The Insider
The Insider is Fifth Gear’s man on the inside.
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Still here...Just
It’s been some time since I last applied fingers to keyboard, for which I offer my profuse apologies. As you can imagine, working in the motor trade for the last few months has been far from the…
Winners and losers
It’s been a miserable Christmas for tens of thousands of people who work in the motor trade, from the Land Rover engineers wondering if they’re ever going to get a chance to develop new products, all…
The silver lining
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough doom and despair to last me a lifetime. Believe the hype and the British motor industry is in the sort of condition you’d expect to find a week-old corpse…
Stick or Twist?
There’s a new dilemma facing the owners of nice, newish cars in the current credit-crunched economy – is it better to sell up now and move into something cheaper, or should they keep the faith and…
Bangers are back
Something strange happened the other day. I was minding my own business, having a cup of tea in the kitchen and making the most of the unseasonal snow that had prevented me from driving to work when a…
Keeping the white flag flying
Don’t get me wrong, I know better than most that there’s a recession on. I work for a large dealer group that has pretty much gone into hibernation as it tries to weather the storm, and thousands of…
Thinking the unthinkable
It’s only a few weeks since we were hearing about car factories being put on extended vacations and workers losing their jobs – but now it looks as if several well-known car makers could actually go…
It's time for a scrap
When was the last time you visited a scrapyard? Unless you wear a string vest and have ‘LOVE’ and ‘HATE’ tattooed across your knuckles, the answer is probably not very recently. Until last week I was…
What a load of scrap
I thought I’d seen most things during my time in the trade, but I must admit that I’ve never witnessed anything as daft as the Government’s half-baked plans to supposedly re-invigorate the British…
History catches up with Alfa
In a break with recent form I’m going to spend this column discussing something other than the Government’s recently announced scrappage scheme. Don’t worry, it’s a topic that I’ll be returning to…
Scrappage: the view from the frontline
Less than 24 hours after the Government’s Scrappage scheme started, I got a phone call from a mate who manages a big Toyota franchise. Knowing my love of high-quality bangers, he could barely contain…