or empathy with their environment. Built to burn petrol in industrial quantities and with “planned obsolescence” to maximise waste, they are the epitome of what a modern society should not be about.

The Japanese moved from being synonymous with cheap junk to become a byword for quality in little more than a decade, ironically using American inspired “quality circles” and worker participation techniques which represented quite a culture change for a rigidly hierarchical and authoritarian society.

Korea and Malaysia are not that far behind. It must have been quite a blow to the high fonctionnaires of the French car industry to allow their new 4X4s to be designed in Asia – recognising that leadership in design and technology has now passed away from France as well.

The Chinese are about to do what the Chinese do best. Copy European designs and then lay waste to large swathes of European industry by producing good quality at ridiculously low prices. Europeans are trying to compete by outsourcing production to Eastern European and third world countries, but the highly Unionised nature of the German industry may mean that some day soon even their brand prestige won’t be able to compensate for their production costs in Germany.

Renault launched a pre-emptive strike when it took over its much larger Japanese rival Nissan when the latter ran into financial difficulties some years ago – a very smart move which has probably saved it from extinction in the meantime. However the lack of quality and cost efficiency generally means that the French car industry is doomed unless it gets its act together very quickly.

A bit like French industry generally really, but do the high fonctionnaires care? Actually creating and making things is so foreign to their nature. Not until a French President has to drive down the Champs-Élysées in a foreign built car will they realise that they have a crisis on their hands.

[Sebastien Dine]

"Even if the cars of the time ... were poorly made"
Can you prove it? Can you cite some studies??? Please give quantitative data about car reliability before accusing french cars of being unreliable.

I know many people driving foreign cars and having troubles with them as well.

What about all those old french cars from the 60s-70s still doing well on African roads/trails? Renault and Peugeot are notorious for having reliable engines.

France unlike UK has still a vivid automaking industry with three companies in the automaker top ten...

Please look at facts and stop bashing the french.

[christopher muir]

There's no doubt that Frank Schnittger's image of a French president driving down the Champs-Elysees in a foreign vehicle is very amusing. Be it Sego, Sarko, Le Pen or the crafty Chirac, the industrious Chinese can serve up an appropriate model for the newly-elected head of state. The Zhongxing SUV "Lucky Star" is suitably named and well equipped to carry the fortunate winner in comfort.

[Patrick]

Rigolot de lire cet article assez superficiel le jour où le journal Le Monde fait la même chose sur les voitures US (53.6% du marché pour GM, Ford et Chrysler). Etes-vous sûr que le déclin actuel soit dû au caractère si typiquement 'français' de nos voitures au au nom 'silly' (????) ?

[MCD of USA]

If you can take a Nation's car industry as a metaphor for its character and characteristics, what does that say about Ireland? The list is endless and not pretty.

[Frank Schnittger]

MCD - all it says is that in a globalised world only relatively large markets (or very cheap locations) have the economies of scale to sustain a viable high technology, capital intensive industry. Much the same can be said for aircraft manufacture, armaments. or centres of innovation such as silicon valley etc. That is part of the logic which drove Ireland to join the EU and the Euro. Within that context we are doing very nicely, and thank you for your concern!

[MCD of USA]

Globalization? High technology? The automobile has been around since the latter part of the 19th century. Ideas come from people. Inventive and imaginative people with iniative, not "centers of innovation" that somehow pop up in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Saying a Nation's auto industry can be used as a metaphor for its character is rather 'cute' for a blog, but it doesn't mean a hill of beans in the real world.

[Marc Norman]

Interesting post. I think that we will so some change quite soon as Renault for example has several new cars lined up (which has not been the case for quite a while). The problem has definitely been on these companies inability to renew their products quick enough. Furthermore the product offer is too limited. This is a stong competitive disadvantage that the french automotive industry has to bear. But this should change. Carlos Ghosn, Renault's CEO was sensitive to this issue right from the start.

However I think that there is one more issue: QUALITY. This crucial issue is two-fold. By this I mean that quality of product (which is indespensible) and quality of service. PSA and Renault can clearly not compete with the Japanese carmakers at this level as of yet...

