|
"Made in America" wasn't all roses in terms of cars.
The 1970's was the decade of massive gas-guzzling square breakdown behemoths, which much of the American public just did not want.
The domestic manufacturers all refused to make any economy cars and thus the Germans and Japanese gained a large foothold on the US market, which stays with us fourty years later. Enter the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, and VW Bug. Inexpensive, good mileage, dependable, easy to repair, etc. The unions had a blast smashing them up in front of t.v. cameras.
With enough lost sales, domestic mnfrs finally did offer comparative models in the 1980's like the Ford Escort, Chevy Citation, etc but it was a slow process.
It's only been recently that US-produced cars are at same build quality or exceed the imports, great mileage for big trucks, but the slide back into super-sizing automobiles have again been a continuing trend. For instance the 1983 Ford Ranger was 175L x 67W, but the 2020 Ranger is now 211L x 73W. Three feet longer.
__________________
Meanwhile other things are still happening.
|