THE heart of the company Kohle is
in the right place — trying to make and sell bakkies that run on
sunshine.
The company has been working
since 1918 and is a major player in the industrial bodywork sector in France,
with nearly 3 000 conversions leaving its workshops every year.
Its designers clearly need to get
out into the sun a bit more often. They will then see that — in the bright light
of day — their range of hacked-off converted bakkies and vans looks a little
less than alluring when compared with the original Renault Trafic or Dacia
Docker.
And then there is the question of
what were Kohle’s designers thinking when they took a big tin-opener to the
Dacia Docker to turn the minivan back to a bakkie, complete with jutting
C-pillars to accommodate the rear lights?
Especially as Dacia had replaced
the 2008 Logan Pickup, which we still buy and trust as the Nissan NP200. At the
current euro to rand rate with taxi incentives added, Kohler could have shown a
profit just by importing the bakkies made in Rosslyn to fit the Renault Zoe’s
drivetrain to it.
But it seems there is more money destroying the lines of good looking commercial vehicles, so instead, we have another ugly half-ton electric bakkie to join
the ranks of this breed buzzing around airports and warehouses.
