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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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My mother never had to learn to drive a manual transmission...
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Aside from the tiny Crosley, the Henry J and a handful of imports there were no small cars in 1953 and I doubt any Ford other than a complete stripper (three on the tree, rubber mats no radio) underpriced any of those.
Six-passenger cars ruled the road until the recession of '57 hit.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
The English made 60' V-6's. They were made is an engline plant in Dagenham, Essex (UK). 2.5L and 3.0L Whew.
Sort of like the the confusion that exists because Ford made a 351 Cleveland V-8 and a 352 Windsor V-8.
In Windsor, Canada, right across the Detroit River from Detroit itself, Ford made the 260, 289, 302, 351, and the short-lived 255. The Boss 302 from that plant used special high-performance heads from... Cleveland.
The 302 Cleveland used tooling from the Cleveland plant, but was made only in Australia.
In those days, things like this made Ford the undisputed innovation leader in confusing nomenclature.
Fuel-injection may be an invented thing, but putting FI into a mass produced car is innovation.
The Bosch FI systems are nothing like the old Bendix system BTW.
So if you invent something but it doesn't translate into a marketable item, then you are an inventor perhaps of a theory, but not an innovator.
Mercedes Gullwing mechanical injection is innovative because it was a very workable system, that morphed into other mechanical systems on Benz cars, as well as diesel and marine.
Electronic FI is mechanical injection, but done electronically.
One website describes it thus:
"Prior to L-Jetronic, mechanical fuel injection systems had proven that directly injecting atomized fuel into the cylinder resulted in better engine operation. Combining this direct injection theory with electronic sensors, valves,
and meters - all controlled by a central computer - resulted in better operation than before."
Postwar america was a car dealer's dreamworld. You could sell ANYTHING in 1948 to ANYONE. The pent-up demand for new automobiles was tremendous.
This era spawned all kinds of crackpot inventors and crazy cars in addition to the traditional offerings of the mainstream automakers.
American cars looked like they did in 1946 because they *were* 1940 cars actually.
Very slowly they changed styling and added features, but the basic formula of Heavy weight+body-on-frame + large displacement, torquey engine remained pretty much as it was in 1940, well into the 1970s in America.
Miles of wide straight roads, cheap gas, economic prosperity--all shaped the look and content of the American car.
Dad got a 1963 Chevy II for commuting. At that time, it was the smallest car on the block. The guy across the street had a 1963 Pontiac that had a trunk that could hold a basketball team.
Now, manufaturers are on a 4-7 year cycle for redesigns. A "refresh" mid-cycle is the norm. But we have far more choices.
Result: pretty damn reliable, big, clumsy, heavy cars. In the Midwest, anyone in the 70's or 80's that had a small Asian car had more shopping-cart dings than his Ford LTD-driving neighbor.
Quite naturally, America had a home court advantage, which they had to deliberately throw away/give away----which they did.
It's a classic case of killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
Detroit didn't invest enough in R&D, and in part because they were saddled with uncompetitive labor costs that were based on their earlier halcyon days of more, more, more, they became obsessed with taking cost out of their products instead of making them better. The success of Asian cars with their cheap plastic hubcaps, unfinished roof panels and one-color fits-all gray interiors made that easy for them. The rants about the bean-counters that we hear from time to time apply to everything about the vehicle, from thin sheetmetal and cheap upholstery to laying off engineers that would otherwise be working to innovate or to redesign problem areas. The result was American cars that didn't impress in the showroom, didn't hold up in use, and kept suffering from the same problems time after time as the designs were not improved. Somewhere, some MBA calculated that it was more profitable to pay for the warranty repair than to fix the design that caused it. Short-term thinking - MBAs seem not to understand the value of the longer view.
All this has been discussed ad nauseum by others far more qualified than me, but the MBA mentality that took over American industry over the last 30 or so years has really hurt. It's not just the auto industry either. You need to be passionate about the product, not the stock price.
