Car dealership brings Gallic flair to showrooms

Julene Payne gets started on her ratatouille, one of the French dishes cooked at Precision Automobiles' Wairau Rd showrooms.

A car dealership recently decided to bring a little Gallic flair to its showrooms by hosting a master class in French cooking.

Precision Automobiles on the North Shore is home to the French-made Peugeot. With the economic climate making buyers, especially in the automobile trade, more reticent of parting with their hard-earned money, any little added extra helps. For a successful business to keep growing, it demands an ongoing need to continue to build good customer relationships and offer innovative incentives.

If you are going to buy a continental car, in this case a French vehicle, what better than to learn how to cook the French way as well. Precision Automobiles deemed their recently hosted round of French cooking workshops for some of their select customers last month a great success. The dealership found a way to make their clients feel even more European by introducing their taste buds to fine dining.

"The idea is not to sell a car when we invite our customers over for a French dining experience; in fact, we hardly speak about the cars," said Shaun Mackle, division manager. "We thought it would be a great way to build relationships, so that the next time our clients want to upgrade their Peugeot, which they normally do after a year or two, they'll first think of us first."

The new concept appears to have worked, as Paula Greenstreet, one of the guests invited along to the experience, went away happy. The big Peugeot fan, whose son bought her a Peugeot watch on his last trip to France, said it was "all about the feel-good factor".

Greenstreet assures Mackle she is certainly going to come back next year when she plans to buy her next new model Peugeot. It will be her fourth French-made car, and just as well, her husband Ross shares her passion for the stylish French vehicle.

Julene Payne, who operates Passion Cafe at Hauraki Corner, produced an elaborate menu du jour that started with vichyssoise (leek and potato soup) followed by salade au chevre (goat cheese salad), le gratin dauphinois (potatoes), carre d'agneau en croute (herb-crusted lamb racks) and ratatouille. The various courses were accompanied by tasting notes for various French wines and the meal was finished off with tarte au citron (lemon tart).

"This evening epitomises the love of food and cars," said Payne, a Francophile at heart. "But more than that, it was a lovely house-warming party.

"Normally, when people move home they throw a party to invite their friends and family. This is exactly what we thought of. Inviting the Peugeot family to celebrate their move from their old location at the Hauraki Corner to their new home at Wairau Rd."

"Plenty of people are of the impression that car dealers are scruffy rogues out to rob them," added Mackle. "We want to change the perception and make the experience of buying a car a pleasurable one."

With new ideas like this of keeping the customer happy, the Peugeot dealership has lived up to the manufacturer's catch phrase - experience the difference.

Peugeot is the second largest carmaker in Europe and also participates in Formula One. The family name goes back to the 18th century and made its way into motor cars when Armand Peugeot met Gottlied Daimler, regarded as the man who invented the first high-speed petrol engine.

The first Peugeot vehicle, a steam powered three-wheeler, hit the roads in 1889 but was canned in favour of a four-wheeler with one of Daimler's internal combustion engines.

By 1896 Peugeot was building its own engines and soon after the turn of the century, had Ettore Bugatti designing for it. Peugeot shortly after began its foray into motor racing. The car arm split from the bicycle side of things in the 1920s and continued to expand throughout Europe.

Post-World War II, the company began introducing more models with sophisticated rack-and-pinion steering and hydraulic brakes, and started to make inroads into America.

By the mid-70s, Peugeot had acquired a 30 per cent share in Citroen and soon after took the company over. However, separate identities were retained. By the 1990s Peugeot sales in the US had plummeted so the company pulled out to concentrate on its core markets.

The company continues to develop innovative new models that are both stylish and at the forefront of technological and environmental advances.