Joint venture cars don"t...

Joint venture cars don"t give brand loyalty. After owning a C-Crosser, you"re as likely to buy a Mitsubishi as another Citroen

I recently drove a Citroen C-Crosser, a not too unpleasant sport utility that under the skin is, of course, a Mitsubishi Outlander. One evening, I idly flicked through the brochure. “Stylish, versatile and beautifully crafted,” it gushed. Whatever you think of Citroens, they are usually stylish and well thought out inside. Take the cabin of the C6, or the practical innovation of the C4 Grand Picasso. That’s in contrast to the C-Crosser’s dull cabin, with its Mitsubishi stereo requiring an electronics qualification to tune in, or the chamfered door handles, which thwart any attempt to close them for those with wet hands.

“On the inside, there is a continuation of the exacting high standards,” cooed the blurb. No, it’s just a badly designed carry-over part from Mitsubishi. But we should be used to makers’ co-op deals. The Sixties badge engineering of Austins, Morrises, Rileys and Wolseleys (as well as Bentley and Rolls) taught us to be wary of salesmen bearing gifts. Was it a Hillman Imp or a Singer Chamois, and did it matter? In the Seventies, Ferraris had Fiat switches and Lotuses wore Morris Marina door handles. Porsche lost millions with its 924, when it allowed Audi to build the first models out of its parts bins.

In the Nineties, we had the unhappy ‘co-operation’ between Ford and VW on the Galaxy/Sharan/Alhambra MPV, and then the Fiat and Peugeot/Citroen people carrier. When I asked Tadashi Arashima – president and chief executive of Toyota Motor Europe – how the deal with Peugeot/Citroen to build the Aygo/107/C1 was going, he replied: “There are good and bad things about joint deals, but we’re very happy at the moment.”

Too right he is – the Kolin plant in the Czech Republic can’t turn out cars fast enough for eco-conscious and CO2-taxed Western Europe. Yet even this, a model of how to do business between makers, has had problems.

As the Kolin plant has to be a financial success, the factory-gate price is fixed to the participants – and for Citroen that means little leeway for discounting. At one point, you could buy a C2 for less than a C1. There have also been regular bust-ups between the partners on what constitutes no-compromise items. Last year, Toyota president Katsuaki Watanable wrinkled his nose and said he wouldn’t do another deal like that.

For the car makers, joint deals mean reduced development costs and the ability to compete in niche markets that they couldn’t afford to enter on their own. But such ventures can also compromise and erode brand identity.

Look at the Ford Mondeo-based Jaguar X-Type as an example of how badly they can backfire. It’s often the small stuff that matters. The door handles and light switches, the way the central locking works, how the seats adjust or boot releases... all these tell you that you are driving a particular make of car, unless it’s the product of a joint enterprise.

And if you don’t believe me, look at Mercedes, where most customers can step into any model in the range and expect the controls to look, feel and operate in the same way. The huge wiper, lamp and flasher stalk the firm uses is ugly and clumsy, but it screams Mercedes as much as the three-pointed star.

You can’t say the same about the C-Crosser or any car from a combined venture – they just don’t engender brand loyalty when customers trade up or down. After owning a C-Crosser, you are as likely to buy a Mitsubishi as another Citroen.

These deals often mean that participants have to compete mainly on price, which as I’ve already explained, isn’t always an option. This year,

we will see the new Ford Ka, a Polish-built joint venture with Fiat, based on the Panda/500 floorpan. I wonder if we will recognise the Ka as a proper Ford?