IIRC, almost all GM products were at least TBI by 1986, with HiPo motors such as the GN and GNX being SFI. All the brands you brought up with the exception of Subaru are not mainstream.
I'm not sure about the first AWD American car, but it wasn't that long ago.
Off the top of my head, the Pontiac 6000 STE from 1988 or so was the first domestic AWD (not 4WD) car. It's not so much that the domestics are late with new technology; they tend to introduce some new tech in limited numbers at high cost, then dump it when sales don't immediately develop only to reintroduce it after the rest of the market (or legislation) has made it a requirement.
Off the top of my head, the Pontiac 6000 STE from 1988 or so was the first domestic AWD (not 4WD) car. It's not so much that the domestics are late with new technology; they tend to introduce some new tech in limited numbers at high cost, then dump it when sales don't immediately develop only to reintroduce it after the rest of the market (or legislation) has made it a requirement.
Ford introduced the AWD Tempo prior to the 6000STE.
Not really, because AMC was 4WD, not AWD. The Eagle was basically a manually operated system with a transfer case, like a 4WD truck would be. Subaru also started out with a manual 4WD system, but then went into AWD. Audi pretty much pioneered (developed) the Quattro system of full-time AWD with or without locking center differentials, which is what we all use today.
AMC's system was a dead-end and the Eagle was a pretty awful car. I can speak from personal experience on that one. But early 4WD Subarus were pretty awful, too, so THERE!
Audi is, in my book, very mainstream, because most cars today derive their styling from Audi design. Audi wasn't big in sales in America but there's hardly a car out there today that isn't Audi-inspired in styling.
To get more onto the track of this topic, I think American carmakers ceased to be creative and innovative somewhere around 1973 or so, and they've been playing catch-up ever since. Call it corporate arrogance, call it bad management, call it just plain bad luck, but that's what it looks like from my glancing backwards at history.
Even when they WERE innovative, the execution wasn't good
70% of the parts come from the US is a bad number. A tiny bolt comes from the US while a $250 stereo comes from Japan. Percents mean nothing. A japanese company comes over and makes gears for Honda Transmissions in Ohio. You consider that an American sourced part. I don't. Where do the profits end up? Japan. They get their doorskins stamped locally because they are bulky to ship in from Japan. The company that stamps them employs Americans but who owns the company? They get their high value electronics shipped in from Singapore where labor is cheap, but the company in Singapore is Japan owned. If you think America is benefitting from all this, then you must not be watching the same news I watch at 6PM on weekdays.
The building boom is not gone. 750,000 new houses will be built this year. People mis-interpret a reduction in the rate of increase as a reduction in the total quantity that exist or the loss of an industry. It is not. Plus, Tell me how many years of 3 million people per year US population growth can occur without more home construction? Ans: none. Cheap credit gone? not in my book. I just got the best loan of my life at 5.3% interest. News: the fed has been lowering rates. I was just offered 6.7% interest to refinance my 2001 truck. Free credit is gone..taking loans against home equity that was gotten for free. Anyone who thought this could go on forever is a fool. I just shortened my commute and put my monthly cost of gas back under $200. Even when gas was $1.29, I was spending well over $100 a month and took a separate trip out for everything. Now I consolidate. What may be gone for some is driving a 18 mpg Tahoe to someplace 1200 miles away for vacation. What I plan to do is use my 24 mpg car mixed in with my 16 mpg truck for local driving, but my 22 mpg Astro will still only cost $400 in gas to take on a 2700 trip to Colorado and back for 4 people. With the big 3 losing sales and even Toyota losing 12.9% this month, compared to a year ago, prices of big vehicles will fall. Most people with short commutes can still drive a Tahoe or Sequoia. 149 Million Americans still have full-time jobs. The sky didn't fall yet. More practicality is now required. Other bad increases: Prop taxes jumped 24% this year College costs up 9% medical ins. up 10% Food up 9% Gas still lower than last May peak of $3.47 but higher than this time last year.
If you think America is benefitting from all this, then you must not be watching the same news I watch at 6PM on weekdays.
If you think America ISN'T benefitting from US assembly of parts, you've never spoken to a Honda employee from Marysville or a Nissan employee from Decherd or a Toyota employee from San Antonio. These are people who are well-paid because of these plants and would not be so well paid if not for their foreign-based employers.
Sure, some of the money goes back to Japan, but some of the money that you'd spend on a Ford or GM product goes to China or India or Brazil to fund expansion in those GROWING economies.
