While shoppers swarmed over Smarts and Mercedes-Benz at Ocean Terminal and scores of tyre-kickers infested a more interesting range of Jaguars at Times Square (below) last weekend, Volvo Cars Hong Kong blew its rivals out of the water with 'Father's Day' discounts of between $40,000 and $160,000 on 10 demonstration and five managers' cars. Volvo Cars Hong Kong's Pauline Chung says 'there are only a few cars left' from the dealership's cheeky, spontaneous price-cutting, but we reckon you might pick up a deal if you try your luck with the Gloucester Road showroom (tel: 2927 3388). Foot Down applauds Volvo Cars Hong Kong's spoiling marketing strategy. A few more similar promotions could wean more Hong Kong car-lovers away from the perceived prestige of Mercedes-Benz and BMW to a Swedish marque that has long shaken off its boxy image with new, more competitive lines of sexy cars, such as the S40 2.4T5 (below, from $238,000). No wonder Zung Fu's roadshow staff (below) were busy with customers who might have been drawn to the photogenic Mercedes-Benz SLK 200 ($428,000) and CLK range (from $517,000), but could have found the rest of the German marque's range rather tired, as we do. The evergreen ML 350 offroader (from $510,000) has body-colour bumpers, but the new C-Class saloon (from $313,00) still looks expensive and boring against the Lexus IS200 ($239,000) and Jaguar's X-Type V6 2.1 Sport (basic model: $269,000; with sunroof, CD and extras $309,000). The Big Cats also mauled the S-Class and BMW 7-Series with a black, 400bhp 4.2-litre XJR V8 ($1.288 million), while a metallic-green 4.2-litre S-Type R V8 ($899,000) took our breath away. The crowds have returned to the cars, but last week's frenetic roadshows prove Hong Kong's ever-optimistic car dealers are still desperate for success after Sars, you have more choice and it's still a buyer's market. So, bargain hard.
