It’s 2015 and the Yanks are coming. After ripping off the Band-Aid and finally pulling the pin on Australian production, Ford and GM are sending their homegrown heroes across the waters in an attempt to keep some hold of their meat-and-potatoes V8 crowd.
Ford is deploying the brand new Mustang – which incidentally is a pretty stunning looking thing, especially for a retro design (which I usually loath with a passion) – whilst GM is being a little more mysterious and referring only to a “V8 powered, 2 door sports car”. GM really only build a few models globally now, sometimes hanging different shaped panels on them depending on the badge they want to use. So it’ll be a Camaro, or some slight variation of.
What does seem to be plainly obvious is the traditional Aussie formula – big 4 door sedan, big engine – is largely dead. I’m sure both the blue and red camps will keep a toe in the water with an imported sedan (the day we start using the word “saloon” is when it’ll be properly dead and buried), probably in front wheel drive format, but the days of big sedans sitting atop the sales charts permanently are well and truly gone.
The demise of the humble sedan is largely instructive of the demise of Australian auto manufacturing as a whole – unfortunately drivers, not even Aussies, want them anymore.
Why?
At the risk of sounding unnastrayan, the problem for the sedan is – particularly in the face of so many other options – it’s just not that great at anything.
They’re big and spacious, if that’s what you need… but not as big and spacious as 4WD or softroader. They look alright (at least some do), but they’re sure as hell not an Aston Martin in the aesthetics department. They’re quick and powerful, but generally not as quick as a genuine performance car on the road – and when they are, it’s achieved by stuffing so much excess power under the bonnet that you’ll quickly be funding the lifestyle of your increasingly friendly local tyre dealer.
They’re cheap, but you simply can’t compete in the value stakes when the government removes tariffs and you’re up against Asian alternatives being screwed together by men who can’t buy a litre of petrol with their hourly wage, in “factories” where anything above a dirt floor is excess overhead. They’re kind of well-built and reliable, but they don’t compare to your sister’s Corolla, which is running like a dream despite not seeing any form of maintenance other than a fuel nozzle and window squeegee for the past 3 years.
In short, they’re an all-rounder. OK to good at everything, not great at anything. They’re a tool of compromise. And in this country, after nearly a generation of relative economic prosperity, compromise it not really something we do any more.
Which brings me, a bit clumsily, to another Aussie all-rounder: Shane Robert Watson.
I thought Watson’s first innings in Sydney was a perfectly illustrative Watson performance, which perhaps helps to explain why the long-overdue questions regarding his place in the national team are growing a little louder. He strolled out onto a road, at 1/200. Dave Warner and Chris Rogers had belted India’s already fragile attack into submission. The sun was shining, the stands were full, the bowlers looked disinterested. It was the perfect time to come out and make a score. A real score, sorely needed by the no.3 bat who had just four test centuries in 103 innings.
A huge score would have been very welcome. In a funny way, you could probably even understand holing out for a low score, having sat in the sheds for hours and being overly eager to take advantage of the situation.
Watson?
He scratched around and accumulated slowly. Played a few nice shots. Looked uncomfortable, but got over it, which is always a good sign.
And then lost his wicket, for 81.
It really does sum up Watson the cricketer as a whole. It’s a thoroughly acceptable innings… but just not the big, memorable ton that was clearly on offer and so sorely need by the first drop batsmen who hasn’t hit a test hundred in over twelve months. Good, but not great. The all-rounder.
As a medium-fast bowler he has 70-odd test wickets at 33. Definitely a useful option for the skipper when he’s fit enough to bowl, but not a frontline weapon. A handy man to have in the slips with a safe pair of hands. And finally, in the area he seemed most determined to specialise, a few thousand test runs at 36. They’re the numbers of a top order batsman in one of those god awful, vanilla English teams of the 90s, the ones who’d come out here every so often to give the nation an ego boost. But not acceptable to Australians whose sublime batting lineup has performed much like the aforementioned economy over the past generation. Our tastes have grown accustomed to Ponting, Hayden, Langer, Waughs, Martyn, Clarke, Taylor, Boon, Hussey. Probably a pretty tough lot to follow, come to think of it.
(To be fair, I’m a believer that we shouldn’t discount the throwing around of Watson in the order as one reason for his inability to settle as a batsman. He’d have to be one of the few Test batsmen who’ve occupied every positions from 1 to 7 on the scoresheet at least once in his career. His best results were actually as an opener where he averaged 41, before being shifted down to number 3.)
So as the realisation, that which has been clear to many watchers for years, gradually dawns on the national selectors – that Watson is not ever going to be the superstar he was groomed as, hopefully he’s not treated too harshly. I think he’s actually always given his all, and he was useful is all areas of the game. It’s just unfortunate that Watson the sedan could never quite deliver of what the big rims and spoilers promised.
Good, but not great. A model out of his time.
The Last Kick 