The mainstream media tends to fumble the metaphorical football on the symbolic goal line. With fewer than twenty-four hours left before General Motors files for Chapter 11, the MSM is set to go back, Jack, and do it again. Instead of excoriating GM’s management for not taking in more money than they spent, they’re parsing the American automaker’s bankruptcy as a “sign of the times.” Leading this electronic charge of the heat without light brigade: P. J. O’Rourke. Writing for the Wall Street Journal, O’Rourke paints GM’s dissolution as confirmation that America’s love affair with the automobile is, finally, dead. Rubbish.
Quick digression: Yesterday, I was looking for something to healthy to eat at Six Flags New England. As you might imagine, I’d have had better luck trying to win an enormous Tweety Bird by tossing small plastic rings at the necks of custom-made, ring-aversive milk jugs. As I consumed a greasy hot dog on a butter infused bun, I thought, well, that’s the way it is.
If these teeming throngs wanted a healthy salad or a chilled fruit cup, Six Flags would sell them. The vast majority of their coaster-lovin’ customers want fried foods and sugary drinks. Six Flags has a business to run. So they give their customers what they want. Tough luck for me. The same inescapable economic logic applies to the manufacturers of P. J. O’Rourke’s diss-missed automotive “appliances.”
Contrary to the prosaic pistonhead’s rant, no one forced Americans out of their charismatic, high horsepower barges into boring and bland vehicles. Truth be told, the average consumer wanted personal transportation that they didn’t have to think about it. The automakers who best provided these vehicles thrived. The ones who could not do so, both consistently and profitably, did not.
It’s one of those ipso facto deals. If American car buyers didn’t place reliability above all, they’d still be driving union-built be-finned rust buckets that required constant mechanical attention. The fact that Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai are solvent, while GM is not, is a simple reflection of the transplanted automakers’ ability to give the people what they want.
Never mind the bailout or O’Rourke’s pining for more “adventurous” times. The free market has spoken. GM must die.
Was this desire for aesthetically neutral four-wheeled appliances nurture (roadside stranding, lousy dealer service, inconvenience and expense) or nature (if I wanted to be a mechanic I’d be one)?
O’Rourke blames suburban ennui (i.e., car as cupholder) and “busybodies of the environmentalist, new urbanist, utopian communitarian ilk.” He bemoans the end of the legacy of the swaggering, charisma-loving “romantic fools” who created America’s automotive giants. Yes, well, it was these self-same car guys that condemned GM to its ultimate fate as a tax-sucking zombie.
Former GM CFO and ex-CEO Rick Wagoner is [rightly] blamed for pissing away billions on ill-advised acquisitions. He merits condemnation for refusing to man-up and declare bankruptcy when the company could have done so under its own steam. And he deserves his place in infamy for handing the keys to the executive washroom to the federal government. Still, ultimately, the beancounters didn’t kill GM. The car guys did.
The car guys failed to commit the company to designing and building the small range of bland, reliable, competitive, cost-effective automotive products it needed to survive. They were drunk on pickups. High (and mighty) on SUVs. When it came to more pedestrian metal, GM’s senior (i.e., divisional) car guys threw whatever they had against the wall to see what would stick. Not much did, and they didn’t care.
Don’t tell me that Wagoner and his predecessors tied the car guys’ hands behind their backs, forcing them to accept badge-engineered mediocrity. They were happy enough to go along for the ride. And why not? They were hugely compensated cogs in a corporate culture where failure was impossible, gorging on unimaginable riches simply for keeping the status quo. Speaking of which . . .
It should never be forgotten that Car Czar Bob Lutz squandered GM’s last remaining chance at a genuine, product-led turnaround. Lutz doubled-down on a half-assed redesign of GM’s trucks, imported sales stinkers and commissioned poorly-developed niche-mobiles without a hope in hell of mass success. Lutz’ highly-touted Chevrolet Malibu was a singular vehicle; it was also too little too late.
Here’s the funny, horrible thing: you can hear echoes of Bob Lutz in O’Rourke’s paradise lost essay. Like Lutz, O’Rourke believes that American car culture is practically dead. Both men mistake the end of a certain kind of enthusiasm—their own—for a wider malaise. They don’t understand that automotive enthusiasts will always be a relatively insignificant minority of the American public; tens of millions of motorists want cheap, reliable, comfortable, practical, safe, not-too-thirsty, not-ugly transportation.
No one’s asking P. J. O’Rourke to respect appliance drivers. But GM’s inability to do so was, in the final analysis, the death of them.
Okay, I have to ask, once it’s made official, and once the Dow Jones index boots GM to the curb, who’s going to take their place on the list of thirty?
My money’s on Google. Because, well, they’re Google.
Well said, though Wagoneer deserves a large part of the blame for focusing on trucks and telling the boys to forget about the cars. Several years ago he bragged to Wall Street that GM was going to generate record profits by scaling back its car business and going all in on trucks and SUVs. I can’t find the interviews where he said this at the moment, but I think it was in 2002 or 2003.
