You know what, I like communists. I’d never actually met one unless you count communes in Observatory where “free spirits” argue over who bought the milk. However, I met a self-described “Marxist” the other night and she said – among other trivial things – that she couldn’t watch F1 because of the “monotonous droning sound” of the (most fabulous) engines on earth going by.
A rather upset Logan, yesterday.
Well, maybe she should buy a Renault Logan I thought. Perennial kapitilists BMW’s headquarters in Munich resemble some sort of futuristic production line, designed by the top architect of our day who happens to be an Iraqi woman. Factories in the Old East – and specifically Romania where the Logan is ill-concieved and built – were actual Dickensonian factories.
No CEO-style lounging facilities and a mineral water fountain where you can witness the birth of the marque through liquid digital trickery. No, the Communists knew what a factory was for: making things quickly and effectively and if that meant lying to a family about an asbestos-influenced employee’s death, so be it.
So this privileged, educated pea-coat wearing liberal might not like the sound of progressive free-world technology but she’d never consider buying a Renault Logan. In the post-Communism-drenched Eastern Bloc, factories smell like chemicals and you wish you were dead. In her experimental drug world of cheap cider and awkward (bi!)sexual encounters, her parents would insist on her driving a safe car, like a Polo or a brisk walk to Sociology.
A silver one.
She also tried to explain Spielberg’s Oedipus syndrome to me. And I yawned, in much the same way I did when I hit the accelerator on the Logan. I mean this is your car, Communists. Familiar, similar, drudgingly shite and doomed to failure.
It’s like waking up for work in a factory where you know you’ll die on the production line in 30 years. Of a boredom-induced coronary. But, as I said, I like Communists because they know who they are and they apparently – according to official documents – know what they want.
Well, you know what, the entire fucking car industry has no idea what we want. GM and the rest of Detroit metal has consistently and regularly failed us with their promises of making cars that will change your life, but are incapable of doing anything other than being the automotive equivalent of trying to make a meaningful connection with your teenage step kids.
The Logan, in it’s Warsaw-at-night appeal does no such thing. It’s rubbish, and proud of it. In the same way Kazakhstan think they might make it to a World Cup. I love their optimism, hate their democratically fattened acolytes and have a soft spot for their inept, sturdy cars.
Try one. You won’t be that disappointed.
PS. Ciro and I wanted to insert a joke about Logan Josh (as in the curry) but I couldn’t. Accept our apologies.
Gavin Williams