[David Brownell]

Charles' cogent anaysis of French automakers' troubles is spot-on.
Having owned over 80 modern and vintage automobiles ranging from a VW to a Bentley and been connected to the auto business in one form or another for over 40 years I can concur that Renault's and Peugeot's poor quality drove them out of the lucrative US market (along with Alfa and Fiat)in the 1980s.
I owned 3 Peugeot 404s from the 60s and other than their propensity to rust away prematurely they were among the best, toughest, most reliable everyday cars I ever had. Conversely, my '82 505S was plain awful. Every week would bring some new woe--nearly all mechanical and costly to fix.
The French makers in the US were also guilty of poor parts and service networks and of awarding dealerships to anyone with a faint pulse, which hardly helped the parts or service situation. Nor did they sustain their dealers with consistent marketing and promotion. A new model would be supported with great fanfare on its introduction and then promptly ignored like some unwanted foster child as soon as the intro pazzaz was over.( I was fortunate to have a very good dealer for the 404s, but they didn't need that much attention...)
Renault Dauphines simply were unsuited to US driving conditions and quickly earned an unenviable reputation as four-wheeled hand grenades. By the time the R8--a greatly improved car-- was imported the marque's American market image was in tatters.
As for Citroen, I doubt if they ever sold 1000 units per year here as they were simply considered too weird and complex with an extremely small dealer/parts/service cadre despite the basic excellence of the DS/ID series cars.

[M. Fernandez, San Francisco, California]

And I thought the French car was on fire! (Especially in the suburbs of Paris).

As for Frank's rambling anthropomorphic critique of nations via their cars, let me comment on the American part:

"The Americans built oversized monsters that wallowed about the roads without feel for or empathy with their environment. Built to burn petrol in industrial quantities and with “planned obsolescence” to maximise waste, they are the epitome of what a modern society should not be about."

I think they were initially built big because all cars of that era (including British and German) were, and not for the specific purpose of wasting petrol. The price of gas was not a factor at the time. After the war, Europe had little money and steel to spare, unlike America. The U.S. is also a large, open continent compared Europe and European cities. (The U.S. is two and a half times the size of Europe; Britain could fit inside the State of Oregon alone). Dispite shorter distances to travel, your gas prices (huge taxes) are two or three times ours. As Anne Richards (former TX Governor) said, "The price of gas is so high, women who want to run over their husbands have to carpool." Parts of America have extremely harsh winters. You don't want to drive a Mini in Wisconsin. While a Hummer in L.A. is an obvious sign of consumption without caring, what else do you expect of hypocritical L.A.? (They'd also be the first to write a post like yours). Many people, especially with children, buy large cars, even in more temperate climates, because they believe it is safer in crashes (and studies show that is correct.)

I'll have to concur with MCD about using cars as metaphors for a nation's character. Does Ireland's lack of a car industry suggest that the Irish like to walk, are too shiftless to work or that their creative ingenuity never leaves the pub? If there is one nation that could perfect a car that runs solely on ethanol, surely it's the Irish.

[M. Fernandez, San Francisco, California]

Frank:

I should also point out that Ford of America produces their genuinely good “world cars” like the Escort, Fiesta, Focus and the Mondeo in the US as well. (And, at least in San Francisco, the hottest car on the market is the Toyota Prius (or Pious, if you've ever had to drive behind one).

[Sarah Hague]

I chose a French car (Peugeot 406 break) over a foreign car because of the cost of repairs. Having had Rovers, a Saab and a BMW, and suffered long delays for parts plus extortionate service/repair costs, the Peugeot is quick, easy and cheap to repair. I think it has a great design, is marvellous to drive, comfortable and, touch wood, has only given me trouble once when a dashboard light came on for no reason urging me to stop.

However, I will add that the 505 we used to have was the most appalling car ever made for breaking down. I swear it had been the on the receiving end of black magic; that or being made on a Friday afternoon before the Grandes Vacances. Even the back windscreen exploded without provocation...

[Miquel Bragulat]

Having driven throught France from Calais to Marsella just last week. I can not agree with the statement 'French cars fade' when 7 out of 10 cars driving along with us were definitely French. Where do you get your unreliable source?

[Edward Johns]

"(And, at least in San Francisco, the hottest car on the market is the Toyota Prius (or Pious, if you've ever had to drive behind one)."
That model would probably sell much better in the States if it were to be re-named "The Priapus"

[Rod Slater]

Interesting information. Here in Australia, we have now just 4 'local' manufacturers, being Ford Australia, General Motors Holden, Mitsubishi Australia and Toyota Australia. Back in the late 1970's the Federal Government introduced legislation which 'Guaranteed' an 80% market share for locally manufactured cars, by introducing import license restrictions, to limit imported cars to a maximum of 20% of the market, then whacked a 57.5% tariff on all imported units. Today, some 30 years later, import license restrictions have been abolished and import duty reduced to as low as 5%.... The result has been a complete reversal of the market share, with imports now accounting for 80% of the market and the 'local' manufactured cars enjoying just a 20% market share.

[Frank Schnittger]

Will someone please explain to my American friends that my "anthropomorphic ramblings" were written in jest and that a metaphor does not pretend to be an exhaustive analysis of industrial innovation or strategy. The idea that the Irish should design a car fuelled purely on ethanol is clearly a non-starter, as we have better uses for the stuff!

[M. Fernandez, San Francisco, California]

Edward Johns -

LOL. Since the Toyota Prius is slightly smaller than a shoe box, I can't imagine that any man (or woman) would buy one with a name like 'priapus'.

