Car brands flying high

Although at MTI we have spent the last few months giving out depressing, albeit real information about the trade, there is still some good news. If you consider the fact that used cars have never been cheaper and if you have no car to trade in you really are making potentially huge savings, then things for the consumer (assuming they’ve got any money!) have never been better.
We have seen examples of 4WD’s at less than a year old being bought for thousands less than a new version and even many volume models with massive savings on their new counterparts.

Getting a good competitive finance deal has been easier however, and qualifying for one has become almost as unlikely the government lowering duty on fuel to ease the pain of the recession for which they are partly responsible.

But out of the fog of doom I was interested to see how many car manufacturers are in the top 20 most valuable worldwide brands and to my pleasant surprise there are 4 with Toyota getting the highest spot at number 7, with a brand value of 34,050$m and including Mercedes (11 – 25,950$m) and BMW (13 – 23,298$m) along with Honda (20 – 19,079$m) as the others.

Indeed if you join Ford (49 – 7,896$m), VW (53 – 7,047$m) Audi (67 – 5,407$m), and Porsche (75 – 4,603$m) which are in the top 100 then you would have a very powerful looking car section on the list,

So although many things are hurting our business it’s nice to know that in the worldwide economy car makers are still flying the flag of success, and at least if you buy these cars your spare parts shouldn’t be an issue but I wonder what this picture will look like in a year’s time and whether their will still be 4 car brands listed?

Here is the full list of top 20 most valuable brands at present:

1	1		United States	Beverages	66,667	2%
2	3		United States	Computer Services	59,031	3%
3	2		United States	Computer Software	59,007	1%
4	4		United States	Diversified	53,086	3%
5	5		Finland	Consumer Electronics	35,942	7%
6	6		Japan	Automotive	34,050	6%
7	7		United States	Computer Hardware	31,261	1%
8	8		United States	Restaurants	31,049	6%
9	9		United States	Media	29,251	0%
10	20		United States	Internet Services	25,590	43%
11	10		Germany	Automotive	25,577	9%
12	12		United States	Computer Hardware	23,509	6%
13	13		Germany	Automotive	23,298	8%
14	16		United States	Personal Care	22,689	8%
15	15		United States	Financial Services	21,940	5%
16	17		France	Luxury	21,602	6%
17	18		United States	Computer Services	21,306	12%
18	14		United States	Tobacco	21,300	0%
19	11		United States	Financial Services	20,174	-14%
20	19		Japan	Automotive	19,079	6%

Source: InterBrand