By the way, a "tiny bolt" is not counted the same as an entire stereo. Also, the Big3 (and the government) makes it more difficult for a foreign-based manufacturer to reach a 70% threshold than a US-based manufacturer...it's written into the law that way.
Don't think your news is giving you the complete story either. It's their job, first and foremost, to get you to watch...education comes downstream somewhere behind promoting the newest episode of "Big Brother" or the latest big screen release. If the news gave you all of the facts, you'd see that manufacturing jobs EVERYWHERE are decreasing chiefly due to increases in productivity. And this includes "job sucking countries" like China and India.
Most of the money spent on a (majority) US-built vehicle will stay in the US to pay workers in the final assembly plant, workers in the parts plants; suppliers of raw materials; shippers of raw materials, parts, and finished products; sales people; US-based marketeers and engineers and designers; and many other US (or North American)-based sources. There's simply no way that 85% of the price of any North American-built vehicle leaves North America.
Why is your only concern "where the profits end up"? Even for a highly profitable company such as Toyota, the profit from car sales is less than 10% of the sales price. Toyota automotive profit margin in 2007 was equal to 9.3% of sales, according to this:
profits of 10% after things are subtracted from gross earnings. The books can be cooked to hide as much profit as they want. That could be in the form of 100 engineering jobs in Japan for every engineering job in the US towards making a car. It could be in the form of 20 Taj Mahal offices in Tokyo to house the engineers and executives who decide everything about how they are farming America for profit. It could be in the form of at least an Acura and $200 a day expense accounts for each of the 10,000 Honda middle and upper management. The 10% is what they want you to think they make.
So again, we seem to be back to my question - outsourcing US jobs to other countries is bad, and importing jobs from other countries is.... bad too?
I keep trying to get this - if GM, US based corp sends manufacturing jobs to Mexico, we complain that US workers are losing jobs. We DO NOT complain that the alleged profits are making their way back to Dearborn Michigan. In fact, we don't even mention this. If Honda builds cars in Ohio, or BMW establishes a design center in California, that is bad, because the home corp is foreign, and all those profits are going abroad.... so by this logic we should want more outsourcing, rather than less, so the profits will come here.... what am I missing???
First, what MAINSTREAM cars were fuel injected prior to 1984??
I believe the even the lowly VW Beetle received fuel injection in 1975. That was about as mainstream as you could get in the 1970's. More "upscale" VWs had it even earlier, the squareback and fastback among others.
profits? profits? profits? GM is losing $15 Billion a quarter? Who said anything about profits. There was a time when GM thought it could profit off some outsourced labor to Mexico that the gains could be used to subsidize money losing operations at UAW plants in the US, allowing them to keep the money losing operations in business long enough to get to a new more favorable UAW contract. However the UAW never saw the handwriting on the wall and didn't react in time. Nobody saw outsourcing from US as a good long term anything. You see the colonization of America as a good thing?
profits? profits? profits? GM is losing $15 Billion a quarter? Who said anything about profits.
Um, pretty sure it is you that has been chirping about profits and where they go. In addition, you claim that companies can cook their books so that reported profits or losses are actually meaningless.
GM is making profits elsewhere in the world. If people in those other areas share your world view, they should be complaining about GM shipping profits to the US, re-colonizing, etc.
Was the FI on the Beetle standard??? Even so, that is one car. My point is that if you look at the majority of the car companies, both foreign and domestic, the changover occured between 1982-1986. Most cars were TBI by 1986, and port injected by 1990.
Lessee...prior to 1982, fuel injection was available on VW, Mercedes, Audi, Saab, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, BMW, Volvo, Ferrari, Porsche. (and probably I missed one or two). These would be regular production vehicles.
So really the Americans and the Japanese were the laggards in the 80s, everyone else was on the train already.
Alfa already had variable valve timing on all USA models in '81, and Audi had its Quattro system developed about that time, and of course Saab had developed turbocharging for its normal passenger sedan production in the late 1970s.
ESC came from Benz, as did TC, but Buick did have a simple, optional TC system for a while in the 1970s. Cadillac also developed one, but it was reportedly a failure.
So really 90% of the innovation came from the Europeans--that's probably fair to say.
Lessee...prior to 1982, fuel injection was available on VW, Mercedes, Audi, Saab, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, BMW, Volvo, Ferrari, Porsche. (and probably I missed one or two). These would be regular production vehicles.
Lessee.....prior to 1982, Mercedes, Audi,Saab,Fiat,BMW,Ferrari,Porsche, AND the 1 or 2 you missed made up what,10% of the US market??? If that??? not very "mainstream"
But, using your logic, that would make the Caddy V8-6-4 engine WAAAY ahead of it's time, even if it wasn't mainstream.
