Rover Group, Jaguar In The Media- 1993

[nicholls1966uk]

8th January 1993

THE INDEPENDENT


Rover passes Ford as car sales ride high

MICHAEL HARRISON, Industrial Editor

Friday, 8 January 1993

MOTOR industry leaders were cautiously optimistic yesterday that car sales will rise this year after the 37 per cent leap in registrations in December.

That increase pushed sales for the year to 1.593 million - pipping the 1991 total by a mere 1,300 - and brought forecasts that registrations this year could reach 1.7 million.

The sharp rise in registrations to nearly 80,000 in December means that sales have increased, year-on-year, in four of the past five months.

Although sales last year were still 31 per cent below the record level of 1989, recovery may at last be on the way after a painful period of job cuts and plant closures.

The marginal increase in annual registrations was welcomed by ministers and manufacturers as an indication that a key consumer market had at last turned the corner out of recession.

Sir Hal Miller, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, described the figures as a 'considerable morale booster' for the industry. 'They reinforce our belief that the home market is on its way to recovery and we are confident that this will continue, on a more modest scale, throughout 1993,' he said.

Tony Nelson, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, also predicted that the car industry would start to recover this year: 'These figures suggest the measures taken to improve confidence, including the abolition of car tax announced by the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement, are starting to take effect.'

Car chiefs cautioned that it would be unwise to read too much into the figures for December because it is not traditionally an important month for sales.

Ford had a miserable 1992, its market share slipping by more than 2 percentage points to 22 per cent. Rover, by contrast, finished the year strongly, wresting market leadership from Ford for the first time in eight years with 25.5 per cent of December's sales.

Rover's strong performance last month was partly thanks to 4,000 employees at its parent company, British Aerospace, renewing their cars under a special purchase scheme. Its market share for the year fell from 14.4 per cent in 1991 to 13.5 per cent.

Vauxhall finished second with sales of 266,000 cars giving it a record share of 16.7 per cent.

Saturn, the subsidiary created by General Motors to compete with Japanese manufacturers in the North American small-car market, will break even on an operating basis this year, three years after selling its first vehicle, the company said yesterday. It should start to show a profit in 1994.

2nd February 1993

JAGUAR - The 6 litre Jaguar XJ12 (XJ81) is announced.

3rd February 1993

NEW YORK TIMES


COMPANY NEWS; JAGUAR ROLLS OUT A REDESIGNED LUXURY MODEL
Published: Wednesday, February 3, 1993

Jaguar Ltd., the British maker of luxury cars, introduced its redesigned XJ12 model yesterday in Amsterdam, saying the new, $67,000 version is more powerful, more economical and more refined than its aging predecessor. Jaguar, a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company, ceased production of the old series in December after a 20-year production run of 52,210 cars.


February 25th 1993

THE GUARDIAN

ROVER FEARS DENT IN SALES
By Simon Beavis

European car sales could slump by up to 10 per cent this year denting hopes of recovery for UK manufacturers including the loss making Rover, its chairman George Simpson, said yesterday.
Speaking after British Aerospace directors ruled out the sale of Rover, which it will be free to do from August, Mr Simpson said that UK car sales would show only modest growth in 1993 rising from last years 1.59 million to around 1.65 million. But this would be offset by the recession, particularly in Germany and France.
Rover reported operating losses of £49 million last year compared with a £52 million deficit in 1991. The car operation was particularly heavilly hit but the overall loss was contained thanks to a powerful year by Land Rover which had record sales. Rover had reduced its break-even point to 440,000 vehicles in 1992, from some 490,000, but it made 405,000 cars and sold 420,000 in the year. The target for the current year was 400,000 although the group expressed doubts of meeting it.
European car sales totalled 13.5 million in 1992 but in a number of key markets slumped heavilly in January.
Mr Simpson also warned that proposals from the Clinton Administration to increase import duties on four wheel drive vehicles from 2.5 to 25 per cent would push up the price of a Land Rover by $7000 and hurt sales.



