O'Rourke has it about right...great, thoughtful article from the WSJ

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by the

It's not short on reasoning at all.

The Japanese car makers have thrived - thus far - because they have built the better appliances.

+1

I think O'Rourke nails it. The automobile has been made detestable because the pinheads that sit around and write laws and want to force Stalin-like control of everyone's life decree it be so.

For one, I love the visceral raw nature of my 911. I love the fact that it doesn't have airbags, ding-dongs, chimes, ODBII sensors or any of the other road-nazi-decreed B.S. that "modern" vehicles have. Me, an air-cooled engine and the road. Bliss.

O'Rourke gets it. Clearly.

[jyl]

European car companies operate with some pretty stiff unions too. Japanese domestic labor costs are high as well. Korea has had some epic labor strife. Detroit's problems aren't all the UAW, although the UAW is one of them. Very mediocre cars are a big problem too.

[Jim Richards]

Sammy gets partial credit. GM (throw in Ford & Chrysler, too) management, UAW, Federal economy & safety mandates, insurance industry, trial lawyers, OPEC, Japanese vision into American automobile market, am I leaving anyone out? The automobile is only an appliance to most Americans. At most it's an extension of one's (hoped for) image, thanks to Madison Ave. Very few Americans are real car guys, and how many of us have moved on from 60's-era muscle cars (if you ever started there) to foreign sports cars? How many of us actually considered seriously the purchase of an American car in the past decade or two or three. I know I haven't, and, as a car guy, I'm not apologizing.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Bingo (and O'Rourke touches on this). The car today is viewed by 99% of the public much in the same way as they view a refrigerator or a toaster - and any trip to a Home Depot or Lowes will teach you that there are a couple of clearly identifiable trends with respect to appliance purchasing:

- people want functionality - design and beauty are not even remotely considerations (which implies Asian-made crap)
- people want it cheap (which implies Asian-made crap)
- people want it now (which implies Asian-made crap)
- longevity is not even remotely a consideration - people want throwaway stuff (which DEFINITELY implies Asian-made crap)

And so the trend has extended to the car. This trend became VERY visible in the 1980s, when Japanese manufacturers like Honda, Toyota, Datsun (now Nissan) and their ilk started slashing away at the market share of the U.S. public, which had been literally OWNED for years by the "big three". This was partially because of the stupidity and hubris of the U.S. companies in the 1970s (who redefined the term "garbage automobile" through virtually the entire 1970s, producing amazingly horrendous vehicles), but it was also because the Japs "got it". They saw a shift in American thinking. Americans were becoming less concerned with big, ostentatious designs and more concerned with practicality - and this meant safety, gas mileage, vehicles that lasted more than 80,000 miles and didn't come from the showroom with a visible patina of rust on every fender and in every wheel well.

The turning point DEFINITELY was in the 1970s. Everything that would eventually destroy the American automobile was starting to happen then - insane government regulation and bureaucracy (remember "55 saves lives", the dawn of mandatory testing and mileage requirements, etc.?), union abuse of the companies at an unprecedented scale, loss of market share to Japan and Europe, a public disgusted with getting ripped off by fast-talking, cowboy-hat-wearing scheisters pumping HORRIBLE cars, a recession that forced practicality that hadn't existed in the 60s, the "gas crunch" due to OPEC, etc. It all came to a head in the 1970s. Then the 80s came and it all got worse. More regulations, more crap from Detroit, more union bleeding of the companies, better cars from Japan and Europe, etc.

It's sad. I consider myself a "car guy". I love the automobile. I've been privileged to own several neat ones, including my present fleet. Our kids won't get the same enjoyment - instead they'll likely be slaves to a government-mandated, lawyer-promulgated litany of engineered, appliance-like crap vehicles or poorly-run, ineffective mass transit systems that get you across town in about a week and a half at the cost of a billion taxpayer dollars per mile. Look to Amtrak as an example of how well the government will run transportation infrastructure.

It's sad.

Rush got it right. The "Motor Law" is coming. This is the first step towards a passionless and boring, bland, lukewarm future. O'Rourke certainly got it right. The automobile empowered the average guy to get out of the crushing hell of urban living and that is slowly and systematically being undermined by corrupt, power-drunk bureaucrats. It's a tragedy.

[Jim Richards]

Jeff, I really don't think there's been a shift in American's attitude towards the automobile. Back in the 50s/60s, if you weren't a gearhead (i.e., most Americans), you bought the car that suited your needs. Lots of station wagons or four-door sedans were on the road back then, reflecting the needs of most families. If you wanted to be a little sporty, you'd go for the two-door coupe.

[Nine17]

Originally Posted by jyl

Long on poetry, short on reasoning.

PJ is full of shytte.

GM, Ford, and Chrysler all benefitted from the fact that the Army Air Corps bombed the industrial capacity of Europe and Asia into the Stone Age during '42-'45. Auburn-Cord-Deusenberg, Hupp, Packard, and Nash went broke building well-engineered cars. The Big Three got away with building cheap under-engineered gas-sucking rust buckets for 25 years and their corporate cultures could never wrap their brains around the need to compete when ships taking war materiel to Vietnam started stopping off in Yokohama to pay for the return trip.

As for the "open road," the Green Revolution, modern medicine, and way too much baby-making killed that, not ideology: between 1950 and 2009 the World population went from 2.5B to 6.7B; California went from 10.5M to 37M. Infrastructure hasn't kept up with breeding.