I suppose the FWD Toronado and Eldorado were ahead of their time. Remember in the mid '70's they had high mounted brake lights, as well as air bags.
Well pioneers are by definition not the majority. :P
And technical botches don't really count...they have to be innovative AND they have to work, right?
If you look at a 2008 car, it has nothing to do with an 80s Cadillac and everything to do with an 80s VW, Audi, Benz, Saab, Porsche, etc etc. Even a 2008 Cadillac has nothing to do with an 80s Cadillac.
VW van had EFI - that was the first year for EFI in the VW vans as well as the beetles.
That EFI worked so badly that the van was almost always in the shop. It was a camper van and we used to take trips in it - that van stranded us all over the western U.S. Most independent mechanics and even some VW dealers would tell us that the EFI was designed so badly that it actually couldn't be fixed. In 1978 VW went back to carburetion in the vans for a couple of years to work out the kinks in its EFI. To this day my dad curses that van.
In '84 he traded it for a Toyota van, which had EFI from the outset (Camry too). That van ran like a charm for more than 210K miles before he finally sold it.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
They just didn't understand the EFI system. Part of any carmaker's difficulties is how they train their service network. VW was not very good, Toyota mo' bettah. You can't survive in the USA without a decent parts/service network. People rebel and shop elsewhere. American car buyers are not loyal to brand like in the old days.
Was the FI on the Beetle standard??? Even so, that is one car.
Yes, the fuel injection was standard on the Beetle (at least the ones sold in the US, I think other countries like Mexico still got carbs) starting in 1975. This was for emissions purposes. It was also the first year of the catalytic converter.
And technical botches don't really count...they have to be innovative AND they have to work, right?
What??? The cylendar deactivation in use today is, for all intents and purposes, no more technologically advanced than 1978, with the exception that the computer used to run it is much faster.
If you look at a 2008 car, it has nothing to do with an 80s Cadillac and everything to do with an 80s VW, Audi, Benz, Saab, Porsche, etc etc. Even a 2008 Cadillac has nothing to do with an 80s Cadillac.
According to Wikipedia, GM's FI system employed in Cadillacs in the '70's was very similar to Bosch's D-Jetronic. D-jetronic was employed by all the mfr's you mentioned above. So, I guess a 2008 Caddy has EVERYTHING to do with a '70's Caddy.
I don't think coming out with fuel injection 21 years after the Germans and 8 years after VW is exactly cutting edge technological prestige for Cadillac. Nor was 8-6-4 which didn't work. AT ALL. And the FI wasn't good. They dropped it after all. Customers don't like it when you ask them to do your R&D!
Fortunately, Cadillac sobered up and fired all its customers, like Harley did. You remember how Cadillac went ballistic on Cadillac dealers who were installing fake landau bars and vinyl roofs on modern Cadillacs? Cadillac can't shed its old image fast enough, and I don't blame them. That's good marketing.
I think Cadillac and Corvette are excellent examples of how the Big Three CAN actually do something right if it tries.
But why is it that the Big 3 can only do the right thing on cars most people can't afford? This is important too: Honda, Toyota, and Hyundai, etc manage to do something right (let's face it, most things) on cars that most people can actually afford. The Big 3 do it in Caddys and Corvettes....do they think it's not worth bothering on cars for the unwashed masses like us?
Then again, maybe they do....sad, isn't it? :sick:
I don't think coming out with fuel injection 21 years after the Germans and 8 years after VW
GM came out with FI in 1957. Not just the Corvette, as it was available on the Bonneville. And don't say it was a flop, as it allowed Chevy to be the FIRST to break the 1hp/ci level. Not to mention, look at the values of Fuelie Vettes.
As for mainstream, I'm sure Chevy was selling more Vettes than Mercedes was selling CARS in the "50's and "60's.
The Vette and Pontiac fuel injection was very troublesome because it was leaned out too much. it simply would not idle and throttle response was poor. GM came out with 4 newer versions of the FI in quick succession in an attempt to make it run right. Finally tuners figured out how to enrich and adjust the injection system and then it worked great. (god bless the drag racers). Only 1,040 FI Vettes were made before they pulled it as cost ineffective.
No arguing with you that the FI cars are worth a LOT of money. Rarity is the key. These FIs are show cars and rarely driven.
Corvette only sold 6,339 cars in 1957. Next to a Mercedes 300SL, it was an extremely primitive car---but cheaper than a 300SL and just starting to get popular.
