Monday, June 01, 2009
Build a better Beetle
So now we own GM.
GM is bankrupt. Why did take so long?
The problem was becomng evident when I was child, an era of bloated cars & absurd designs. But by the time I was actually driving, the future was easily summed up this way: Why doesn't Detroit build a better Volkswagon Beetle? - a cheap, small, reliable first car for young drivers & second car for families. It wasn't an impertinent or stupid question, although it often was treated as one. The Japanese didn't think so. The first popular Japanese imports were pretty crappy - lots of college students had Datsun junkers with rusted out floors, but they worked on quality control while our auto makers stumbled around from one piece of garbage to another, crying that the Japanese cheated because their government helped the car companies.
AMC - American was the kooky 4th company - tried going "outside the box" in the Fifties with the strange, lovable Metropolitan & in 1975 with the Pacer. I liked the Pacer design, but it got 16 mpg & AMC quickly became confused about what it was supposed to be. A really smart automaker would've had something like it on the drawing board five years earlier.
Every year for decades the Big Three car companies rolled fantastical small car dreams into the auto shows, ideas apparently thought up by geeky young engineers whose conceptions were never intended to reach production.
When the SUV was glued together - truck as family car - deep down inside I think everyone knew it was hopeless & just a matter of time. GMC & Chrysler hung on longer than I had expected. One strategic retreat after another, hoping for a miracle change in the marketplace, or technology, or something.
Twenty years ago I saw Michael Moore's film "Roger & Me." Yeah, they were closing plants, shipping jobs out of the country, & impoverishing entire cities, but they still didn't have a freakin' clue. I left the theater thinking, "It's all true, but what does he expect GM to do without going bankrupt?"
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
GM is bankrupt. Why did take so long?
The problem was becomng evident when I was child, an era of bloated cars & absurd designs. But by the time I was actually driving, the future was easily summed up this way: Why doesn't Detroit build a better Volkswagon Beetle? - a cheap, small, reliable first car for young drivers & second car for families. It wasn't an impertinent or stupid question, although it often was treated as one. The Japanese didn't think so. The first popular Japanese imports were pretty crappy - lots of college students had Datsun junkers with rusted out floors, but they worked on quality control while our auto makers stumbled around from one piece of garbage to another, crying that the Japanese cheated because their government helped the car companies.
AMC - American was the kooky 4th company - tried going "outside the box" in the Fifties with the strange, lovable Metropolitan & in 1975 with the Pacer. I liked the Pacer design, but it got 16 mpg & AMC quickly became confused about what it was supposed to be. A really smart automaker would've had something like it on the drawing board five years earlier.
Every year for decades the Big Three car companies rolled fantastical small car dreams into the auto shows, ideas apparently thought up by geeky young engineers whose conceptions were never intended to reach production.
When the SUV was glued together - truck as family car - deep down inside I think everyone knew it was hopeless & just a matter of time. GMC & Chrysler hung on longer than I had expected. One strategic retreat after another, hoping for a miracle change in the marketplace, or technology, or something.
Twenty years ago I saw Michael Moore's film "Roger & Me." Yeah, they were closing plants, shipping jobs out of the country, & impoverishing entire cities, but they still didn't have a freakin' clue. I left the theater thinking, "It's all true, but what does he expect GM to do without going bankrupt?"
Labels: in the news