31st March 1993

The first production MG RV8 is completed today.


15th April 1993
THE INDEPENDENT

Jaguar in court battle over sales of supercar

Thursday, 15 April 1993


JAGUAR is facing a High Court battle over its pounds 415,000 supercar, the XJ220. Some buyers have refused to pay the latest pounds 50,000 instalment now falling due, after seeing the car's value plummet.

JaguarSport - a joint Jaguar-TWR venture - has issued writs against several buyers for non-payment, but at least one customer is planning to challenge the order in the High Court.

Michael Pearson, heir to Lord Cowdray of Midhurst, West Sussex, said Jaguar was responsible for undermining the XJ220's value by producing a rival supercar, the XJR15, and he would be pressing to be released from his contract.


20th April 1993

The Rover 600 is launched.

THE INDEPENDENT


Business and City in Brief

Tuesday, 20 April 1993

Rover 600 to be launched today

The Rover 600, the car that replaces the Montego and completes the company's three-year model renewal programme, goes on sale today. Developed in partnership with Honda of Japan, the four-door saloon is targeted at the top end of the medium car sector and is seen as a crucial element in Rover's move into niche markets.
Rover has spent pounds 200m developing the 600 and expects to produce 50,000 a year at its Cowley works in Oxford, of which at least half will be exported.

Sunday, 27 June 1993
THE INDEPENDENT

My Biggest Mistake: Trevor Taylor

Sunday, 27 June 1993

Trevor Taylor, 56, is chief executive of Toyota (GB), the Inchcape-owned UK distributor of Toyota cars and vans. He joined the company in 1987 as deputy managing director responsible for sales and marketing, after 17 years as a senior sales and marketing executive with British Leyland in its various incarnations. Starting as national sales manager of Austin Morris, he rose to become director of sales and marketing at the Austin Rover Group and finally the group's director of international operations before he left to join Toyota (GB).

I made many mistakes in my time with the former motor manufacturing companies now called the Rover Group and hopefully learned from all of them.

Perhaps the biggest mistake was believing I could lead a committed sales and marketing team together with a loyal dealer network to overcome all the ills that existed in the former Austin Morris, British Leyland and Austin Rover companies.

Another was accepting volume sales objectives which, in retrospect, had more to do with the companies' desperate need for cash than any valid market potential. For a time, I also mistakenly went along with the notion that the public could be persuaded to buy a product just because it was British.

This all took place against a background of constantly changing senior management and company policies. In my 17 years with the group, I served, indirectly and directly, no fewer than 20 chairmen and managing directors.

Major changes in the group's organisation were successively made by most of the men at the top, not so much for long-term success, but for short-term needs.

The group was repeatedly pulled apart then put together again, creating uncertainty and loss of confidence.

There's a five-year cycle in the motor industry, from the concept of a new car to getting it marketed. But that cycle was sometimes shortened before the car was right.

I probably should have raised my voice louder and longer than I did to demand a consistent strategy and a more competitive, high-quality product, although whether it would have succeeded is questionable.

Nevertheless, in the early Seventies and Eighties, along with our dealers, we convinced ourselves that despite the less than satisfactory quality of some of our cars and the increasing competition, we would overcome the problems.

We were engaged in a crusade and, with the total commitment of our sales teams, we thought we could pull it off.

But it was not to be. I became increasingly frustrated with the constant changes and quality problems and left in 1987; I simply couldn't take another reorganisation.

I am glad to say that the Rover Group is now in private ownership and in much better shape. I sincerely hope that it continues that way for the people who work in it and particularly for the loyal dealer network, who certainly deserve it.

As for my present company, it's a different world. Toyota is pro-active rather than just reactive, and has a strategy for growth rather than retrenchment; for stability rather than uncertainty. And the quality of the product allows sales and marketing to concentrate their minds on selling.

Yet despite the problems at British Leyland and my mistakes there, they gave me an experience of people, practices and business problems in the motor industry - an education which I doubt I could have gained elsewhere.