Best Corvette sales year ever was 1984 with just over 50,000 cars sold. Benz of course was producing sedans, coupes, convertibles, etc., so was a high volume producer in the 50s and 60s.
Again, good ideas badly executed seems to have been the Big Three bugaboo.
On a more positive note, German air-conditioning was a joke in the 70s and 80s compared to American designs.
You remember how Cadillac went ballistic on Cadillac dealers who were installing fake landau bars and vinyl roofs on modern Cadillacs?
It drives me nuts when people think Cadillacs come from the factory looking like that! That self-destructive add-on garbage is the fault of the dealer and the customer who has bad taste.
God bless tha Detroit automakers for great air conditioning! Something the Germans and Japanese couldn't get right for ages and ages, and even today the Japanese are barely in the ballpark in their quest for weight reduction and efficiency. "Just in time" production is a boon and a lesson everyone can take from the Japanese; "just enough" air conditioning is an area where the Japanese could still learn a thing or two from the Americans.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Japanese; "just enough" air conditioning is an area where the Japanese could still learn a thing or two from the Americans.
The climate control in my 2005 GMC PU truck was better than in my much higher priced 2007 Sequoia. It was dual control which my wife liked. The GMC would blast cold air in seconds after starting the truck.
The electronics in the GMC were also better and lower initial cost. Specifically XM integration and CD player. I never had an issue with my CDs in the GMC 6 CD Bose changer. Most of my CDs skip all over the place in the Sequoia single CD player wich is part of the $2000 NAV system.
I'm another in acknowledging that the American companies have it all over the Japanese when it comes to air conditioning. It's one of the few areas the old Windstall excelled in.
My various Hondas have been insanely reliable and at least a little fun to drive (comparing to a Camry as opposed to something German - or even to a Mazda) but their AC is so so.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
Heck, I'm impressed that you have an 11 year old Windstar! Ours made it 5 years and was the death of me. To be fair, and I've said this before, it was OK (not great but OK) mechanically for 80K. After that it just fell apart.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
Ours actually had no significant problems until we got to about 95,000 miles. We put very little into repairs until then...maybe $500.
It would likely have been dead by now, because I was not enamored of the idea of putting $2500-3000 into gasket replacement. Instead we had it resurrected at a tech college for the price of parts.
I had one gasket go and told the Ford guy that as long as he had the engine out replace them all. He said he tested them and they were fine. Yeah. Three different gaskets and when the engine finally seemed right the transmission went. At that point my wife didn't want to drive it anymore because she didn't trust it. Looking for assistance from Ford was hopeless. They treated us like lepers. The higher up the chain you went the worse they got.
So maybe if America needs its own automakers it needs better customer service...
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
I believe Plymouth also offered fuel injection back then, but it was a troublesome system and most cars were retrofitted with regular carbs.
Yes. It was the Bendix Electrojector. Problem w/ that was the wax paper capacitors in the electronics. Bendix sold the patents to Bosch, which used it as the basis of the original Jetronic.
Here's the formula for INNOVATIVE in the car industry.
Innovative = New + Makes Money
You create something novel, and loose your shirt, you are not an innovator. You are a....well....a loser, is I guess the best word for it. Cruel game, the car business.
Packard was a big loser in 1955, even with active suspension, electronically controlled shifting and lock up torque converter.
So maybe if America needs its own automakers it needs better customer service...
Or maybe either better parts or design for easy replacement. Replacing gaskets would not be so bad, if the design did not require such high labor charges.
I've always maintained (and some will certainly dispute this) that the success of the foreign makes in America was really, if you unmask it, a massive consumer boycott against American cars---certainly not everyone participated (thank heavens) but that's what is at the bottom of it.
In spite of higher prices, in spite of patriotism, in spite of a sometimes slim dealer network, Americans ganged up and gave away a huge portion of the Big Three market share to imports.
How else can you explain this? They certainly weren't forced to buy them.
If competition breeds success, and the fittest survive, well, there you go.
Mr_Shiftright: I've always maintained (and some will certainly dispute this) that the success of the foreign makes in America was really, if you unmask it, a massive consumer boycott against American cars---certainly not everyone participated (thank heavens) but that's what is at the bottom of it.
Yes and no. Reasons why foreign cars have sold over time have changed, as the buyers have changed. There were also different phases of the "Foreign Invasion."
During Phase One, (1950s and 1960s), it was about a very prosperous and confident nation indulging in something "different" as much as anything else. Foreign cars offered buyers a real choice compared to what was being produced by the Big Three. While there were some differences in the Big Three's cars (Chrysler's use of torsion bars on the front suspension after 1956), their cars really were very similar in concept.