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If you broke something that was not a problem, in terms of your job in the short run, it didn't matter.
The real job is to add something new or to build on what is already there.
As for the 'competition', that depends on exactly what decade you're talking about. Certainly the Japanese cars of the 50s and 60s were not very competitive with American cars but I even remember the watershed models that made them competitive---that was the Honda Civic and Honda Accord (early 70s) and the Toyota Corona and Corolla. These were very credible cars, very *good* cars, in the sub-compact and compact arena. BMW wasn't able to launch the 3 series until the late 70s, and along with the Volvo 240 series, that was the second nail in the coffin, as these 4 and 5 passenger Euro sedans and wagons encroached on the mid-size market in America. Then, with Mercedes hammering at the luxury market, Porsche and Datsun attacking Corvette, it was war on 4 sides for the Detroit 3. Well even 5 sides if you want to include mini-pickups, which the D3 didn't even have in the late 70s.
By the early 1980s, the D3 were giving up huge chunks of market share.
Interestingly we also owned a pair of Volvo 144s in that period. A '68 was nearly indestructible until one day a whole bunch of things went wrong at once. The '73 was a horrible car from day one. The downsized GM intermediates from '78-on could have blown them out of the water, but their initial build quality was so bad that they blew the chance. Same with Ford's Fairmont, which had good bones but a whole bunch of things (engine, trim, etc) that failed to impress upon close inspection. Cost-cutting and a lack of commitment to doing things right killed them.
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Really? From what I've heard, GM's downsized '78 cars were actually pretty good, for the time at least. Or was it just the initial batch of '78's that were bad, and then later 78's were a lot better?
The main criticisms I've heard about GM's intermediates is that they weren't the same revolution to midsized cars that the previous year's B/C bodies were to full-sized cars. In some cases, they took the cost-cutting too far, such as with the stationary rear windows on the 4-door and wagon models. I'm actually surprised that GM got away with doing that for so long. Chrysler initially tried this with the 1981 Aries/Reliant K-car, but had enough complaints that during the 1982 model year they started making the back windows roll down. In contrast, GM kept the windows stationary, right through the final 1987 G-body Cutlass Supreme 4-door.
I think the engines were downsized a little too far, as well, with the likes of the Chevy 3.3 and Buick 3.2. But, when you consider the Fairmont was running 4-cyl and ~88 hp hp 200 6-cyl engines, maybe that wasn't so bad? The Granada used a 250 CID as standard, but it was pretty weak too, at around 98 hp. And while a Nova used a stronger 250, and the Aspen/Volare used a 225 that put out 100 hp with a 1-bbl, 110 with a 2-bbl, these were heavier cars that probably more than offset that added power and torque.
My 1980 Malibu had a 115 hp 229 V-6. It didn't seem so bad at the time, but looking back, I can't imagine having to drive a car like this with an engine that's even smaller and weaker!
I have heard that the '78 Fairmont was really trouble-prone its first year, and went through a lot of recalls.
In addition to the Crosley, there was the Nash Rambler, the Metropolitan, the Willys Aero Lark, the Hudson Jet and the Henry J. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Automobile_Production_Figures.
Willys was a major automaker who produced 315,000 cars in 1928 and all its small cars were more expensive than a full size Ford. That is why they got theWWII Jeep contract instead of American Bantam, which was an Austin. another small car maker that gave up on the American market.
The full size Ford had prices were below Hudson, Kaiser, Studebaker and most Nash prices. The Hudson Jet even looks like a narrow '54 Ford but was was much more expensive.
In contrast, a 1953 Henry J was $1399 for the base 2-door sedan (4-cyl), $1561 for the DeLuxe (6-cyl). The Allstate version, sold through Sears, was $1528 for the base 4-cyl, $1589 for the DeLuxe 4-cyl, and $1785 for the 6-cyl!
