Letter from the UK: the influence and art of selling cars

Gather round and listen to this tale of woe.

A couple of weeks ago I took delivery of a new Audi A6 saloon to enjoy and discuss for seven days with a view to review over time.

Thus, it does not help when cars are damaged.

History of the A6

The sad story is that the A6 (pictured below) was parked (legally!) on the High Street of the attractive country town of Marlborough.

The long and short of it is that we are in a quandary.

But I do wonder if this situation could go on much longer, and I blame YouTube.

Audi A6 before the accident.

The rise of an influential

Undeniably, automotive media is changing.

For the most part, they are not trained in some way like older writers.

In general, car manufacturers are very generous to motoring journalists, and that's valuable.

Automakers are now inviting these influencers to the same launches and events that the old hacks have been putting together for decades.

Are the influencers really influential people?

Often it doesn't.

On the contrary, there are some great new faces on YouTube who promote cars in a really professional way.

I sometimes wonder who these online promotions are, though.

Example;

Jaguar F-Type.

The Times sign

The simple unvarnished truth is that car companies don't care.

However, some magazines have a healthy appeal.

Older people still like to know about the vehicles themselves.

All I want is a beer, a V8 and the open road, but that's just me.

Geoff Masted is a writer, photographer and the author of our Writing from the UK series.