Of course, the BBC had a recent story about condoms being too large for most Asian men and Toyota is a Japanese company... [This would support Frank's thesis].

[Gervas Douglas]

Considering how difficult the parasitical French state makes it for anyone to do anything productive (they have a keen pupil in the form of Gordon Brown), it is a wonder that they produce as many good products as they do.

French cars used to be noted for practical, hoghly original and useful designs. Given the right conditions of governance, I am sure that they could rediscover this flair.

[Dan Jacobsend]

Japanese and Korean cars are of better quality and (most often) cheaper than Western ones. The US, France... Why would someone buy a "local" car knowing that it will consume more and not last as long?

[rob ruffles]

Well the Jd power survey which is featured on top gear etc prove that they are unreliable. It is not always the japanese that are top Skoda have very reliable cars for around the last 10 years. It doesnt take a rocket sciencist to feel the quality differences between a german and french car.

[Edward Johns]

Talking of car model naming, interesting that numbers feature heavily in France still (Citroen C2, C3 etc.etc. Peugeot 307 and so on) whilst in the Anglophone cultures names have become the thing ( Probe, Viper, Charger, Mustang etc.) What would Freud make of it all?

[Frank Schnittger]

I'm not familiar with the Freud make. Is that an Austrian car? The machismo evident in many Anglophone car names clearly points to the importance of sexuality in marketing cars - the bigger the bonnet etc...

I friend of mine was less than pleased when informed that his pride and joy - an Audi TT - had just been nominated "Gay Car of the Year". He had been affectionately referring to it as his "fanny-catcher". Serves him right, really.

Some names are obviously aimed at promoting a class based society - as in the Mercedes A, B, C, E, M and S class models. Others follow a football league like hierarchy, as in the BMW 1,2,3,5,7 series etc. Presumably there is then some hope of promotion.

In France, it seems, they do their sex by numbers, and everyone knows their rank by whatever C number they drive. It used to be that someone's status in society was determined by how many cattle or wives (= chattel) they owned. Now your ego is reflected in the size of your car.

Even the women are in on the act. Any self-respect ex-women's libber now drives a large 4x4 for the school run in the mistaken belief that they are safer. Research shows that they are

a) more likely to kill pedestrians and other motorists, and

B) more likely to overturn or crash because of poorer handling and road holding characteristics.

But I suppose killing other people doesn't count in the safety concerns of such people.

So what is the sexual significance of 54% of French people buying foreign brands last year? Forget reliability, quality, functionality - they are for nerds. It’s all about making a statement: that the French are no longer the best lovers in the world. If you really want to get laid, buy a foreign car. It performs better.

(I’m doing my best to get your blog ratings up, Charles).

[William Longyard]

Have owned and wrenched on over 70 cars, including US, French, Japanese, German, British, and Italian, I can say that Japanese cars are vastly over-rated, while British cars were vastly under-rated. American cars were the best compromise for durability, and value. It is a feature of modern western democracies for their peoples to denigrate their own national products, for probably the same reason that adolescents have to scorn and ridicule the very parents who give them allowances, and subsidize their university educations. The French auto industry will die, like the formerly grand British industry, because of too much government involvement and workers' intransigence. Within ten years we'll all be driving Western designed- Chinese built bland-mobiles, and a couple generations from now the Chinese will be supplanted by African factories. These days I mostly ride around on a US designed, Chinese-built scooter. I'm fed up with cars.

[Lin Wolff]

Having moved to France 6 years ago, we promptly traded in our 12-year-old trouble-free Isuzu Trooper for a new Renault Espace, which has never worked right and began to fall apart almost immediately. Never again a French car!

[Martin]

I hope France doesn't lose its car industry, which is heavily entwined with its cultural identity and pride in itself, as British car manufacturing used to be with our cultural identity and our pride in ourselves.

These days the major UK industries are financial services, alcohol and pharmaceuticals. Money, drink and drugs. Is this a reflection of our new society, or the cause of it?

[Maggie]

Iagree with so much of these posts.
Having had 5 different French cars over the years, [all started to have problems or fall apart after after around 18 months.] I finally saw the light.
We have often noticed, when driving in this area of Brittany, the car usually being collected from the hard shoulder by the break down truck , are French models.
Since switching to German cars I have had 2 cars in 23 years, the present one for 13 years.
Oddly it has been heavy on windscreen wipers,! but so reliable I still have no need to change it.
The only reason I sold the first German car 10 years old, was when I moved to France & needed a left hand drive.
Recently I returned from my annual trip to Africa, the car had been sitting in an open air carpark at the airport for 5 weeks, my joy once again when it started on first turn of the key. !!!

[Elfriede Lafferty]

Tell me about the French car Amor. I am not sure of the spelling. Where can i get more information?