What BYD gets that everyone else has forgotten

ON AUG 5, I found myself at the launch of the BYD Atto 2 in Zouk, of all places. It wouldn’t have been the first time I was the least hip person in a room, but Atto 2’s debut took me back a couple of decades – not because Zouk was my old haunt (my youth was misspent elsewhere), but because it reminded me of a time when car companies knew how to make a scene.

Launches used to involve smoke machines, fun locations and, occasionally, exotic guests. Performance Motors once unveiled a BMW 3 Series at East Coast Park with a full-sized sand sculpture of the car that was slightly less memorable than the woman I chatted up there, who had turned up with a small python around her shoulders.

Mercedes-Benz floated a car down the Singapore River, while guests sipped bubbly and watched from the Asian Civilisations Museum. It was a memorable setting, although ironically, I now struggle to recall which model was launched there.