Above all, what I've learned in this business is that there has to be a commitment from top management staying long enough to see their strategic plans through and to ensure quality product standards both by self-audit and as demanded by the customer.

[nicholls1966uk]

13th July 1993

DAILY EXPRESS

ROVER SALES ROAR BACK

By Tom McGhie

British Aerospace shares took off yesterday on the news that Rover had bucked the Continental trend by increasing sales by 13 per cent in the first six months of 1993. By the end of the day shares were up 15p to 420p as the City concluded the loss-making car division is poised to drive into the black. In the first six months of the year the group sold 202,100 Rover and Land Rover vehicles — up from 178,300 in the same period last year. The newly-launched 600 series, designed to compete head on with the small Audi and BMW, has proved the fastest selling model. In Continental Europe 65,500 vehicles were bought — an increase of 5 per cent and a spectacular result, considering the big decline in sales in Europe.

"These increases are attributable to our new generation of Rover and Land Rover vehicles gaining very positive international recognition,"

said John Towers, Rover Group managing director. The Rover results are further evidence of the upturn in the UK motor industry.



30th July 1993
THE INDEPENDENT
Jaguar seeks aid from DTI to build new car: Grant would keep production in Britain

RUSSELL HOTTEN

Friday, 30 July 1993

JAGUAR, the luxury car maker owned by Ford, is talking to the Department of Trade and Industry about financial backing to build a new car.

Government help may head off intense speculation that Jaguar plans to move some production overseas, an action likely to spark angry protests from politicians and trade unions.

Jaguar and the DTI are understood to be discussing the size of a grant that could keep the manufacture of a new small car, a rival to BMW's high- volume 5 series, in Britain.

A Jaguar insider said government backing 'could make all the difference', though he said a decision on where to build the new models could be 18 months away.

One of Jaguar's factories, a body plant at Castle Bromwich near Birmingham, is entitled to grant aid under the Government's revised rules for development status areas. The bulk of any investment in a new model would go to a body plant, but would cost tens of millions of pounds. It has not been decided whether to base the car on a Ford body or develop a new one.

Development status areas are entitled to up to 25 per cent of a new project. While even the new manufacturing-friendly DTI would balk at spending a quarter of any Jaguar investment, the company believes there are positive signs.

Jaguar is spending dollars 1bn on three new models: a saloon being launched next year; an XJS sports car planned for 1996; and the small car, codenamed X200, due to be launched in about 1998.

The 8,000 employees at Jaguar's three plants in the West Midlands have been fearful of their future since Ford took over Jaguar for pounds 1.6bn in 1989. That fear was heightened recently because of visits by Jaguar executives to Ford's US headquarters.


Thursday, 5 August 1993
THE INDEPENDENT

New model helps Jaguar to pick up speed in US

MARY FAGAN

Thursday, 5 August 1993

JAGUAR'S sales in the US soared by 137 per cent in July to 1,083 cars from 457 a year earlier, exceeding the company's expectations, writes Mary Fagan.

A spokesman said peformance had been helped by strong sales of the new V12 saloon, launched in the US earlier this year, and by the introduction of a 30 day money-back guarantee scheme.

The US is Jaguar's most important market, accounting for more than 40 per cent of sales. Although the luxury sector in North America continues to be difficult, the company said that US sales in the seven months to 31 July were up by 30 per cent to 6,828 in the first seven months of 1992.

Sales in the UK domestic market are showing a less spectacular growth of 10 per cent in the first half of the year. However in Germany, where the luxury car market has seen a 50 per cent slump in the year so far, Jaguar increased sales by 19 per cent in the first half.

Again the company cites the success of the top-of-line V12, which sells for up to pounds 50,000 depending on the model, as an important factor in its German growth.

Jaguar said it was on target for a total car output of between 29,000 and 30,000 this year, up from 21,000 in 1992.


