Africar 1988
The Africar was the vision of Englishman Tony Howarth. Howarth’s vision was for an inexpensive yet adaptable vehicle, able to negotiate the tracks that form most of Africa’s road networks, able to be fixed and maintained by people with only moderate skills and training, easy to drive, and that would last at least thirty years or more. In short, the Africar was to be exactly what the established automotive industry would not be likely to create.
There are a few easily understandable strategies that the automotive industry use to keep their factories profitable and key among these is the idea of planned obsolescence. A modern motor car is made with an intentionally short life expectancy. In order to ensure that a vehicle will not last for thirty years or more vehicles are made from materials that will rot or rust: Australians used to joke that the Australian Holden was “the only car in the world that came rust free, they gave you the rust for nothing”.