London motor show roll call of shame

By Tim Pollard

Motor Shows

25 June 2008 09:30

Time for a roll call of shame. Not every manufacturer will be at the 2008 London motor show and here we spill the beans on the absentees. We called each car maker up and asked them to justify their decision to snub London.

‘We’ll get back to you.’

‘It’s not in our strategy. We’ve decided to go to Goodwood instead though.’

‘We’ve spent our available marketing budget at the O2 [formerly the Millennium Dome, now an entertainment venue] in London – partnering the venue for three years with a footfall of 5 million people.’

‘We’re too busy. We had a record month last month and there’s too much going on. It’s not necessary for us – we’ll probably end up at the Autosport show though.’

‘We looked at the 2006 London show and felt with our range of cars we can take the investment and talk to a broader customer base across the UK, rather than concentrate on the London postcode.’

‘We have nothing new to show. Plus we have budget constraints.’

‘We weighed up the cost and benefit. It’s not in our marketing schedule of events. The show simply doesn’t meet our requirements.’

‘Our strategy doesn’t involve the British motor show. We understand lots of people may want to see our cars, but we’d rather focus on shows like Detroit and Geneva.’

‘Our show schedule is organised centrally by Maserati SpA. We sell 700 cars a year in the UK and haven’t taken part in the British motor show for quite a long time. We normally only attend shows like Geneva.’

‘We have no plans to attend at this stage.’

‘We’ll come back to you.’

‘We prefer to focus on other events. For instance, we’re launching the new Phantom Coupe in a couple of weeks in France.’

‘We have tight budget restrictions. We had to make some hard choices and decided to go with other marketing efforts and advertising.’

‘We didn’t go to the last one and felt our resources would be better used in other areas. We’re spending the cash on improving out products and giving our customers the best value.’

‘It’s extremely expensive to attend. We can do the same thing for less cost at other shows around the country.’

By Tim Pollard