Thursday, 12 August 1993
THE INDEPENDENT

As British as the Japanese can make: The Rover 600 is a triumph of foreign know-how and bolt-on nostalgia. Jonathan Glancey welcomes it

JONATHAN GLANCEY

Thursday, 12 August 1993

THIRTY years ago Rover unveiled its 2000 model, a four-door saloon boasting innovative engineering and uncompromisingly modern looks. Styled by David Blache - the designer who later gave shape to the Range-Rover - this well-built and successful car took solid old Rover into the era of white hot Sixties technology.

This was Solihull's automotive equivalent of the stunning TSR2 experimental fighter- bomber, British Railway's pace-setting Deltic diesels and the latest cars from Stuttgart and Turin. It was launched into a world in which, if not the best, British industry and design was still a force to be reckoned with.

The interior of the Rover 2000 was dressed in wood veneer and Connolly hide; otherwise only the sturdiness of its all-British engineering and construction echoed the character of the stately- as-a-galleon aunty Rovers of previous decades. Most daringly, Blache abandoned the traditional Rover radiator grille. Instead of the imperious face of tried and trusted Rovers, the 2000 faced the motorway age with a long, thin metal grin.

This year, the 2000's successor, the Rover 600, is helping to push the company into a trading profit for the first time in almost 20 years. The most noticeable feature of the new car is the traditional Rover grille, adorned with a Viking longboat, bolted proudly to the front of its curvaceous bodywork. It is a nominally British car which even those uninterested in automotive styling comment on favourably. With the handsome 600, a Rover is a desirable car once more and a real alternative to BMWs, Audis and Mercedes-Benzes.

The success of the Rover 600 lies as much in its undoubted quality as in its adornment with bolt-on chrome accessories. These help to evoke an age in which the values of Brief Encounter held sway, motorists wore hats and gloves and the pound in your pocket was worth just that. That nostalgic grille calls to mind images of prime ministers - Wilson, Heath, Callaghan - sweeping in and out of Downing Street in opulent 3.5- litre Rovers.

Gordon Sked, Rover's head of styling, clearly understands the value of theming, retro-styling and add-on value. Deck a functional Honda floorpan with a voluptuous body, stir in the magic ingredient - nostalgia - and, hey presto, the Honda Accord, on which the 600 is based, turns into a car as British as Dad's Army.

Unlike in 1963, few of us look forward to the future with unguarded optimism. The world seems a darker and more dangerous place and Britain's role in it increasingly marginal. Rover remains the country's sole surviving large-scale car manufacturer, and even then its engineering and production relies heavily on Japanese hardware and know-how. Since 1980, Honda has owned 20 per cent of Rover and its share may yet increase if British Aerospace is tempted to sell the company it bought five years ago.

Without the Japanese, the oh-so-British-looking Rover 600 would not exist. Between the Rover 2000 and the new 600, the company's fortunes plunged first into the dark age of British Leyland ownership before three successive chairmen - Sir Michael Edwardes, Sir Graham Day and George Simpson - restored its competitiveness. Edwardes opened up the link with Honda in 1980. Since then, the Japanese have set up several car plants in Britain. Their success can be measured by the prediction that in five years' time Japanese manufacturers will account for every second car built in Britain.

So a new Rover, despite its olde-worlde radiator grille, is not what it appears to be. It is not the spiritual successor of the blimpish Rovers of the Fifties, but a Honda cleverly disguised in symbols, badges and other add-on goodies that evoke Britishness in the mind of car buyers at home and abroad.

The success of wrapping the Rising Sun in the Union Jack is, however, happily reflected in projected sales figures. Next year Rover expects to make 50,000 600s, of which no fewer than half will be sold in Europe. In France, the Rover name has a similar cache to Jaguar and sales to France and Germany are expected to account for a high proportion of export sales. The Rover is keenly pitched against such formidable rivals as BMW's 3-series and Mercedes-Benz's latest 190 saloon.

The Rover 600 might be a mobile theme-park ('See how grandfather drove - with the aid of today's technology'), but it is also a potent symbol of Britain's survival as a marginal manufacturing nation at the end of the 20th century.

