That was a nice message.
JY>is it only 111 pugs lovers in the world ?
There are certainly more. But I think there are numerous reasons why
there are relatively few subscribers to the list and there are so few
Peugeot owners' web pages -- comapred to the say Citroen which has very
active mail lists and an incredible, just unbelievable number of owners
Web pages, online clubs of all sorts, etc. It is only my theory but 1)
in the markets where Peugeot sells lots of cars (like in the UK or
France itself or Germany or say in Argentina), Peugeot is a
common-sense, well-built everyday vehicle. In Britain people know about
Peugeot and think of it as a no-nonsense Protestant company making
no-nonsense, quality, everyday cars. Peugeot even emphasises that the
309s (most popular cars in their class in the UK) are built in Scotland.
Peugeot is very famous for its high perfomance diesel engines -- a car
for a common sense buyer and for all sorts of other things -- like being
world's independent producer of combat vehicles through Panhard, almost
all sold outside of France. I don't think that the public who buys cars
for common-sense and reliability, diesel engine fans and lovers of AML
tank destroyers (say, in the service of South African military) are kind
of folks who create web pages. I may be prejudiced though. I think most
people go to car dealerships, compare Peugeots with other cars, like
Toyotas or Volkswagens, and then by Peugeot. There are still many people
in Europe or elsewhere who would Citroen because it is a Citroen. A XM
parked in front of a mansion reminds on a DS parked in front of the same
mansion a generation ago -- certainly above Mercedes Benz crowd. There
are many automakers that have even smaller independent owners' and
enthusiasts' presence on the Web does Peugeot and some of them do not
have any mail lists. I think the main reason for it is that Peugeot,
very much like majority of all other car makers, never managed to
produce an extremely exciting, unusual car, a sort of car that would
generate almost religious following. It is not much to be upset over as
say Toyota, Honda or Audi never produced such a car either. Volkswagen
had its Bug, Ford had a 1960s Mustang, Austin/Rover had its Mini and
Citroen managed two real legends - the DS and of course the 2 CV, the
second best selling car on the planet, only Volkswagen Bug sold more
copies. I remember seeing an ad for a 1990 2 CV at Citroen Lindner in
Austria. In 1990 2 CV was perhaps one of the cheapest cars on the
market. The asking price a few years later (it happened to be one of the
2 CVs sold in Austria as PSA "wisely" decided to stop manufacturing the
car in Europe as Volkswagen management axed the Beatle just a couple of
years before that) was 1 million Austrian schillings (US$100,000). I
know of no other car that would increase in value so much in any period
of time (and was a very short period of time).Common-sense, good cars
rarely produce enthusiasts, North America, where we have a very limited
choice of cars, is an exception. The second main reason is I think is
JY>Other remark concerns the list of members. I don't understand why I am
JY>alone from '.fr' domain, perhaps some aol or compuserve guy can also
JY>being in france.
-- the price -- the cost of being on the Internet. In the US we have an
option of unlimited local telephone service. For a set monthly fee, a
local telephone company provides an unlimited access to the phone lines.
If you are at home, you can be on the Internet for 24 hours and be
charged nothing (except of course your Internet access provider's fee,
whatever they are). That's why there are so many Americans on the Net.
In some other countries, like Britain or Netherlands, local phone
service is very cheap. However in France (as well as in Austria or
Switzerland and, say now in Estonia -- France Telecom probably gave the
Eesti Telekom the wrong idea) local service is not free, the charges are
PER MINUTE. Unless you have an Internet access at work (and majority of
people do not), being on the Internet is extremely expensive. In the US
(at least in Rhode Island), we have the same situation with business
phone lines, when the telephone company charges 11 cents per every call
and 11 cents per every five minutes -- if home users had to pay this
sort of money plus the cost of the Internet access itself, there will be
far fewer US Internet users than there are now. You use e-mail only from
work, why? There are compuserve and aol services in France but don't the
members have to pay per minute charges?
So, help us to get back our Peugeot and get France Telecom to give you
unlimited local phone service. We'll have more people on this list from
the US and folks with .fr domain.
Cheers,
Eugene