Author: Tony Hill
Title: The MiTo\’s Perfect Timing
Article: There’s no real way of denying it – from motorways to town centres, shopping centre car parks and pertol station forecourts, it’s clear that our cars our shrinking.
Less car manufacturers are pumping out adverts for high-power, gut-busting performance cars and seem more interested in telling us, the potential buyer, how many miles we can get for a gallon of fuel in their latest little motor.
Take Alfa Romeo, for example. Not usually one of the biggest contenders in sales but no they’re doing big business with their MiTo. Usually associated with style and passionate performance, they’ve managed to make huge waves in a market they’d previously never stepped foot in. In fact, this author has seen more of their supermini on the road than their other models lately.
So what’s behind this sudden shift in habbits that made the launch of the Mito so perfectly timed? First up is the recession. Oh it’s doom and gloom out there for many businesses and it was certainly a really tough time for the motor industry. The Top Three in America were on the brink of vanishing without assistance and more than a couple of European car makers were shaking in their boots as Japanese companies also posted losses. Fortunately, for the Mito, Alfa’s parent company Fiat wasn’t in trouble.
With consumerism fading fast, exchange rates playing havoc with prices, car sales were slipping fast. In an attempt to both clean up the air and help put a bit of fire under car buyers, the UK government followed the lead of others in Europe and kicked off the Scrappage Scheme. Encouraging drivers to trade in their big old gas guzzling pollution mobiles with the incentive of up to four thousand of the purchase made a newer, smaller sufficiently more enticing.
The fact that fuel prices are seemingly climbing on a daily basis really didn’t hurt the MiTo any either. Everybody is looking for ways to save at the pumps. From driving less to being a bit lighter on the accellerator, saving on fuel is motivating behaviour more than 0-60 speeds ever did. Accordingly, it’s little surprise that smaller, more fuel-efficient cars do well even without the added incentive of the discount offered by the Scrappage Scheme. After all, it’s more than your normal part-exchange would cover and when you factor in the amount saved in fuel it all looks a lot more sensible.
Looking less sensible is the key for the MiTo though. Not only is it sufficiently fuel-friendly to fit in with the Scrappage Scheme’s trade in offer but it doesn’t look like every other small car out there. There’s an almost disease-like rash of small cars that look identical – can you tell the difference between a Peugeot 107 and a Citroen Saxo without the badges? Alfa Romeo’s little supermini looks like nothing other than an Italian styled performance car and it’s this quirkiness coupled with perfect timing that means there’s bound to plenty more of them on the roads. Tony is an online marketer and researcher. He is currently researching the Alfa Romeo MiTo Medway and Alfa Romeo Medway
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