It is arguable that Britain ever was a great manufacturing nation. The beautiful machines and inventive products we are famous for - the great Clydeside liners, Gresley Pacific steam locomotives, Spitfires, contemporary avant-garde furniture and Formula One racing cars - have all been hand-crafted. Rover's Solihull plant was hardly a hotbed of the latest manufacturing techniques in the Fifties and Sixties. When British car manufacturers did attempt to go modern in the Seventies, the industry produced some of the nastiest and most badly built cars in the world.

Today, the only blue-blooded British cars are made by small-scale manufacturers - Rolls- Royce and Morgan among them - which survive on the selling power of craftsmanship and nostalgia. Rover has had the good sense to theme a Honda into a Rover that looks like a Rover, feels like a Rover, smells like a Rover and works like a Honda.

Britain today is no longer the workshop of the world, but its theme-park. We spend a small fortune on turning our city centres into parodies of their Victorian predecessors. Our film industry relies on baroque costume dramas evoking a Britain long since vanished - think of the lush Merchant Ivory productions of A Room with a View and Howards End. We employ architects to hide modern office blocks behind clumsy pseudo-Georgian facades. We swamp our countryside with executive housing estates dolled up with a few period frills. We pretend our edge-of-town hypermarkets are medieval barns.

We sell Britain to foreigners as a land of thatched cottages, cream teas and open-top sports cars. Our Prime Minister fondly evokes a world of warm bitter beer, leather on willow and long, summer shadows on village greens. In short, we do not want to live in the present, and certainly not the future. If, however, we are going to survive as a manufacturing nation, we need a helping hand. We provide the nostalgia and the radiator grilles; others the engineering and manufacturing know-how. The Rover 600 is truly a British car.

16th August 1993

16th August 1993

BUSINESS WEEK

IS ROVER ROARING TOWARD A SALE?

Joseph Rodriguez used to be slow to admit he worked for Rover Group Ltd. After all, he had spent years under car hoods as a mechanic before joining Britain's largest auto maker as a salesman. So he knew intimately the poor quality that had dogged the company for years. "Rovers used to be laughing stocks," Rodriguez explains.

Rover is a different animal today. Thanks to an alliance with Japan's Honda Motor Co., the Birmingham-based carmaker is rebuilding a reputation for quality in Britain. Rover was the only major auto maker in Europe to increase vehicle sales in the first half of 1993, with a 13% jump. And following $152 million in operating losses since 1991, the company should post profits this year (chart). Observes Nicholas Cunningham, an analyst with Soci t G n rale Strauss Turnbull: "Rover is quite capable of making $150 million or more by 1995."

WAITING GAME? That's modest, considering Rover's expected sales of $6.8 billion in 1995. But the prospect of a recovery may be enough to make its parent, British Aerospace PLC, rekindle plans to sell Rover. As part of a 1988 deal to buy the troubled company from the government, BAe agreed not to sell for five years. Come Aug. 13, though, it will be free to sell. The aerospace giant denies any such plans, but analysts believe BAe is just waiting for a strong profit run before selling.

Making a sale could be tricky. Honda already owns a 20% stake in Rover, while Rover holds a 20% stake in Honda's British unit. Rover has soaked up Honda's knowhow in passenger-car development and manufacturing processes. And Honda has tapped into Rover's supplier network and handed off jobs such as parts stamping to the company, cutting its need for investment in British plants dramatically. While Honda executives deny any plans to buy more (or all) of Rover, they confirm that the auto maker is key to Honda's strategy in Europe.

The two companies' fortunes are linked. With limited funds for new-product research, Rover is rebundling Honda-designed cars for the European market. The Rover 600 series of four-door sedans, launched in April, is little more than a dressed-up Accord. And the company's 200 and 400 models, representing a third of sales, are based on the Honda Concerto subcompact. "Without Honda, Rover is more or less finished," says Professor Krish Bhaskar of Britain's Motor Industry Research Unit.

