Nairobi, 7 Oct. -- Here's a view of the Kenyan capital through an automotive lens.

British East Africa

The plethora of Land Rovers in Nairobi is hardly surprising given the ability of these vehicles to deal with the challenges of the African terrain, as well as the historic links between Kenya and Britain. How strong these ties will remain, however, is called into question by the rest of the automotive population here.

Most of the Land Rovers are new, including a large number of very expensive Range Rovers, as well as the slightly less costly Landies. Traditional Rovers are still on view here, too. The old Series vehicles, like the cantankerous contraption currently oozing oil onto the garage floor until I get home again and can experience every small errand as if it were an expedition into the bush, are common. Small prides of them crouch by the side of the roads, waiting to spring -- perhaps “lumber” or “clatter” would be more-appropriate verbs -- into action as “rescue vehicles.” The rescues are for stranded cars clogging traffic, not necessarily for endangered humans.

The sole privately used Series I’ve seen in action here was piloted by a seemingly unflappable, white-haired matron, just the sort one would expect to run into at the Norfolk Hotel lounge, a surviving vestige of the Karen Blixsen era. Lord Delamere was fond of riding his horse into the Norfolk bar and shooting the bottles off the shelves – which he scrupulously paid to replace.

Land Rover/Range Rovers appear to outnumber all other off-road-capable vehicles combined. The Mercedes Benz M class, nearly omnipresent at home, is almost as rare as lederhosen here, although I’ve seen a pair of Gelandewagens. Even the Toyota Land Cruiser is less common than its ancient Sulihull inspiration.

All these SUVs make more sense here than they generally do in the United States. Most U.S. four-by-fours never leave the roads, which tend to be well paved. In vivid contrast, not only does Nairobi offer serious safari opportunities quite nearby but also the profound urban potholes and towering speed bumps make the high-ground-clearance sport utilities eminently sensible. While tooling about town in an M Class is absurd in the States, it’s thoroughly reasonable here. (I’ve no idea why anyone thinks speed bumps are necessary in Nairobi, when the ruts and craters keep all but the most lunatic from speeding. If a crevasse-size hole won’t slow drivers, what good is a speed bump?)

While Landies are pre-eminent in the four-wheel-drive department, otherwise, British car makers are poorly represented. I saw one MG, a police car, believe it or not. It was not one of quirky saloons or the affordable (and quirky)-but-fun roadsters that frequently came to mind when someone said “sports car” in the 1950s and 1960s. Rather, it was an anodyne sedan produced under the purchased MG name after the collapse of British Leyland.

I went three weeks here before seeing a single Jaguar, a well-kept old X Type, and another few weeks before coming across a new XF. A fortnight passed before the third sighting, an elegant and well-maintained but aging S Type. Yet, Tata Industries bought Jaguar in tandem from Ford with Land Rover. The local dealer has taken what would seem the easy and logical step of slapping a Jaguar showroom next to the Land Rover lot, exploiting the obvious popularity of the latter. For whatever reason, it hasn’t worked, and Tata seems to be missing the boat on the luxury-performance sedan and upscale sports-car markets. Nor is Tata alone; Aston-Martin, Lotus and Rolls Royce have been invisible to date. A single Bentley Continental appeared recently on the car lot near the embassy.

Teutonic Invasion

Lest you think it’s a matter of cost, expensive non-SUVs are plentiful, and nearly all are German: Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi, in that order. (The two Porsches sighted thus far were Cayennes, perhaps because Nairobi does not seem to be a sports-car town, not surprising given the condition of the streets and roads.) It’s impossible to go more than a few seconds in Nairobi traffic without seeing a Benz, and only a minute or two between Bimmers. Audi sightings are more erratic, but unofficial, anecdotal observation suggests they outnumber Jaguars at least six-to-one. So ubiquitous is Daimler-Benz , the 2002 copy of The Rough Guide to Kenya, borrowed from the Embassy library, reports “mbenzi” is a popular term for a rich man (plural: “wabenzi”).