Foreign cars were different but not necessarily better. They may have offered better handling, and in some cases, better build quality.
They were not more reliable (at least, not as I remember them) and they were seriously deficient in areas that were not important to Road & Track readers but were very important to most Americans - smooth shifting, reliable automatics, effective, reliable air conditioning and superior suppression of noise, vibration and harshness.
I remember my parents shopping for cars, and they hated stickshifts, they were more concerned about effective air conditioning than fuel injection, and if a car was "fussy" or couldn't be worked on by the corner gas station it was considered to be a pain-in-the-you-know-what, not a sign of "charm" or "character."
Interestingly, the most popular foreign cars in America during this first phase were largely European in origin.
During the 1970s, American reliability declined, and the Japanese got better and better. They offered cars with American-style reliability (though they were inferior in rust-proofing) and good fuel economy. Their economy models were also better equipped than comparable American models. This was Phase Two of the Foreign Invasion.
Interestingly, people forget that the first casualties of the Japanese onslaught were the low-priced European cars. They simply could not compete with the more reliable Japanese cars. Even VW was on the ropes by the early 1980s. (And VW still LOSES money in the U.S. today, so one could argue that it still hasn't figured out how to compete against Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Acura.)
The other European marques took advantage of the opening at the top of the market as Cadillac and Lincoln chased volume and increased their component and platform sharing with Chevrolet and Ford, respectively. That was the only way the Europeans could survive in the American market.
By the 1980s, there was definitely a consumer boycott of American cars. People were tired of declining quality as Detroit rushed jury-rigged drivetrains and other components into production to increase fuel economy. The Japanese cars were also better equipped for the money.
Today, I think it is less about a boycott than about the fact that the top import nameplates have become part of the fabric of American life. Plus, with the foreign nameplates opening factories here, while the Big Three race to outsource as much production as possible beyond the reach of the UAW, people have figured out that the "foreign" nameplate may be built right here in the USA.
nice overview of what really went down in those time frames. I have bought foreign since 1999 because I feel I am getting more car for my money by buying foreign cars. I would not totally rule out a return to buying domestic again, though. It depends upon the product offered for the price.
Post 607 above should be read by people who didn't live in those years and by people who did. A lot of those reasons were not discussed by people in my life at that time. Buying domestic was just what my Grandpa and Dad did. I remember fondly my Dad's '66 VW Fastback. I learned how to drive stick in that car and the car was quite reliable and economical to drive, too. But the VW of late has scared me away from even considering a purchase because of their notorious reliability problems.
Aside from trucks and vans, my entire social circle has abandoned domestic passenger cars completely. I was just thinking how amazing that is, to even say that. It's kind of depressing. Not one domestic passenger car among them that i can think of, and we are talking about a lot of people.
They still buy pickups though and the occasional Chrysler van or Escalade. But if I talk to them about Cadillacs or Corvettes, which I think are the best of the new breed of domestics, they blow me off, they won't hear of it.
There is some ugly bad karma still out there that needs to be overcome I guess.
Comments
That's only because American car companies are experts in hot air. :shades:
I'm pretty sure AMC beat Subaru to the AWD punch...so naturally the company simply HAD to be destroyed by Chrysler.
Off the top of my head, the Pontiac 6000 STE from 1988 or so was the first domestic AWD (not 4WD) car. It's not so much that the domestics are late with new technology; they tend to introduce some new tech in limited numbers at high cost, then dump it when sales don't immediately develop only to reintroduce it after the rest of the market (or legislation) has made it a requirement.
Ford introduced the AWD Tempo prior to the 6000STE.
AMC's system was a dead-end and the Eagle was a pretty awful car. I can speak from personal experience on that one. But early 4WD Subarus were pretty awful, too, so THERE!
Audi is, in my book, very mainstream, because most cars today derive their styling from Audi design. Audi wasn't big in sales in America but there's hardly a car out there today that isn't Audi-inspired in styling.
To get more onto the track of this topic, I think American carmakers ceased to be creative and innovative somewhere around 1973 or so, and they've been playing catch-up ever since. Call it corporate arrogance, call it bad management, call it just plain bad luck, but that's what it looks like from my glancing backwards at history.
Even when they WERE innovative, the execution wasn't good
Cheap credit gone? not in my book. I just got the best loan of my life at 5.3% interest. News: the fed has been lowering rates. I was just offered 6.7% interest to refinance my 2001 truck.
Free credit is gone..taking loans against home equity that was gotten for free. Anyone who thought this could go on forever is a fool.
