by Wim Otten
I HAVE a thing for cars, ever since I was a kid, but how do you get that passion across in a guest column for De Daily Dutchman? To do so, I’ll go back in time to my first memorable backseat experience in a Lincoln Continental. An early 1960s model. One of those in which John F. Kennedy did not have a pleasant back seat experience, to say the least. But all that aside.
As a 10-year-old in 1968, I sat in Jan van den Brink’s Lincoln Continental, together with his son and my then-friend Sander. It was on a Saturday. We were on our way to Artis Zoo. Van den Brink would drop us at the zoo while he had a meeting as a member of the Executive Board of AMRO Bank. I felt privileged in such a car with a 7.5-liter V8 and 364 horsepower.
I remember “dad” Van den Brink as a friendly man, back when I was still unaware of his stint as a cabinet minister of Economic Affairs from 1948 to 1952 in the Drees/Van Schaik government. Those were the days of the American Marshall aid, with which he and his cabinet department undoubtedly were involved during the reconstruction of the Netherlands.
Van den Brink hit the gas pedal hard on the A1, which had become a highway from Naarden on in the early 1960s. That was still allowed, as there was no speed limit. The needle ran out of scale space on the odometer, which went no further than 120 mph. Impressive! On the Wibautstraat in Amsterdam, Sander begged his dad to take off hard at a traffic light jumping green. We were pushed into the back seat. I looked back and saw the Lincoln leaving two black, still smoking tracks on the asphalt.
I RECALL it all, now over 55 years later, almost in detail. Yet I never bought a Lincoln or any other American car. That was true for many of my peers. We liked them, but that was all. Funny, right? The American Big Three manufacturers, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford (to which Lincoln belongs) did more successful business with compact cars from Opel (GM), Simca/Talbot (Chrysler) and with the European-built Ford models like the Taunus and the Cortina.
With large, luxury models from brands like Cadillac, Chevrolet and the aforementioned Lincoln, it remained muddling along in the margins. Frits Kroymans put his experience with exquisite, sporty and luxury brands to use for a while after the turn of the century for Cadillac and also the sporty Corvette. To no avail.
So is it all over with American brands? No, one brand is still for sale in the Netherlands and Europe, officially and therefore not through gray imports. That is Jeep. The Jeep Renegade and Cherokee are popular. Recently there is even an all-electric Jeep Avenger that seems to be hitting it off as well. Jeep owes its presence here to the cooperation started early this century between the Fiat group and Chrysler, to which Jeep belongs. The then-formed Fiat Chrysler Automobiles merged a few years ago with PSA (Peugeot and Citroën) to form Stellantis Group. So there is financial clout behind it as well.
JEEP SELLS and that may also have something to do with childhood sentiment. After all, many external features of the current models are modelled on the original Jeep. Which is still on many people’s minds thanks to films about World War II and the Mash series. Images that will certainly feed some sympathy for this brand.
Incidentally, Elon Musk’s Tesla should not go unmentioned. This American brand is the market leader in the EV segment in the Netherlands, and remarkably, many young people are fans. Could that perhaps be due to their first backseat experience in a Tesla? For example, the current Model S accelerates from standstill to 60 mph in 2.1 seconds. Super-fast therefore, and that really makes an impression. Compared to that, a Porsche is just a sucker. So who knows, maybe Tesla has the young folks and thus the future?
* Wim Otten follows, analyzes and interprets developments in the world of cars and mobility, working as chief editor and content specialist at Buro N11, the “authority on mobility”.