Rover isn't the only one rebundling. In September, Honda plans to repackage Rover's four-wheel-drive Discovery for Japan as a Honda Crossroad. "It's the first time Honda has put its badge on a non-Japanese vehicle," says Mitsuru Sato, general manager of Honda's imports division.

CRUCIAL ROLE. So far, Rover's sales in Japan are minuscule--only 6,200 vehicles in the first six months of 1993. That's a clear sign that Rover relies far more on its Japanese partner than the other way around. Yet the move also signals Honda's confidence in Rover quality--a far cry from the days when its Allegro model earned the nickname "all-aggra," shorthand for all aggravation.

Rover may have more difficulty convincing the rest of the world that it has changed.
"Memories of quality problems from those days still linger on," says John Towers, the company's managing director. Perceptions are changing at home, but competing with European carmakers on their home turf won't be easy. "It will be a huge task explaining to a German businessman why he should buy a Rover instead of a BMW," says Karl E. Ludvigsen, an auto industry consultant.

That's because Rover's future still rides on its Honda-derived passenger cars. Honda's crucial role in Rover's recovery could deter any other auto maker from making a bid, while Honda itself, with its overall business under pressure, would probably not want to spend big to buy its British partner outright for now. Then again, maybe a 20% stake is all Honda needs to control Rover, leaving BAe with the sole option of selling its stake to the public in a stock offering. Rover's recovery is clearly in sight; its ultimate fate clearly isn't.

Julia Flynn in London, with Karen Lowry Miller in Tokyo

[nicholls1966uk]

29th September 1993

COMPANY NEWS; Jaguar Recapitalized
Published: Wednesday, September 29, 1993

The Ford Motor Company has recapitalized Jaguar, its British luxury auto subsidiary, by investing $:300 million ($450 million), The Financial Times reported today. As a result of Jaguar's continuing heavy losses, $:180 million of intercompany debt was transformed into equity to strengthen its balance sheet. Jaguar is likely to increase output to 29,000 cars this year from 22,500 last year, the newspaper said.

[nicholls1966uk]

November 18th 1993

THE GUARDIAN

BAE LOSES ROVER SAVIOUR
By Simon Beavis

British Aerospace has lost the fight to hold on to one of its key directors with confirmation that George Simpson, the groups deputy chief executive and chairman of Rover, is leaving to take control of Lucas Industries.
Mr Simpsons move to Lucas--where he will become chief executive of the motor components and aerospace engineering group--had been widely predicted but was only officially announced yesterday. He will take up the post next May. The move is a blow to BAe where Mr Simpson has been credited with turning round Rover and reshaping the groups construction and property interests. Observers believe that there is also now little prospect that Rover will be floated off from the group, a scheme which Mr Simpson favoured.
But his appointment is a much needed boost to Lucas, which has been battered by recession and whose chairman and chief executive, Sir Anthony Gill, has been searching for a successor since his heir apparent, Tony Edwards, quit as group managing director a year ago after a boardroom split. Sir Anthony will stay on as non-executive chairman.
In October, the Birmingham based group announced a doubling of profits to £50.3 million, after heavy cost cutting for the year to the end of July...........
Mr Simpson, aged 51, moved into the motor industry in 1969 and became managing director of the Rover Group in 1988. He joined the main BAe board three years later. Commenting on his appointment he said :
"My experience at Rover and BAe tells me that there are few more competitive business sectors than automotive and aerospace, and I understand fully the magnitude of my new challenge."

[nicholls1966uk]

28th November 1993
THE INDEPENDENT

MOTORING / Auto Biography: The Rover 623 GSi in 0-60 seconds

JOHN FORDHAM

Sunday, 28 November 1993

SOMEBODY at Rover Cars must be a student of the works of Pavlov, and not just because the company is named after a dog. Rovers still trigger just about the only reassuring, sentimental reflexes Brit-car buffs can experience these days - certainly in non-Aston Martin Virage territory. They live up to expectations - even though they are as Japanese as raw fish underneath.

