I need to make an apology to all our readers who were desperate for a review of the Vauxhall Corsa Sting 1.3CDTi 16v 75 ecoFlex 3dr… because it’s not going to happen.
Equally, if you were scouring our websites – and I know you were – looking for our thoughts on the Vauxhall Insignia SE 2.0 CDTi 120 ecoFlex Start/Stop 5dr, you’ll also be disappointed.
Why? Well, I’m very sad to announce that the Vauxhall press office, the keepers of the keys to some of the most riveting cars on sale (have you spotted any sarcasm yet?) have banned us from driving their cars.
So what’s gone on? Did we crash one of their range into a tree? Nope. Did we print lies about their range? No, that’s not it either.
What we did was dare to publish a column in Car Dealer Magazine that questioned them. You can read that column here, but in short it centres around the absurd quote from the MD that they’ll overtake Ford in the sales charts by 2016 – we simply couldn’t understand how they’d manage that. And said so.
But apparently journalists aren’t allowed an opinion any more. Because if they do express one, and that opinion happens to contradict the manufacturer, then you’re cast aside, banned, blacklisted from driving their cars.
Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? But it’s happening to us, all because Vauxhall didn’t like what we had to say.
So where does that leave honest reviews? It’s ok for the bigger publications like Auto Express and Autocar to have an opinion that the manufacturer doesn’t like, because they NEED magazines like that to write about their cars, good or bad.
But smaller titles, like Car Dealer Magazine, bloggers or freelance journalists – well, they’re all too easy to strike off the list. Unless we toe the party line and write nice things, then why not strike us off – we won’t be able to write things they don’t like after that then, will we?
If we really do feel the need to test a Vauxhall in the future I’m sure there are plenty of well-stocked dealers around the country we can visit. Or, failing that, there seems to be a very healthy supply of them with hire car companies…
It’s worth mentioning a bit of background at this point too.
Earlier this year I realised our relationship with Vauxhall wasn’t going too well, so I decided to extend the olive branch, invite them down for lunch to meet the Blackball Media editorial team, and perhaps chat about how we can work together better.
I sent it to their director of communications. Twice. Then I sent it a third time and copied in the MD. But I still didn’t get a reply. Not even a courteous ‘thanks but no thanks’. It was just ignored.
I don’t know about you, but you’d think a press office’s primary purpose was to respond to the press. It wasn’t like I was asking them how many pre-reg cars they’re pumping into the UK market, was it?
Below is the email I finally received from the head of the press office at Vauxhall earlier today. It appears someone pointed out where the ‘send’ button is.
He mentions he lent us a Mokka ‘not to test’ and was then annoyed when we wrote about it.
For the record, the piece was written by a freelance journalist who had been invited to drive the Mokka at their Luton head office. He based his opinion on that, not the car we were sent for ‘photography only’. I can’t tell you why we weren’t allowed to base our opinion on the car they sent us, because I simply don’t know.
It seems the brand’s director of communications forgot who wrote that piece.
He also mentions my ‘malicious’ article which was very ‘personal and extremely unprofessional’. Again, the link to the article is here – I’ll let you be the judge of my professionalism.
We don’t go out intentionally to annoy manufacturers. But equally we don’t go out to write stories just to please them either. If what we write doesn’t please some people then that’s something we’re simply going to have to live with. And if that means not driving another Vauxhall, then so be it.
I’ve had lots of tweets about the whole sorry saga today, but I particularly liked this one:
@CarDealerEd Perhaps, at times like these, you must remember George Orwell’s words: pic.twitter.com/O9Gy5fkd4C
— Jamie Fretwell (@JamieFretwell) December 16, 2013
Right, I’m off to the framers – not being ‘the biggest loss to Vauxhall’ needs to be on display in my office for all to see.