I just shortened my commute and put my monthly cost of gas back under $200. Even when gas was $1.29, I was spending well over $100 a month and took a separate trip out for everything. Now I consolidate.
What may be gone for some is driving a 18 mpg Tahoe to someplace 1200 miles away for vacation. What I plan to do is use my 24 mpg car mixed in with my 16 mpg truck for local driving, but my 22 mpg Astro will still only cost $400 in gas to take on a 2700 trip to Colorado and back for 4 people. With the big 3 losing sales and even Toyota losing 12.9% this month, compared to a year ago, prices of big vehicles will fall. Most people with short commutes can still drive a Tahoe or Sequoia. 149 Million Americans still have full-time jobs. The sky didn't fall yet. More practicality is now required.
Other bad increases:
Prop taxes jumped 24% this year
College costs up 9%
medical ins. up 10%
Food up 9%
Gas still lower than last May peak of $3.47 but higher than this time last year.
If you think America ISN'T benefitting from US assembly of parts, you've never spoken to a Honda employee from Marysville or a Nissan employee from Decherd or a Toyota employee from San Antonio. These are people who are well-paid because of these plants and would not be so well paid if not for their foreign-based employers.
Sure, some of the money goes back to Japan, but some of the money that you'd spend on a Ford or GM product goes to China or India or Brazil to fund expansion in those GROWING economies.
By the way, a "tiny bolt" is not counted the same as an entire stereo. Also, the Big3 (and the government) makes it more difficult for a foreign-based manufacturer to reach a 70% threshold than a US-based manufacturer...it's written into the law that way.
Don't think your news is giving you the complete story either. It's their job, first and foremost, to get you to watch...education comes downstream somewhere behind promoting the newest episode of "Big Brother" or the latest big screen release. If the news gave you all of the facts, you'd see that manufacturing jobs EVERYWHERE are decreasing chiefly due to increases in productivity. And this includes "job sucking countries" like China and India.
Most of the money spent on a (majority) US-built vehicle will stay in the US to pay workers in the final assembly plant, workers in the parts plants; suppliers of raw materials; shippers of raw materials, parts, and finished products; sales people; US-based marketeers and engineers and designers; and many other US (or North American)-based sources. There's simply no way that 85% of the price of any North American-built vehicle leaves North America.
Why is your only concern "where the profits end up"? Even for a highly profitable company such as Toyota, the profit from car sales is less than 10% of the sales price. Toyota automotive profit margin in 2007 was equal to 9.3% of sales, according to this:
http://www.corporateinformation.com/Sample-Report.aspx?report=ComparativeAnalysi- s
The 10% is what they want you to think they make.
I keep trying to get this - if GM, US based corp sends manufacturing jobs to Mexico, we complain that US workers are losing jobs. We DO NOT complain that the alleged profits are making their way back to Dearborn Michigan. In fact, we don't even mention this. If Honda builds cars in Ohio, or BMW establishes a design center in California, that is bad, because the home corp is foreign, and all those profits are going abroad.... so by this logic we should want more outsourcing, rather than less, so the profits will come here.... what am I missing???
I believe the even the lowly VW Beetle received fuel injection in 1975. That was about as mainstream as you could get in the 1970's. More "upscale" VWs had it even earlier, the squareback and fastback among others.
In the 1970's VW was as mainstream as you could get. Subaru was not.
There was a time when GM thought it could profit off some outsourced labor to Mexico that the gains could be used to subsidize money losing operations at UAW plants in the US, allowing them to keep the money losing operations in business long enough to get to a new more favorable UAW contract. However the UAW never saw the handwriting on the wall and didn't react in time. Nobody saw outsourcing from US as a good long term anything. You see the colonization of America as a good thing?
Um, pretty sure it is you that has been chirping about profits and where they go. In addition, you claim that companies can cook their books so that reported profits or losses are actually meaningless.
GM is making profits elsewhere in the world. If people in those other areas share your world view, they should be complaining about GM shipping profits to the US, re-colonizing, etc.
So really the Americans and the Japanese were the laggards in the 80s, everyone else was on the train already.
Alfa already had variable valve timing on all USA models in '81, and Audi had its Quattro system developed about that time, and of course Saab had developed turbocharging for its normal passenger sedan production in the late 1970s.
ESC came from Benz, as did TC, but Buick did have a simple, optional TC system for a while in the 1970s. Cadillac also developed one, but it was reportedly a failure.
So really 90% of the innovation came from the Europeans--that's probably fair to say.
