Forget impartiality: the best news in years is that Gordon Murray has found a fantastic partner in Yamaha to progress his city car concepts and iStream manufacturing system.
As you’ll read elsewhere, the companies have been talking since 2008: how hard must it have been for Gordon not to tell anyone, or count his chickens? One big decision remains.
Motiv is Yamaha’s project and their big board must decide whether to build it. There’s no second-guessing them, but none of us can believe that once they’ve seen the Tokyo pandemonium, they won’t see a future on four wheels.
The Motiv’s significance can hardly be underestimated. It has a strong chance of bringing Yamaha into the car-making field, with a flourish and a hugely appealing new product that completely disguises the fact that their entry is probably decades overdue. It presents a sincerely appealing alternative to stamped-steel construction, a “given” for the past 70-odd years that has made small-car manufacture less flexible and less profitable than it needs to be in modern times.
It also represents glorious vindication for the vision of an extraordinary man, Gordon Murray, who saw the future more than 10 years earlier than the rest of us and has worked steadily to show us what we really need. At last, many people believe him.
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Thank you Autocar. Thank you Gordon. Thank you Yamaha. I'm in
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