The 1953 Rambler, which offered a better choice of styles, was $2003 for the 2-door wagon, $2119 for the Custom 2-door wagon, $2125 for the hardtop coupe, and $2150 for the convertible. Rambler did offer cheaper models for 1954 though, with a 2-door sedan starting at $1550 and a 4-door sedan on a 108" wb starting at $1795.
A '53 Willys started at $1646 for the 2-door sedan, $1732 for the 4-door.
So, it's not hard to see why it was difficult for these early compacts to catch on. They were anything but a bargain.
That started to change a bit with the 1957 Rambler, which could be had for as little as $1961 for a 4-door sedan on a 108" wb, with a 125-135 hp 195.6 6-cyl.
But, a '57 Ford started at $1991 for a Custom 2-door sedan with a 144 hp 223-6. The 4-door sedan was $2,042. And they were still offering a business coupe for just $1879.
Chevy was similarly priced, with a 150 2-door at $1996, 4-door at $2048, and "Utility Sedan" at $1,885. And Plymouth stood at $2009 for the 2-door, $2050 for the 4-door, and $1899 for the business coupe.
So still, we had compact cars going for about the same price as a full-sized car.
Rambler really took off in 1958, as everybody else faltered. Suddenly, with the recession and uncertainty looming, most likely buyers were looking at factors other than the initial purchase price. I'd imagine that suddenly, fuel economy was a major concern.
If the imports were inferior, and given the American tendency toward nationalistic chauvinism anyway, there's no way American's would have bought them in preference to domestic products.
If we granted you the argument that imports were generally not all that great---and that's a very reasonable statement---then, in order to square it all away with history---we'd have to also say that most American cars were generally worse than the mediocre imports, or no better.
My recollection is that most cars rusted and fell apart in the late 70s and 80s (which is one reason you see so few of them anymore).
If American products were so good, they would have "won", but they didn't--they seem to have lost mostly on price (on the low end I mean), fuel economy and reliability---their strong points were power, room and brand loyalty. They also gave away the luxury market to Benz, served on a platter for the taking.
Well, to use an old cliche, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. True, the Japanese imports made some serious inroads, while the domestics shot themselves in the foot repeatedly. But at the same time, some domestics were setting new sales records in the '77-79 timeframe. Mainly GM though, and at the expense of Ford and Chrysler.
Even as recently as 1985, 9 of the top ten selling car nameplates were domestic, and 7 of them were GM!
When the '78 Fairmont and downsized GM intermediates were introduced, I debated which to buy, and chose a '78 LeMans with the 305 V8 and handling suspension. Despite some drawbacks, it proved to be a very good car, but less than excellent.
So sure, a particular model might beat back the tide for a moment, but the tide was relentlessly against the D3.
Probably what successes were there for the domestics were with models that didn't have a good foreign competitor at the time.
GM, for instance, which you site as a standout, has lost market share steadily since 1962 !!
What was GM's share of the market in 1962, anyway? I can sort of see 1962 as being a bit of a pivotal year for GM, as they pretty much had their act together, while Ford was still recovering and Chrysler shot themselves in the foot with shrunken Dodges and Plymouths. So for Ford and Mopar, there was nowhere to go BUT up!
I'd imagine GM gained a lot of that market share back in the 1970's and early 80's. While it would utlimately prove to be temporary, we didn't know that until it was already in the past.
Year GM Market Share (Imports Market Share)
1960 48.3% (7.7%)
1970 44.6 (6.8)
1980 41.4 (21.2)
1990 35.2 (29.1)
2009 19.5 (49.5%)
The drop you see in import market share from 1960 to 1970 probably represents the total collapse of the British auto industry I would guess.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
I remember reading that for 1977, some GM big-wigs said they were predicting a "60-60-60" year. They were both turning 60 that year, predicted GM stock to go to $60 per share, and that GM would take 60% of the US market. As I recall, GM managed to get 56% of the market. However, that may have been 56% of the domestic (i.e., GM, Ford, Chrysler, AMC) pie, rather than the whole market with the imports factored in.