Lessee.....prior to 1982, Mercedes, Audi,Saab,Fiat,BMW,Ferrari,Porsche, AND the 1 or 2 you missed made up what,10% of the US market??? If that??? not very "mainstream"
But, using your logic, that would make the Caddy V8-6-4 engine WAAAY ahead of it's time, even if it wasn't mainstream.
I suppose the FWD Toronado and Eldorado were ahead of their time. Remember in the mid '70's they had high mounted brake lights, as well as air bags.
And technical botches don't really count...they have to be innovative AND they have to work, right?
If you look at a 2008 car, it has nothing to do with an 80s Cadillac and everything to do with an 80s VW, Audi, Benz, Saab, Porsche, etc etc. Even a 2008 Cadillac has nothing to do with an 80s Cadillac.
That EFI worked so badly that the van was almost always in the shop. It was a camper van and we used to take trips in it - that van stranded us all over the western U.S. Most independent mechanics and even some VW dealers would tell us that the EFI was designed so badly that it actually couldn't be fixed. In 1978 VW went back to carburetion in the vans for a couple of years to work out the kinks in its EFI. To this day my dad curses that van.
In '84 he traded it for a Toyota van, which had EFI from the outset (Camry too). That van ran like a charm for more than 210K miles before he finally sold it.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Yes, the fuel injection was standard on the Beetle (at least the ones sold in the US, I think other countries like Mexico still got carbs) starting in 1975. This was for emissions purposes. It was also the first year of the catalytic converter.
What??? The cylendar deactivation in use today is, for all intents and purposes, no more technologically advanced than 1978, with the exception that the computer used to run it is much faster.
If you look at a 2008 car, it has nothing to do with an 80s Cadillac and everything to do with an 80s VW, Audi, Benz, Saab, Porsche, etc etc. Even a 2008 Cadillac has nothing to do with an 80s Cadillac.
According to Wikipedia, GM's FI system employed in Cadillacs in the '70's was very similar to Bosch's D-Jetronic. D-jetronic was employed by all the mfr's you mentioned above. So, I guess a 2008 Caddy has EVERYTHING to do with a '70's Caddy.
Fortunately, Cadillac sobered up and fired all its customers, like Harley did. You remember how Cadillac went ballistic on Cadillac dealers who were installing fake landau bars and vinyl roofs on modern Cadillacs? Cadillac can't shed its old image fast enough, and I don't blame them. That's good marketing.
I think Cadillac and Corvette are excellent examples of how the Big Three CAN actually do something right if it tries.
Then again, maybe they do....sad, isn't it? :sick:
GM came out with FI in 1957. Not just the Corvette, as it was available on the Bonneville. And don't say it was a flop, as it allowed Chevy to be the FIRST to break the 1hp/ci level. Not to mention, look at the values of Fuelie Vettes.
As for mainstream, I'm sure Chevy was selling more Vettes than Mercedes was selling CARS in the "50's and "60's.
The Vette and Pontiac fuel injection was very troublesome because it was leaned out too much. it simply would not idle and throttle response was poor. GM came out with 4 newer versions of the FI in quick succession in an attempt to make it run right. Finally tuners figured out how to enrich and adjust the injection system and then it worked great. (god bless the drag racers). Only 1,040 FI Vettes were made before they pulled it as cost ineffective.
No arguing with you that the FI cars are worth a LOT of money. Rarity is the key. These FIs are show cars and rarely driven.
Corvette only sold 6,339 cars in 1957. Next to a Mercedes 300SL, it was an extremely primitive car---but cheaper than a 300SL and just starting to get popular.
Best Corvette sales year ever was 1984 with just over 50,000 cars sold. Benz of course was producing sedans, coupes, convertibles, etc., so was a high volume producer in the 50s and 60s.
Again, good ideas badly executed seems to have been the Big Three bugaboo.
On a more positive note, German air-conditioning was a joke in the 70s and 80s compared to American designs.
It drives me nuts when people think Cadillacs come from the factory looking like that! That self-destructive add-on garbage is the fault of the dealer and the customer who has bad taste.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
The climate control in my 2005 GMC PU truck was better than in my much higher priced 2007 Sequoia. It was dual control which my wife liked. The GMC would blast cold air in seconds after starting the truck.
The electronics in the GMC were also better and lower initial cost. Specifically XM integration and CD player. I never had an issue with my CDs in the GMC 6 CD Bose changer. Most of my CDs skip all over the place in the Sequoia single CD player wich is part of the $2000 NAV system.
My various Hondas have been insanely reliable and at least a little fun to drive (comparing to a Camry as opposed to something German - or even to a Mazda) but their AC is so so.