The bigger Benzes predominate, yet the engines are smaller than in the North American market. E and even S200s are common. I doubt Daimler Benz has sent larger cars with two-liter engines to the States since the 1960s – e.g., the 220 Bs -- and even then, the S class models came with engines ranging from 2.5 to 6.3 liters and were about the size of the current mid-range E class. The modern S classes are much bigger, and in the United States, even the smaller C class cars today are likely be 300s or larger.

The Fall of France

The French haven’t done much better than the British. During my daily commute, I generally pass two or three recent Peugeots, but most cars bearing the lion marque are old 505s, even older 504s and late-1960s 404s, like the one Mary Leakey drove at Olduvai Gorge. (Whether it was due to Leakey influence or not, my first car, driven during my fledging-journalist and grad-school days, also was a 404 -- a fine car, until it succumbed to rust, the bane of European cars of the era.) These venerable 404s have survived for 50 years in rainy Nairobi rain, probably because “winter” in Nairobi is most like a Pennsylvania spring – no snow, and, hence, no salt to corrode chasses.

Peugeots used to be common in Kenya, but now, my driver reports, they are bought almost exclusively by members of the Luo Tribe. The most-famous descendant of this tribe happens to be Barack Obama, although I believe he drove a Buick in his pre-presidential days in Chicago. The Luos make up an estimated 13 per cent of the Kenyan population, so if they’re the sole buyers of Peugeots here, company prospects don’t look promising.

I’ve also seen two tiny Citroens, but no C6s or other of the grander Citroens, whose double chevrons seem to have tarnished under Peugeot management. If anyone here had a DS 21 – especially a cabriolet – it would be hard to resist trying to buy it as a replacement for my long-lost 1972 Pallas sedan. (A vendor in Europe is offering an open-top DS 21 for 200,000 euros – a price that is not at all hard to resist.)

Peugeot-Citroen is bringing back the DS designation but as a separate car line, not a Citroen model. Does this move make marketing sense? Beats me. Even when they were separate companies, neither Citroen nor Peugeot seemed to have a clue how to sell cars in North America, and they’ve evidently forgotten how to do so in Africa. In the 1960s and 1970s, both were making cars many Americans would have preferred driving to the Benzes of the day, had Americans known anything about them. Stuttgart-constructed cars of that era handled vastly better their sloppy, boat-like American competitors but also rode noticeably more stiffly, a trait that wouldn’t have appealed to most U.S. car buyers then. The Peugeots and Citroens, however, combined precise handling with enormous ride comfort but few Americans were even aware either French brand existed. Even fewer knew they were sold in the States, and only a handful of the latter group appreciated the qualities of the cars.

American Isolationism

American vehicles in Kenya are statistically insignificant. My driver said Jeeps are popular but I’ve spotted only two. The sole U.S. sedan visible my first month was a stretched Chrysler 300 limousine on a dealer’s lot near the embassy, the same one now displaying the Bentley. The Chrysler stayed there for months. A second 300, a standard sedan, appeared in traffic recently, and the embassy has a black one (although the bulk of our diplomatic fleet consists of Mercedes Sprinter vans and the embassy-ubiquitous Land Cruisers). One morning we passed a Ford Fiesta. That’s the complete tally of Detroit sightings.

Pacific Domination

Apart from the off-road and luxury market, the Japanese manufacturers dominate. The bulk of cars traversing the pot-holed streets of Nairobi are made by Honda, Nissan, Subaru, Suzuki and Toyota. The once-common Suzuki Samurais are mostly gone. They were affordable and capable but regrettably inclined to roll over, an inconvenient feature anywhere but particularly so in the bush where tow trucks – not to mention hospitals – might be scarce. Instead, the streets abound with Swifts and other modern Suzukis. Even more common are the Subarus, Nissans and Hondas. Most prevalent are Toyotas.

Many of the brands are represented by cars familiar in the States but other models, including some intriguing little wagons and hatchbacks, are not seen at home. Some of the names are interesting. Is the Toyota “Noah” minivan amphibious? I suspect the Honda Airwave neither broadcasts nor flies.