In 1982 or 1983, GM actually captured almost 64% of the market! 3.5 million cars out of a whole market of 5.5M. However, again that was domestic-only, not counting the imports, and just cars. Can't remember if that was calendar year or model year production. And the early 80's were a crazy time. While Chrysler and Ford began to slowly work their way back from the edge of oblivion, it really wasn't until 1984 that they really took off. In 1983 I think it was, not only did Chevy outsell Ford, but so did Oldsmobile and even Buick! Olds outsold Ford in 1982 as well, and possibly even in 1984. But by '85, Ford was back to #2, and GM started faltering as they began a second wave of downsizing, just as the market was demanding bigger cars again.
So in reality, the pie for the D3 was shrinking, and so the boasting was really about who got the biggest portion of leftovers, after the imports finished feasting on youth buyers, repeat buyers and switch-overs from the domestics.
I imagine GM dumptruck sales were still good vs. imports, sure.
Really there is no way to put a smiley face on it---the near-collapse of the American auto industry in the 80s was pretty much a disaster for Detroit, and its workers. The D3 did a very poor job of competing with imports, and were it not for various forms of government intervention and corporate welfare I suspect that all of them would be gone by now.
And of course, I'm glad the government did intervene--otherwise, I think they would have fallen into a smoldering heap like the British motorcycle and auto industry did.
That market share argument you make is obviously true. I believe it is because there were large parts of the market where the D3 either did not compete at all or had totally uncompetitive offerings. Most of these were in the small-car/truck segments. Look at what Detroit offered in the mid-70s: the Vega, Chevette and variants thereof, and the Pinto. Chrysler didn't even offer anything until '78 with the Omni/Horizon, and Consumer Reports dulled whatever sales momentum it may have had (not that it was executed very well anyway).
I remember in the fall of 1980 visiting the Ford dealer on introduction week to see the much-hyped new Escort. It made a decent first impression when you sat in it in the showroom. Driving it... not so much. A real slug, especially with the automatic. They sold, probably to former Pinto buyers, but it was barely competitive.
The Detroit rear-drive compacts were reasonable offerings for the time but were usually offered as stripper models with everything you wanted optional. That really ran up the pricetag. Add to that the usual uninspired Detroit lump of an engine and the cart-spring rear end and you begin to see the issue. To get a nice compact like a Granada (if you could stand the styling and the typical Ford numb steering), a Dart SE or a Nova Concours you had to fork out some money that would buy a nice import. And those Detroit offerings were saddled with the usual lousy paint job and poor fit and finish you got back then. When those compacts transitioned to the front-drivers like the Citation, Tempo and variants of the K-Car, they were inferior in most ways to the comparably-sized imports (although the Citation et al did well for the first year or so until all their problems became apparent). It was no surprise people chose to buy other things.
The NA luxo-boats were still pretty good if you could manage to pilot such a big car in the mid-70s but they were really oversized for most people. Later on it was hard to justify the price premium for a Cadillac when it had similar plastic wood trim inside as a Chevy and engines that were pretty pedestrian after 1981 or so. Once GM decided to cheapen up a Caddy the game was over (look at the early-mid 80s Sedan de Ville - in many ways a Buick or Olds was superior). A Benz might have been a bit more expensive but was a far more solid car.
OTOH, I knew people that took the plunge and bought Audis in the late 70s/early 80s and regretted it terribly. And we need not mention the Jaguars and Sterlings of the 1980s. I think the difference was that while there may have been the odd manufacturer of imports who had problems, by comparison the NA makers didn't lead in a lot of categories other than trucks and lower-end fullsize sedans like the downsized GM B-bodies from '77-'79. And they even lost that when they scaled back the available engines after 1980 to meet fuel economy targets. Once GM replaced the 88/98 and Lesabre/Park Avenue with the shrunken front-drivers in the mid-80s it was all over. Those cars were terrible in terms of reliability and destroyed a lot of GMs reputation.