It would likely have been dead by now, because I was not enamored of the idea of putting $2500-3000 into gasket replacement. Instead we had it resurrected at a tech college for the price of parts.
I had one gasket go and told the Ford guy that as long as he had the engine out replace them all. He said he tested them and they were fine. Yeah. Three different gaskets and when the engine finally seemed right the transmission went. At that point my wife didn't want to drive it anymore because she didn't trust it. Looking for assistance from Ford was hopeless. They treated us like lepers. The higher up the chain you went the worse they got.
So maybe if America needs its own automakers it needs better customer service...
Yes. It was the Bendix Electrojector. Problem w/ that was the wax paper capacitors in the electronics. Bendix sold the patents to Bosch, which used it as the basis of the original Jetronic.
Innovative = New + Makes Money
You create something novel, and loose your shirt, you are not an innovator. You are a....well....a loser, is I guess the best word for it. Cruel game, the car business.
Packard was a big loser in 1955, even with active suspension, electronically controlled shifting and lock up torque converter.
Or maybe either better parts or design for easy replacement. Replacing gaskets would not be so bad, if the design did not require such high labor charges.
In spite of higher prices, in spite of patriotism, in spite of a sometimes slim dealer network, Americans ganged up and gave away a huge portion of the Big Three market share to imports.
How else can you explain this? They certainly weren't forced to buy them.
If competition breeds success, and the fittest survive, well, there you go.
Yes and no. Reasons why foreign cars have sold over time have changed, as the buyers have changed. There were also different phases of the "Foreign Invasion."
During Phase One, (1950s and 1960s), it was about a very prosperous and confident nation indulging in something "different" as much as anything else. Foreign cars offered buyers a real choice compared to what was being produced by the Big Three. While there were some differences in the Big Three's cars (Chrysler's use of torsion bars on the front suspension after 1956), their cars really were very similar in concept.
Foreign cars were different but not necessarily better. They may have offered better handling, and in some cases, better build quality.
They were not more reliable (at least, not as I remember them) and they were seriously deficient in areas that were not important to Road & Track readers but were very important to most Americans - smooth shifting, reliable automatics, effective, reliable air conditioning and superior suppression of noise, vibration and harshness.
I remember my parents shopping for cars, and they hated stickshifts, they were more concerned about effective air conditioning than fuel injection, and if a car was "fussy" or couldn't be worked on by the corner gas station it was considered to be a pain-in-the-you-know-what, not a sign of "charm" or "character."
Interestingly, the most popular foreign cars in America during this first phase were largely European in origin.
During the 1970s, American reliability declined, and the Japanese got better and better. They offered cars with American-style reliability (though they were inferior in rust-proofing) and good fuel economy. Their economy models were also better equipped than comparable American models. This was Phase Two of the Foreign Invasion.
Interestingly, people forget that the first casualties of the Japanese onslaught were the low-priced European cars. They simply could not compete with the more reliable Japanese cars. Even VW was on the ropes by the early 1980s. (And VW still LOSES money in the U.S. today, so one could argue that it still hasn't figured out how to compete against Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Acura.)
The other European marques took advantage of the opening at the top of the market as Cadillac and Lincoln chased volume and increased their component and platform sharing with Chevrolet and Ford, respectively. That was the only way the Europeans could survive in the American market.
By the 1980s, there was definitely a consumer boycott of American cars. People were tired of declining quality as Detroit rushed jury-rigged drivetrains and other components into production to increase fuel economy. The Japanese cars were also better equipped for the money.
Today, I think it is less about a boycott than about the fact that the top import nameplates have become part of the fabric of American life. Plus, with the foreign nameplates opening factories here, while the Big Three race to outsource as much production as possible beyond the reach of the UAW, people have figured out that the "foreign" nameplate may be built right here in the USA.
The only things I remember from TV ads for foreign cars during my pre-driver years: VW Beetle advertised at $1999 and Honda Civic advertised at $1699.
Post 607 above should be read by people who didn't live in those years and by people who did. A lot of those reasons were not discussed by people in my life at that time. Buying domestic was just what my Grandpa and Dad did. I remember fondly my Dad's '66 VW Fastback. I learned how to drive stick in that car and the car was quite reliable and economical to drive, too. But the VW of late has scared me away from even considering a purchase because of their notorious reliability problems.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
They still buy pickups though and the occasional Chrysler van or Escalade. But if I talk to them about Cadillacs or Corvettes, which I think are the best of the new breed of domestics, they blow me off, they won't hear of it.
There is some ugly bad karma still out there that needs to be overcome I guess.