trucking write: Truckin` right

The Scream is up for sale. As a painting it`s anything but remarkable - well, to me anyway - despite those swirly lines and its creepy, abstract horror. But obviously my opinion is not shared by all and a price tag of something like 50 million has been placed on it – dollars or pounds I can`t remember, when anything goes above the price of a house the cost is irrelevant to anyone in the real world. So, if I were to paint an exact copy, would it sell for a similarly extortionate amount? No, of course not. The reason is that there`s something obscure about art: something has to be in the observer as much as in the work itself. Or rather, something lurks in us the observer that we must then put into our observation. The Scream is a great painting because we have accepted it as such. Our minds tell us something like this: famous works are worth a fortune; famous art is great art; The Scream is a great work of art; The Scream is worth a fortune. Placed in context - great works are in galleries or a private collection - the painting is positioned in our mind. The Scream is something special that exists out of common view. To `see` it we need to be in a particular, characteristic place – stick The Scream on the kitchen wall next to your kid`s finest works and nobody will give it a second look.

In what was described as a social experiment, the Washington Post recently put a concert violinist on the platform of a Boston metro station, playing an instrument worth, apparently, several millions of dollars. In the previous week the same man had played to audiences paying $100 a seat for the privilege of hearing him. The metro experience was a little different – no one really took the time to listen. Travellers came and went more intent on catching a train or hurrying off to whatever it was they were supposed to be doing rather than listening to one of the world`s top musicians. When small children stopped, supposedly to enjoy the music, they were soon whisked away by an impatient guardian.

The questions asked as a result were about perception, taste and the priorities of people. Were people too busy to appreciate art, or was it that most just didn`t like that particular brand? Or was it simply in the wrong place? We certainly like things where we expect them to be, and as we expect them to be. A violinist in the underground is a busker, not a world class performer. A violinist performs in evening dress; a violinist performing in jeans is a busker. Everything is neatly ordered in our minds for recognition purposes, helping us through the day: we know what a petrol station looks like, what a main road should be and what the entrance to a track that will lead us into trouble is like. Can you imagine not having an idea of what to expect every time you enter a cafe or restaurant? We need to know about a number of different situations to be able function, even if we are in a totally new place, one we`ve not been to before. We need to recognize the familiar so that we can categorize it and act accordingly. We are assured by the familiar; a world where everything is as it should be.

This is why the Ford Motor Company has always had my admiration: they certainly haven`t always stuck with the familiar. In terms of styling, Ford seem to have no fear in going their own way, often presenting new models that are very different from predecessors or contemporaries. The Cortina Mk3, Probe, Sierra, Ka, all these cars were pretty radical in their day. Curvy when others were boxy seemed to be the trade mark. In many cases, it was only the distinctive badge that identified them as Fords. But innovation is always a calculated risk - with the emphasis on calculated - and daring has its limits: with such a wide range of products, throwing in a few wildly different models now and again had little effect on the overall perception and identification of the brand.

Truck manufacturers, in contrast, have far fewer models and even fewer platforms to build on. Similarly, cabs retain generic styling across most of the range. Things are tweaked until no more can be done but build a completely new vehicle. So when a new range is introduced - say, once every decade - a completely different truck is presented to the market. It`s here that identification, recognisability, familiarity and possibly, customer loyalty, can become a bit blurred. Is it a Volvo? A Scania? How does a Volvo truck present itself as a masterpiece, a famous concert violinist and not an unknown busker? It retains a distinctive feature from range to range, model to model.

Volvo`s F89 had the distinctive, pronounced grill ...

... which continued as a feature of the F10 ...

... and then in the FH range

We like everything to be as we expect, things to be where we expect them to be and our trucks to look as they should. Any indication will do, no matter how small, as long as everything seems right: The Scream is in a gallery; the violinist is in tails and up on the stage; the Scania has a Scania grill.