I popped along to the London Motor Show at the beginning of this month as I was interested to see how the event would work.
After a big bang announcement 18 months ago and various hairbrained ideas since, including shipping people by helicopter to Brands Hatch for test drives, it turned out to be a fairly low-key event that, if you didn’t know better, you wouldn’t even have realised was on.
Held in Battersea Park, on my way to the event I walked across most of the expanse of greenery without seeing a single hint that a big show was taking place there – not a sign, flag or advert. It felt like, after making some big promises about attendees (most manufacturers were there through a dealer rather than as themselves), the organisers had deliberately throttled back.
A colleague described it as like a motor trade fair from the 1970s, and as a car enthusiast’s event, there was plenty of exotic and fairly new metal. I’m not sure there was enough to warrant the £15 entrance fee, and one of the targets for next year’s event, which has already been confirmed for 7-9 May 2017, must surely be to try and engage with the business market, something that didn’t really happen this time. It was a good start, and something to build on, but there’s plenty of work to do.
The early responses have started coming in for the pioneering Driverview survey that research specialist Experteye is producing in partnership with BusinessCar.
Later this year, the feedback will lead to some interesting conclusions about which company cars provide the most satisfying ownership proposition, so if you’ve got something to say about the experience of acquiring, driving, servicing or anything else to do with your company car, then head here.
Plus, you could win a rather enticing goody bag containing an iPad, Air, a weekend in a supercar, and £1000 to fund a weekend away.