[chapo]

PJ nailed it. Don't get it? You're probably complaining about the cupholder size. CARS are just accessories now, nobody cares about driving now. For all the American car haters out there, read some of the Camaro Mustang Challenger comparisons. They haul ass, they handle, and they are cheap .

[chapo]

As far as the DB above me has responded, they deserved to be bombed to the stone age and 50's to 60's American cars seem to live incredibly long lives for cars originally sold for a few grand.

[chapo]

Santa Cruz has solved all of California's problems with their voting

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by chapo

PJ nailed it. For all the American car haters out there, read some of the Camaro Mustang Challenger comparisons. They haul ass, they handle, and they are cheap .

I agree. I really do think I'm going to like the Bullitt Mustang...a lot! Just as soon as I figure out it's bells and whistles. Example...opened the door tonight...horn started beeping. I thought I had the alarm off. All this stuff, much of it federally mandated, is going to take some time to figure out. But as far as performance goes? I think it would give most normally aspirated P-cars a go for their money...
and not just in a straight line.

Santa Cruz voted what????

[HardDrive]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

But...But...Oregon's Governor and those pushing GPS units in all cars here say this is ONLY to be used for collecting a mileage based roads tax. A Governor wouldn't lie to us, would he?

No offense, but Oregon really IS a scary socialist nightmare. Up here in Seattle, we have 'progressives', in Portland, you have 'wingnuts'.

My mother was a judge in Oregon, and the stuff she told me was scary as hell.

OR government is

a) TOTALLY inept
b) Corrupt
c) Completely controlled by the Portland loonies
d) See a)

[tabs]

Originally Posted by Nine17

PJ is full of shytte.

GM, Ford, and Chrysler all benefitted from the fact that the Army Air Corps bombed the industrial capacity of Europe and Asia into the Stone Age during '42-'45. Auburn-Cord-Deusenberg, Hupp, Packard, and Nash went broke building well-engineered cars. The Big Three got away with building cheap under-engineered gas-sucking rust buckets for 25 years and their corporate cultures could never wrap their brains around the need to compete when ships taking war materiel to Vietnam started stopping off in Yokohama to pay for the return trip.

As for the "open road," the Green Revolution, modern medicine, and way too much baby-making killed that, not ideology: between 1950 and 2009 the World population went from 2.5B to 6.7B; California went from 10.5M to 37M. Infrastructure hasn't kept up with breeding.

After the war Packard had quality problems...their engines didn't last, and their styling was behind the times...

Auburn/Cord /Dusenburg went broke during the Depression because they were selling an ultra luxury product in hard times...as did Pierce Arrow Packard had to introduce a lesser line to survive (the 110 line). Some have argued that it was the LESSENING of the brand from exclusivity to mass production that eventually killed Packard..Maybe Packard was only able to thrive because it was a luxury brand and once that cache went away so did they. Or maybe they just never got the hang of the mass production biz.

It is interesting to note that before WW2 one could buy a Chassis from Chrysler, Cadilliac, Lincoln, Packard or Dusenburg and have a CUSTOM Body built for it. After the war that all went away. The cost became prohibitive. Mass production became the order of the day. Ford and GM made stabs at limited production exclusivity Ford with the Lincoln Contential Mark II but at over 10K in 1955 it was a bit much, Caddiliac had the Eldorado and Buick Skylarks of 1953. Chrysler with the 300's. All were expensive cars to produce, on which they lost money producing.

To say that Detroit built crap for 25 years after the war is simply not true. Cars became more sophisticated and realiable in those years. Maybe what did em in was that the BEANCOUNTERS took over and the unit cost of production became more important then the car they were producing. In the end it was the Japs producing cars for a lower unit cost then the American cars, while some Americans were looking at economy in the 60's (VW and later the Jap cars) it wasn't until the gasoline went up that Americans cared about fuel mileage. At 29 cents a gallon who cared, just pump away. Then it was the Americans that were left flatfooted as maybe they lacked the foresight or vision to look ahead...let us blame that on corporate culture and hubris therein. Which is still something Americans suffer from, all one has to do is look at the mindset of the current administration among others. "It is a shame that a Rich naton like America can not have health care for 45M of its people." Obama... But then again the Gerrmans and Japs had LESS to work with then America so they had to be economical to begin with.

A good analysis of the problems that eventually has led to the demise of 2 of the BIG THree is David Halbershams book "The Reckoning" which is about Ford and Nissan.

I hate to tell ya all but world population is the biggest problem facing the world today...and everybody wants a piece of the pie, to live large..well folks the operative word there is SUSTAINABILITY...I have said this over and over again..the more the world developes industrialy the more pressure you put on the envirnoment. You can not have a modern economy without envirnomental degradation. ENDF OF STORY. so if Santa Cruz really wants to put his money where his mouth is go live in a log cabin in Montana like Teddy Kozinsky did...

[competentone]

Originally Posted by jyl

As for GM, don't be writing it's obituary. The company will emerge from BK in a couple of months, minus excess plants, brands, and workers, with enough cash to make a comeback. Then, it'll be up to the cars.

"...with enough cash to make a comeback..."

Cash stolen from the taxpayers and secured bondholders!

Do you really think a car company funded with stolen money and run by gangsters is going to be an American success story?

GM is dead -- at least its "brain" is dead. The body may continue to thrash around for years to come -- sustained by a continuous stream of taxpayer dollars -- but it's over.

Take a tour of Detroit to understand GM's future: