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Well, the wagon, instead of trying to merge, stopped dead. My Mom's friend had no choice but to stop as well. The tractor trailer? Well, I'd like to think it tried to stop. But it was unsuccessful. Hit the Bug, knocked it sideways and then rolled it, while driving up OVER it! Smacked the wagon hard enough to downsize it again, more than GM ever would have in their wildest dreams...it pretty much ceased to exist aft of the B-pillar.
At that point, the trucker had lost total control. The trailer got detached, flipped on its side, and got hit by another car (unknown as to the type), while the tractor went down an embankment and hit some trees.
Believe it or not, out of all that carnage, the only person to get hurt was the trucker, who broke both his legs.
My Mom's friend was trapped in her Bug for awhile though. It had essentially been smashed into a little cube, and she was trapped in it, upside down, and could smell gasoline leaking. Thankfully nothing caught on fire, but that has to be a terrifying thought, trapped in the wreckage, knowing it *could* burst into flame, waiting in agony for them to cut you out.
One of the more ridiculously overpriced heaps that I've seen
Yeah, you could probably try to repeat that accident 50 times, and end up with 50 different results! The one thing I thought was really freakish about it, and seems to defy logic, is why the semi actually went up over top of the VW Bug, instead of simply punting it out of the way, or knocking it ahead and into the Chevy wagon?
But, I guess that when the semi connected with the Bug, somehow, it just got stuck under it, and that forced the truck up and over?
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No A/C, though, which is a big no-no. Wonder how tough it would be to add.
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I know, right? It does almost sound like an accident scene out of "CHiPs" (except that any recent year cars would have just done some skidding and swerving, while the older ones would have been the ones to smash up).
I swear though, that to the best of my knowledge, there was no ramp attached to the back of that Bug!
I imagine a '65 Valiant convertible would be extremely rare with air conditioning. Back in those days, people often bought the convertible because they couldn't afford air conditioning!
Those old Mopars had pretty good fresh-air ventilation though, with big vents under the dash, and the vent windows, and large roll-down windows, so it might not be too bad. At least the interior isn't black!
I'd be a little more concerned that it doesn't have power steering, although in a fairly light car like that, and considering the different ratio that manual would have, that might not be too much of a problem.
Mazda did seem to have a much bigger presence back in those days, at least around the DC area. I remember the GLC' seemed to be all over the place, while the 626es had a pretty good showing. And the RX-7 was pretty common, as well.
You're probably right on your hunch about Mazda selling maybe half of what Honda did back in 1985. It might have been even better than that. I think the 626 back in those days was a bigger car than the Accord, more like a Camry or K-car, so it might have had more appeal to those looking for a slightly larger car.
(Honda was really catching fire about this time--this was when Detroit was getting the crap beat out of them by the imports, in terms of market share).
Total US and Japanese built Hondas sold in the US was 693,515
I think the Mazda # is right because they weren't building in the USA then.
The Chevy Celebrity was selling quite well, so it wasn't all bad for Detroit. The Big Three either gained or lost a few percentage points from 85 to 86...."kinda flat" you might say.
Also, Honda was introducing their Acura nameplate around that time and I'm not sure how that was accounted for in their sales figures or the voluntary restraint allocation mix either. Suffice to say, there was no holding back the tide in the long run.
Thanks very much.
And here are the figures for Mazda for 2009 and 2010
208,000 and 230,000
So they've been up and down but basically flat for 25 whole years. What went wrong with Mazda?
I thought the c.1984 Mazda 626 was nicer looking and more functional than the 1984 Accord. But now the Mazda6 is comparatively left in the dust. Still has about the best handling of any family sedan, but they just can't sell them. Sales of the model for the whole year of 2011 look to be about 40,000, while Honda will get close to selling 300,000 Accords.
Certainly Detroit's is smaller.
I have always had a postive opinion and experience with the make. Mom had a 89 626 and sister had a Protege and both were bulletproof. College roomate had a 323 and his parents had a 929 and both of those were stellar.
There was something about the early and mid 90's version of the 626 that lost folks I think. Incredibly bland even compared to the Camcord.
Always liked the MX-6 and the RX cars. The trucks and Tribute were just me too versions of a Ford product. Not particularly bad, but not good either.
Never owned a Miata but it is the quintesential roadster. CX-7 is not bad looking and pretty quick. If I needed a family hauler the CX-9 would get my money.
Neighbors were in the market a year or so ago and I steered them the the 5 after a positve rental car experience of all things and they are very happy with it.
So...all that said I'm not sure why they have not been able to increase sales on what appears to me to be an attractive, fun, affordable line-up.
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I think the lack of a stand alone US plant may be one of the issues...
But you're right, they got vague and bland a bit in the 90s. By 2000 they had their nice flying bird M logo and the zoom zoom tag, which was a little silly but does seem to mean something, but perhaps that was too little too late. Unlike Honda, which kept nurturing the Civic name through all of its redesigns, Mazda went from the GLC, to the 323, to the Protege, to the 3. Not as bad as Ford, but still something of a problem. The 3 is their biggest success, however, and so perhaps they can build on that....
In the late 70s and 80s, with the first gen RX-7 and many other cars, they were right there with Mazda in offering sporty performance and innovative engineering at an affordable price. But by 1990 it was already a tale of two companies--Honda was soaring and Mazda was struggling--in spite of the amazing success of the first gen Miata.
Mazda is losing serious money now, and without a bigger partner that could spell trouble. I still think BMW, which has demonstrated and excellent ability to nurture and revive Mini as a worldwide brand could potentially get a lot out of Mazda. If Mazda sold a lot of high mpg mainstream vehicles it would allow BMW to continue to sell larger performance cars with lower mpg and yet still meet CAFE for 2025. Mini is going to provide that to some extent, but I think that even though Mini will probably get to 100,000 units in the US someday, I'm not sure they're going to go a lot beyond that....
What Mazdas are legitimate project cars for the US? The RX-7? The Miata? Anything else?
The first was a '91 Protege LX that my first wife and I bought together. That was one nifty little car, even with an automatic. Unfortunately, we only owned it for a couple of years before it got totaled in an accident.
The second is a 2010 CX-7 that the current wife and I bought this past February. After 5 months and 8000 miles, I can tell you that we're really pleased with it. Not a 'me too' looking SUV, the looks are certainly polarizing - you either love it or you hate it. The little 2.3L turbo engine puts out enough power to impress my wife, who has been driving V6 CUV's for the past 6 years. Yet it still manages 25MPG on the highway at 75 MPH.
Actually, 1985 was the last "glory year" for Detroit. 9 of the top 10 selling cars were domestic, and seven of them were GM! The one import that made that list was the Nissan Sentra, which was a hot little number back in those days.
Rounding out the top sellers, in no particular order: Celebrity, Cavalier, Impala/Caprice, Delta 88, Cutlass Supreme, Cutlass Ciera, Century, Escort, Tempo. Chevy might have cheated a bit by combining Impala and Caprice, but even without the ~55K Impala sedans sold that year, most likely the Caprice still would've made the Top Ten, maybe not just as high up.
As for other useless info, I remember the Celebrity sold about 400K units that year. The Cutlass Ciera was in the #4 position, and the Cutlass Supreme was in #9. And, from another source, I remember reading that the Buick LeSabre came in at #18 that year. It sold around 150K units, I think.
1986 was a turning point, but I don't remember as much of the detail. I do remember that the Pontiac Grand Am made the Top Ten sellers list that year, but GM overall fell to having 6, rather than 7, so they lost two. I think the two they lost were the Delta 88, which wasn't as popular when downsized a second time, and the Cutlass Supreme, which was continuing its downward trend. I think the Ford Taurus made the Top Ten as well, although it wouldn't topple the Chevy Celebrity for midsized car title until 1987.
Also, back in those days, they separated cars and trucks. I'm sure that if you factored trucks into the equation, the Chevy C/K and the Ford F-series would have easily been in the Top Ten. Dunno about the S-10 or the Ranger...maybe. They were pretty common back in those days. SUV sales really didn't start taking off till the early 90's, though. Back in 1985 or 86, if you wanted a 4-door SUV, I think you had the choice of the small unit-body Cherokee (wasn't there a plusher model called Wagoneer?) the bigger, old-style body-on-frame Grand Wagoneer/Grand Cherokee or whatever they called it, or you went all the way and got a Suburban.
Ford sold all the Taurus models they could make when it first came out (200K). The 86 Celebritity probably starting selling in Sept 85 where the Taurus really didn't hit until late Dec 85/Jan 86. If the 86 had a full model year (and Ford could have made more) I think they would have trumped the Celebrity.
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The '86 Taurus ran off around 235K units, while the LTD did around 72K. So considering Ford's midsized market was a bit fragmented, that's a good showing. Over at Mercury, the Sable sold around 95K units, while the small Marquis did around 28K.
For 1987, the Taurus soared to around 375K and the Sable rose to around 121K. Meanwhile, the Celebrity cooled a bit from around 404K units in 1986 to around 361K...so not as much of a drop as I had originally thought. For 1988 though, it dropped to around 258K units, while the Taurus did around 378K and the Sable sold around 121K.
Interestingly, looking through my old car book, the Taurus didn't do quite as well as I thought it did. I had thought that it broke 400K for 1987, and stayed there until the late 90's, although by that time it was padded by fleet sales.
However, it didn't break 400K until 1993. It came close in 1989, with 395K, but that cooled to around 333K in 1990 and around 302K in 1991. It shot back up to around 368K in 1992 with the restyle, and a whopping 460K for 1993. 1994 was back down to around 310K, although 1995 came in at around 396K. The 1996 "catfish" style, for all the ridicule, came in at 438K units, but that was probably padded with fleet sales.
I imagine they were padding them with fleet sales before that, though. My grandparents had a 1994 Taurus GL, and it was pretty average overall. Nice car, nothing really bad about it, but nothing all that great, either. It would've made a nice rental car. They also had a 1989, which was a lot nicer, but it was also an LX.
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My grandparents really liked it, and decided they wanted one. However, by this time the Electra was already replaced with the downsized model. Even though it came out as an '85, it was released, I believe, in April of '84. It was supposed to be an '84 proper, but they were still working on the kinks in the 4-speed FWD automatic transmission, which delayed it a bit (and with the way things turned out, should have delayed it more)
Well, once Grandmom and Granddad saw what they did with the Electra, they figured they'd better get a LeSabre before GM did the same thing to it! So, in late October, 1984, they came home with their new '85 LeSabre Limited "Collector's Edition".
Buick really capitalized on these things being the last RWD LeSabre. They came with some kind of press kit type thing, in a fake leather pouch, touting it up like this was the end of an era. And, in a sense, for GM it was.
As for the popularity of the downsized FWD cars? Well, the 1985 Electra and 98 sold well initially, but then remember they did have an extra long introductory year. Correspondingly, sales for the RWD 1984 Electra and 98 look much worse, but then they had an abbreviated model year. And going back before that, say '80-83, the economy was in the toilet, which hurt auto sales in general, yet the Electra and 98 still sold well.
After a year or so though, they fell out of favor. The Electra had some new life breathed into it for 1991 when it was redesigned with a slightly jaguar-esque look and renamed Park Avenue, but the 98 didn't fare nearly as well with that redesign, and it would be dumped after 1996.
With the replacements for the LeSabre/Delta 88, the FWD LeSabre tended to sell about as well as the '85 LeSabre did, but the FWD 88 never lived up to the RWD model. I think the LeSabre actually sold pretty well right up until the end, when it was replaced with the Lucerne, but by that time, a lot of them were the cheaper Custom model, and destined for fleets.
I wonder if GM would've been better off if they'd kept the RWD 98 and Electra, and LeSabre and Delta 88, around a few years longer, and when they released the FWD C/H body, just called it something else? Or, would they have had too many models competing for the same market?
The one brand that really benefitted the most from that body back in those days was Pontiac, when they got the FWD Bonneville for 1987. It was a pretty hot seller, running off around 120,000 units that first year. In contrast, the RWD 1986 Bonneville only managed around 40K. However, the 1987 Bonneville also replaced the 1986 Parisienne, which sold around 86,000 units that year, so maybe it wasn't such a success?
However, I think the 1987 Bonneville probably brought in a lot of new customers, such as people who wanted a larger BMW model but couldn't afford one. Most Parisienne and Bonneville-G buyers, when it was time for another car, probably went for a Caprice, Crown Vic, Grand Marquis, or a Century or Cutlass Ciera. Or, they just held onto them.
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Just was at the dealer for an oil change today, and saw an RX-8. Nice looking sports car for 28,000. Plus they are blowing them out the door at 4k off. 24k for a car like that is very impressive. No wonder Mazda is losing so much money...
Those full size fwd GM cars were very good. And yet ironically they contributed to bringing GM down. As we've discussed before here many of them looked quite the same at a distance...
I admire the huge task that GM engineers took on from 1975 to 1985. They redid every single car in their lineup and most--on paper, anyway--were significantly better than the cars they replaced in most ways. And yet quality suffered, designs seemed identical across the brands, and by 1985 GM was going off of a cliff in slow motion.
As Andre said, 1985 was one the last of the glory year, but even then GM's deep illness was evident. They weren't that profitable even when selling huge numbers of cars and trucks, and increasingly they had to resort to fire sale aprs to get rid of vehicles....
Plus they produced almost zero collectible project car vehicles beyond the Corvette and Reatta. Probably there are others beyond those, but I'm not recalling them right now.
Sometimes it is hard when you are living in an era, to see it as clearly as historians do decades later.
It is the typical cycle of business. A company or companies get to the top. Arrogance, hubris, taking their collective eye off the ball... whatever, kicks in, and others come up from below and overtake them. That happened to Detroit in the recent past, and it appears that Toyota, Honda, and some of those overtakers from Japan are now on the same path with the possibly the Koreans and - holy cow! - Detroit gradually overtaking them. And in 10 years it may be the Chinese, who knows.
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Even trying to compare U.S. sales figures from one Japanese import to another at that time is difficult: Japan "allocated" the amount of cars each manufacturer could sell in the U.S. market.
I would argue that without VER in place then domestic car sales would have been well short of the "gazillion" threshold in 1985. And as another consequence of VER, Japanese manufacturers boosted their car prices - and still sold them all! Keep that thought and look at the situation today...
With all the difficulties faced by Japan now - along with the stressed global economy - Japanese car dealers reported low inventories due to supply interruption. But isn't Honda and Toyota still selling all they have on hand? And still have customers asking for more? Isn't the cam-cord still a world beater even in the face of dire economics and physics? Are we not entertained?
If the Honda/Yota makers are now mired in the ruinous condition Detroit was some 25 years ago, I'd have to hear more evidence because I just can't see it.
Fortunately, Washington was not about to let that happen.
These 4runners are pretty cool (the early ones) because you can detach the entire back half of the roof and go topless. So it's also a pickup truck. Great engine but she's a bit slow.
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Tell you what---plot the loss of market share year by year for the Big Three prior to VER, and then pretend VER never happened, and calculate how long it would have taken for their market share to plunge to an unsustainable level.
You'll see, I think, that the Big Three was very close to annihilation at least in the passenger car market.
Also keep in mind that bad management and bad products did, in fact, wipe the British auto industry off the face of the map.