Looking back, it is hard to believe they could have done it so badly.
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I don't think many people today realize how close the D3 came to being annihilated by the import "invasion"---and of course, our government would not tolerate that. Thus we have the rather complex "fusion" of domestic and foreign that we see today in auto manufacturing in the US.
Watching the American auto industry these last 30 years was a lot like being a Chicago Cubs fan..
The word "auto" is not necessary to make the sentence above a true statement. Just this weekend ABC News had this interesting topic. http://abcnews.go.com/WN/MadeInAmerica/
It said that in 1960 more than 90% of everything that Americans bought was produced here. Now the figure is below 50%. Inexpensive cars were among the first to go. In 1960 VW Beetles were selling for $1,565. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1960-1969-volkswagen-beetle1.htm
The closest American competitor was the Nash-Rambler reborn as the Rambler American http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambler_American. They were trying to get within $200 of the VW price.
Last year we passed Japan as having the highest corporate tax rates in the world. I wonder if that has anything to do with our industrial decline and why John DeLorean decided to build cars in Ireland long ago.
One could also say that in many cases corporations don't pay taxes, they collect them from consumers--that is somewhat of a mushy statement but often true.
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Yeah, that may be true, but the way I see it, we in the United States (well, many of us at least) are still getting screwed. It's just that you guys in other places are getting screwed even worse! :surprise:
The American car buyers simply voted democratically in the election of "what to buy" with their checkbooks---a very reliable form of voting---and they voted "NO" for many American cars in the 80s and 90s.
I *think* it means something like "artificially aged" but I'm not sure. It doesn't mean "rung out" I know that.
I agree with this statement Instead of taxing indivuduals we hide the total tax burden by taxing corporations. A corporate income tax of 15-35% functions like a domestic tariff which increases the cost of domestic goods. Canada just cut its corporate tax rate from 18% to 16.5%. http://www.canadabusinesstax.com/corporate-income-tax-rates and the company does not have the burden of paying for health insurance.
I do not belive that American auto companies will fully recover unless this burden is lifted. Chrysler was bailed out by Fiat. Oldsmobile and Pontiac are gone. Buick now builds more vehicles in China than in America. This would have not seemed possible 20 years ago.
Most US corporations probably don't in fact pay more taxes than in other countries. Due to loopholes, they probably pay less or equal---and often no taxes at all.
A study peformed in 2008 by the General Accounting Office found that from 1998 to 2005, 55% of large U.S. companies had at least one year of paying no taxes at all.
American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter of 2010, according to a Commerce Department report. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago. GM recently posted its highest profit since 1999.
Furthermore, financial markets globally regard the US economy as the absolute safest to invest in right now.
We are not "broke" as a country, therefore, given what the world thinks of us, and our automakers do not need further tax breaks IMO, given how little they actually pay compared to the posted rates.
Tax breaks have always lead to further deficits, because spending was never curtailed by any political party, nor will it ever be. The historical record is irrefutable in this regard. I can't imagine why this is even being debated anymore.
You know, just look at the history of the American automobile industry since 1948, and count up the casualties.
The problem is not taxes. You are watching a historical event encompassing 50+ years of time.
Read all about it HERE
My sighting this morning: early Scirocco.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2qcYjJrZVc
I think it's a car which doesn't match its paperwork (vehicle registration mark or the V5 logbook). It may have been altered to conceal its actual history of ownership, accidents, tax status? etc...
I remember when the term "ringer" used to apply to a factory car hopped up for better performance before turning it loose on the press for testing/publicity.
The car was titled and licensed in CA, so I guess it's okay.
I saw a BMW today and on the trunk lid, it said:
M td
This was the multi-color M logo and then chrome "td" letters afterwards. Is there really such a thing?
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