Re: What erks me.
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 11:20 pm
Jim, you got it, anytime you are ready.
Thanks for the notice, Scott. I'm going to follow those Internet capitalization rules from this point on, you betcha!
Now, you will notice that, in my "generalization" about Detroit and cars, I included a qualifying phrase: "with some exceptions".
Being in the automotive profession, and having been fairly deeply ensconced in the industry for several decades, I had lots of friends (still do) who are "on the inside", and as a matter of fact, we placed a good half-dozen recent grads in the design studios at the Tech Center, just in the past few months.
Again, my opinion is that, roughly the year I began driving, cars from Detroit began to go to the Devil. And although many of you already know the following, bear with me anyway...
Factual basis and back story: In 1946, Detroit was converting from wartime production back to their peacetime products. GIs were coming home and hungering for new wheels by the hundreds of thousands, and there was a hue and cry by leaders of both the steel and auto workers unions to build cars more like what was coming out of Europe--family cars that sipped gas, took up less space, cost less to produce, buy, and own, and would help the people as well as the industry, to get back on their feet and put the war years of austerity behind them. In collusion, the heads of the Big Four decided, instead, to take a "bigger, better, more expensive and complicated" approach to automaking, and to focus on fashion rather than engineering. They did this for one simple reason: there was much more profit per unit in big cars than in small. America was flexing her muscles once again, and the Consumer was about to become her King and Consort.
That got us into the pickle we found ourselves in back in '64, when the fallout of Nader's Unsafe At Any Speed began to make itself felt in Detroit's boardrooms, as carmakers were forced to grapple with the realities of driver and passenger safety and environmental impact. Through endless negotiations with Congress, the sharp point of the sword was rounded and safety and emissions legislation began to take effect very gradually. Detroit took from 1967--when the very first soft knobs appeared on radios and window winders--through roughly 1980 or 81, when cars finally began to operate more efficiently and look less monstrous, Detroit struggled to meet government regulations and maintain their market share, and beginning in earnest in 1971, watched the opportunistic and entrepreneurial Japanese and Koreans flood the market with (mostly) inexpensive, small, reliable cars.
Between 1968 and 1979, Detroit produced a lot of junk while struggling to play catch up. They also produced a very few gems. I've been fond of Detroit cars since I first began to drive (Chicagoan by birth; bought American cars only, until new ones became impractical to buy), but haven't seen the need to own a piece of machinery that might work, would rust, and didn't feel special to drive anymore.
I'm not a Detroit basher--please don't Tarr me with that worn-out brush--but the ruins of a once-mighty city and the industry that gave it life are all there for us to see, and it's a tragedy wrought by the Presidents of GM, Ford, Chrysler, and American Motors (who?) that began on that day in 1946 when Walter Reuther's call to common sense was roundly rejected by arrogant corporate demigods.
The low point of Detroit style and engineering (for the most part--there's that qualifier again!) was in those years between 1968 and 1980, when all our bad decisions began to collect their ransom.
That's the very long version of a very brief but important phrase.
Thanks for the notice, Scott. I'm going to follow those Internet capitalization rules from this point on, you betcha!
Now, you will notice that, in my "generalization" about Detroit and cars, I included a qualifying phrase: "with some exceptions".
Being in the automotive profession, and having been fairly deeply ensconced in the industry for several decades, I had lots of friends (still do) who are "on the inside", and as a matter of fact, we placed a good half-dozen recent grads in the design studios at the Tech Center, just in the past few months.
Again, my opinion is that, roughly the year I began driving, cars from Detroit began to go to the Devil. And although many of you already know the following, bear with me anyway...
Factual basis and back story: In 1946, Detroit was converting from wartime production back to their peacetime products. GIs were coming home and hungering for new wheels by the hundreds of thousands, and there was a hue and cry by leaders of both the steel and auto workers unions to build cars more like what was coming out of Europe--family cars that sipped gas, took up less space, cost less to produce, buy, and own, and would help the people as well as the industry, to get back on their feet and put the war years of austerity behind them. In collusion, the heads of the Big Four decided, instead, to take a "bigger, better, more expensive and complicated" approach to automaking, and to focus on fashion rather than engineering. They did this for one simple reason: there was much more profit per unit in big cars than in small. America was flexing her muscles once again, and the Consumer was about to become her King and Consort.
That got us into the pickle we found ourselves in back in '64, when the fallout of Nader's Unsafe At Any Speed began to make itself felt in Detroit's boardrooms, as carmakers were forced to grapple with the realities of driver and passenger safety and environmental impact. Through endless negotiations with Congress, the sharp point of the sword was rounded and safety and emissions legislation began to take effect very gradually. Detroit took from 1967--when the very first soft knobs appeared on radios and window winders--through roughly 1980 or 81, when cars finally began to operate more efficiently and look less monstrous, Detroit struggled to meet government regulations and maintain their market share, and beginning in earnest in 1971, watched the opportunistic and entrepreneurial Japanese and Koreans flood the market with (mostly) inexpensive, small, reliable cars.
Between 1968 and 1979, Detroit produced a lot of junk while struggling to play catch up. They also produced a very few gems. I've been fond of Detroit cars since I first began to drive (Chicagoan by birth; bought American cars only, until new ones became impractical to buy), but haven't seen the need to own a piece of machinery that might work, would rust, and didn't feel special to drive anymore.
I'm not a Detroit basher--please don't Tarr me with that worn-out brush--but the ruins of a once-mighty city and the industry that gave it life are all there for us to see, and it's a tragedy wrought by the Presidents of GM, Ford, Chrysler, and American Motors (who?) that began on that day in 1946 when Walter Reuther's call to common sense was roundly rejected by arrogant corporate demigods.
The low point of Detroit style and engineering (for the most part--there's that qualifier again!) was in those years between 1968 and 1980, when all our bad decisions began to collect their ransom.
That's the very long version of a very brief but important phrase.
