ANE Congress 2008
I’m attending Automotive News Europe’s Congress in Turin next week. I go every year and it’s a useful occasion to get up to speed on some topical issues, hear some good speakers and meet up with people. It’s usually fun, too. Last year’s was in Prague and I wrote a review.
Hard to believe that was a whole year ago. Back then it looked like Volvo Cars was close to being on Ford’s sales block. And private equity was still all the rage.
Looking back, there were some prescient remarks from UBS analyst Max Warburton on Ford.
Must say, I liked Matt Donnelly’s (of Russia’s Rolf Group - he’s left there now) very direct way of expressing himself: ‘Russians don’t like hatchbacks - the weather gets very cold. Open the hatch and grandma in the back dies.’ He had one heck of a laid-back presenting style, too. I spoke to him on the phone last October - interesting bloke.