Two weeks ago this column concluded that this year's Honda Accord 2.0-litre was competent but bland. Isn't the Rover 600 series - launched to great acclaim this summer, and using the same Honda mechanical parts - simply the same car in a different suit? Well . . . yes . . . But it's a pretty exclusive suit.

The unique virtues of this machine certainly lie in the cosmetics. But if the pattern of contemporary motor manufacture is towards widespread sharing of components, this is nothing to be ashamed of. Indeed, it may be the best you can get at affordable prices.

In the 623 GSi model, the trimmings satisfied whatever nostalgia for traditional British auto- building remains. More substantially, they met the highest standards the industry currently sets. Open the door, and catch that powerful perfume of well-fed leather. Ease in and see your reflection in the mirror-finish burr of the walnut fillets in the door-trims and on the fascia. Unlike BMWs, with their rather severe, businesslike grey leathercloth trim and minimal frills, this Rover flaunts restrained hedonism.

The Rover 600 series has been the most successful creation to have left Coventry since the Honda partnership began, though it is more comprehensively a Honda in construction than its predecessors - a Honda rolling chassis in fact, on to which Rover has built its own body. But the combination makes a special car out of elements unremarkable in themselves. Despite its Japanese roots, it's the closest thing to a British BMW so far conceived; it even shares a good deal of that manufacturer's crouching flair and elegance of detail, gaining the edge in such delicate touches as the slim chrome trim around the rear numberplate.

The Honda engine (in 2.3-litre form here) is quick, quiet and makes a Mondeo, for instance - for all its briskness - sound like a chainsaw. The automatic shift fitted to this car glides through the changes, and the handling is very good - if not in BMW's class for eagerness. Like the Honda Accord, this Rover opts for cosier springing than some of its rivals, which takes the edge off its cornering aplomb. But for sheer refinement and class at prices between pounds 14,000 and pounds 22,000, you have to look hard for rivals.

GOING PLACES: One of the sharpest and smoothest four-cylinder engines in the business, delivering 0-60mph in 9.5 secs and similar 50-70 overtaking speeds with the auto box kickdown - but without harshness, excessive noise or soft spots in the power band. Auto gearbox similarly smooth in operation.

STAYING ALIVE: Very competent handling from the Honda chassis, if not quite responsive enough or flat enough on corners for keen drivers. Speed-sensitive power steering isn't too sloppy at low speeds, but lacks road feel. Safety features include driver's side airbag and anti- lock braking on this model, though not on the cheaper 620s. Ride subtly comfortable on all but boneshaking potholes. Brakes excellent; side-impact bars standard; visibility OK.

CREATURE COMFORTS: Air conditioning; leather seats and steering wheel rim; deep-pile carpets; auto-reverse stereo; electric windows, mirrors and tilt/slide sunroof all standard on this top-range model. Good headroom and rear legroom for the class, comparable to those of the Honda Accord. Driver's seat-height adjustment standard on this model, but not on any 620 other than the GSi.

BANGS PER BUCK: Alloy wheels; remote central locking with alarm; power steering; anti-lock brakes; electric windows; sunroof and mirrors all standard on 623 GSi. Fuel consumption not bad for the performance and the automatic gearbox at 23.6mpg in town, approx 35mpg at legal motorway limits. Price: pounds 21,995.

STAR QUALITY: Superb-looking machine, with flowing body design, subtlety of detail and excellent luxury-class cabin. More inviting than a BMW inside, less conservative than a Mercedes. Even the more basic entry-level models use furnishing materials in much more considered and considerate ways. What you also get is quiet, reliable Honda performance.

TURKEY QUOTIENT: Too close to Honda compromises in handling feel, slightly clouding its sports saloon image. But only slightly.

AND ON MY RIGHT: Ford Mondeo 2.0 Ghia (pounds 17,895) - uncivilised engine by comparison, and not so roomy, but now-legendary handling and integrated feel; Honda Accord 2.0 (pounds 15,145) - virtually identical chassis though smaller engine, dull in appearance and interior; BMW 320i (pounds 20,380) - more cramped, not so refined inside, but sharper performance and immaculate steering responses.