A lavish carfest

THE IRISH Motor Show is a lavish carfest which proves annually what everybody already knows: automobiles are fascinating. Like a sumpptuous banquet spread tantalisingly beyond Mr Everyman's reach, the machines stand in exotic, expensive rows, many of them unattainnable.

But the car's cost doesn't stop thousands from pouring through the turnstiles to view what they can't afford while also, but usually with less enthusiasm, inspecting what they can. Nothing, except perhaps a house, says more than a car about a person's sense of style and, of course, status. Rich people hardly ever drive about in cheap cars.

The motor show provides people with an opportunity to indulge in their fantasies, to dream a little - when I'm rich, that Alfa Romeo. Then they move on to the bread and butter, the low-margin, high-turnover, ecoonomy cars, the practical machinery that provides acccommodation for the family, luggage and all the other norrmal impedimenta of suburban life. And they buy.

Sales in Ireland, starting from a low base, are impresssive. Last year, a record one, we spent £250m on exactly 81,526 cars. It was a vintage year when, apparently, buyers forgot the horrors of nearly £1 per gallon petrol and realised that cars aren't just status symbols; they are essential. It was a year, said a senior marketing exxecutive in the industry, when "anybody who didn't make money was both inefficient and badly organised".

Those who are doing best, at least in sales, are catalogued monthly in the indusstry's 'league table' which lists private new car registrations by marque. The latest figures (for December) say a lot about the state of play. Ford, for instance, who have the backing of a tight and loyal dealers' network (a vital inngredient in market penetraation), grabbed nearly 26 per cent of the market compared with over 30 per cent the previous year. Fiat (14.7) retained second spot. Datsun, the high-flyer under the vigorous direction of Maurice Buckley, rocketed to 9.6 per cent compared with a minisscule 1.9 per cent a year beefore, holding a narrow third over Toyota/Skoda's 9.2 per cent.

Fiat, unhappy with their percentage, appear to have arrested a slow slide and connfidently expect to hit 18 per cent within about 18 months. They grossed about £36m in sales in I 977. Datsun and Toyota illustrate the Japanese challenge -"We handed it to them on a plate", said one executive som'ewhat ruefully.

Whatever the reason, the rise and rise of the largely unexceptional but keenlyypriced Japanese models has transformed the market. Within four years, for innstance, the Mahony brothers, Tim and Denis, have guided Toyota from a two per cent market penetration (when they took it over) to nearly ten per cent. In doing so, turnover has gone from £4m to £28m.

Datsun, a franchise that was ailing in the hands of the troubled Brittain Group, has taken off under new management. Now it's 25 per cent owned by TMG and 75 per cent by the Arab connecction, the respected Kuwaiti merchants, Al Babtain Group. According to the marketing controller, Tony Kelly, the turn-around was achieved by working from 8 am to middnight. Within less than a year, the Datsun franchise is in a break-even situation.

There's no doubt that the arrival of models from the Land of the Rising Sun has made competition tougher. This year, it's expected, will start sorting out the eventual survivors, as Japanese cars move towards a 25 per cent share of the market.

According to industry sources, most of the growth will come on the economy end' where manufacturers offer a lot of options to' buyers. The reason is that Ireland is only now becoming motorised in the European sense and, inevitably, people start with what they can afford. On our roads are approximately 550,000 cars, roughly one auto for every six people compared with the EEC average of one in four. (In the UK it's less than one in three but, of course, families there are smaller.) It adds up to what marketing men call 'an open-ended situation' with a lot of room for growth. Saturation is a long way off.

This year the big three are prepared to run harder to hold their positions. Fiat, for instance, has undergone an organisa tional streamlining under their relatively new boss, Attilio Basile, a 40old Fiat career executive who first came to Ireland late in 1976, and is poised to attack the market with a range of new or remodelled cars, such as the long-running 127.

Basile, who speaks English with an engagingly strong accent, has specialised in difficult jobs outside his home base. Described by his staff as "tough but fair", he was deputy managing direcctor of Fiat (UK) and, before taking over Fiat (Ireland), was for seven years, general manager of Fiat (Canada). Fiat's acquisition of Lancia and Ferrari give the company a broad grip on the market place.

Like the other dealers, Fiat is worried about that looming imponderable - the price of petrol, the Sword of Damocles over the industry. Consumers have, after, an initial shock, accepted petrol prices . that ten years ago would have been genuinely fantastic. But, if petrol conntinues to go up, will they refuse to carry the burden and take the bus or train instead? Certainly, CIE's long-range planners are connvinced they will opt for the latter course. Perhaps the long-term future is in public transport.