The General Motors South Africa team and the Isuzu academy crew were in town last week Wednesday to give local sales teams and some clients fun and an opportunity to learn about their cars and brands.
After listening to the guys from GMSA and watching videos outlining the histories of the Chevrolet and Isuzu, the sales people were split into two groups. The first group started with a lesson on the application of Isuzu KB 4X4 and a then traversed the Lions Park off road track while the other group drove the Chevrolet Captivas and Orlandos. The two groups later swapped places.
This year Chevrolet is celebrating 100 years and Isuzu is celebrating 72 years.
“You can tell your customers that every Chevrolet car has 100 years of engineering expertise,” said Tim Hendon, Chevrolet Brand Manager.
“It's a winning brand. Chevrolet sells a lot of cars every year. In South Africa last year our market was 493 000 vehicles and around the world it was 4, 27m vehicles. You are part of a winning brand.
“Somewhere in the world, every 6.8 seconds a new customer is saying thank you very much for my car. One in every 16 cars in the world is a Chevrolet. It's the third biggest brand in the world after Toyota and Ford, but with other brands we are number one.”
Isuzu Off-road Academy is a driver training academy with the aim of teaching people the correct way of using a KB 4X4 in an off road environment. The facility is national and extends into the whole of South Africa and is also mobile. “The aim of the academy is to make our drivers safer. A trained driver would mean less accidents to fleets. You will have more confidence driving and utilising it in an off road situation,” said Randal Sewpersaho, Brand Manager, Isuzu.
He further said the Isuzu for South Africa was made unique to suit the African driving conditions. “Our Isuzus are unique in the whole world because we have stringent local development which every generation of Isuzu has to undergo. Before we launch an Isuzu here we need a two year development cycle to be completed, so for those wondering where is the next Isuzu, It's coming and it's going to be perfect when it gets here.
“The metal sheet used on the Isuzu here is the thickest metal sheet used for any Isuzu KB in the world at 1.2mm as opposed to 0.8 on other bakkies elsewhere. From Japan we have a choice of suspension settings but for our market in South Africa, we have chosen the toughest, most robust suspension and adapted it even further such that there is an ideal compromise for loadability, laden and unladen comfort, on and off road handling.
“The convenience module on our local Kbs, selective central locking, alarm system and a four hinged tailgate which is heavy because it has to be more robust.”
Sewpersaho also said they were looking for an Isuzu with the highest mileage so they could reward the owners of the vehicles. “If you know of such an Isuzu, please let the dealership know about it,” he said.
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