I think you are both right. GM was very badly managed for years. At the very least, they could have made the same second-rate cars with better quality, if they had wanted to. But it is hard not to agree with PJ that the powers-that-be have designed a set of policies that are hostile to the automobiles we American car-lovers like, from CAFE standards to safety standards to low speed limits to traffic cameras to drilling prohibitions, etc. The hostility has increased significantly since the new administration took over. Anyone want to buy one of Obama’s little green cars from Government Motors? I sure don’t. P.J. O’Rourke doesn’t either.
I think what you are doing is looking at the outward signs of the disease, not the disease itself. It is always easy to be the Monday Night Quarterback, but in truth could this have been avoided, long ago? Way long ago? Probably not.
To me this event, would happen sooner or later in any countries economic cycle. Some day in our lifetime we will read about the demise of Honda or Toyota, a victim of the Chinese Dragon. I can read the obit now, Satoshi Aoki (or his successor) will be accused of not building enough $1,000 cars etc etc.
The Brits lost their auto industry a couple of decades back, the Scandinavians too. The French state subsidize theirs, and always will, and the Italians build wonderful red cars and hang on.
So if we, the Americans, produced quality cars, designed well, with no pension millstone around the makers necks, would we be here tomorrow, yes, but twenty years from now? I doubt it.
It’s a cyclical thing. Rome fell, but we remember the chariot. GM fell and we will always remember the Goat.
Amen
PJ needs to shut his pie hole.
If he worked for GM for a decade and had to pull his kids out of college and sell his home because GM just axed him, then he could provide an opinion.
Get ready for a week of mindless blather from a bunch of folks that have never even been to Detroit.
P.Js New York Times does make some valid points.I agree in principle with his views.
However there is no escaping the facts brought forth in the latest DW.”Happy enough to go along for the ride”That pretty well sums up the culture for all of us. Management and workers.
I will take exception to “half-assed redesign of GM Trucks”.The last generation Silverado is by far
the best built and designed,pick up built by any body,anywhere,bar none.
@lw A week of blather you say?Note to self……Mikey read TTAC this week don’t comment
I guess PJ O’Rourke hasn’t talked with any Prius owners or Accord owners or Camry owners. Those folks LOVE their whips, esp. the hybrids.
Did he talk with any M5 owners? Audi A8 owners?
Well, I guess it’s just ‘merican horsepower that counts.
Best I can tell, the best ‘traditional’ high hp car with four seats coming out of Detroit is the G8… and it has a distinct Australian accent.
Statistical proof that the auto task force used political hit lists to decide which dealers would be saved.
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-am-marlas-observations-on-artifical.html
Party statement on the BK and creation of the new tractor factory #5
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/05/administrations-statement-on-general.html
Okay, I have to ask, once it’s made official, and once the Dow Jones index boots GM to the curb, who’s going to take their place on the list of thirty?
1$ on Visa.
This would be a huge windfall for whomever is named. It almost follows that they would steer it to financials.
Hippo, that was debunked. Nice Fight Club reference, though.
While I agree that the America/car love affair is not over, the executives of GM and Chrysler, not the designers, engineers, or factory workers are to blame for their failure. EXECS made the decisions. Period.
They claimed the romance was over in 1974 also, when emissions and bumper standards went into effect. It took a while, but eventually they were building exciting cars again. The Japanese showed them how to meet the standards and again build cars that people wanted. PJ forgets that foreign makers labor under the same rules as Detroit. But Japan gave power to the car guys, Detroit took it away.
“The car guys failed to commit the company to designing and building the small range of bland, reliable, competitive, cost-effective automotive products it needed to survive. They were drunk on pickups. High (and mighty) on SUVs.”-true, but replace “car guys” with “executives”.
They should have followed the Iacocca model, but were too proud and arrogant.
The dominant culture at GM (and Chrysler) changed gradually from making cars to making millions for the execs. Union execs too. When it became obvious to the buying public that they no longer cared about cars, they bailed. Thus market share dropped from 50% to 18%. While you CAN say that GM only sells what their customers want, that group of customers is SMALLER now than ever.
” . . . the powers-that-be have designed a set of policies that are hostile to the automobiles we American car-lovers like.”
I have to disagree with you. There is not one automobile that “American car-lovers” like. I am from the Detroit area, yet I love little cars. Many of my buddies, though, would rather walk than drive a 4 or a 6. Yet many more of my friends insist on driving SUVs, though they venture into the wild as often as Woody Allen does. The truth is, Americans love to drive all sorts of vehicles. It seems to me that GM really just focused on one small section of vehicles that car-lovers like, and they shunned the other areas of the automotive universe.
Tastes change, and many American decided that clean air was important to them, so auto-makers had to create cleaner running vehicles. The oil producers organized and discovered they could mess with our economy, so we had to implement fuel economy standards as a form of protection against foreign influence over our economy. No amount of drilling on US soil, or off US coasts, would make us independent of OPEC.
I don’t think there is anyone to blame except GM. They did not invest well. They did not make a wide range of top quality vehicles. They did not take their challengers seriously. They were willing to milk the SUV cow as long as they could, and they never thought that their strategy might be short sighted. Every car company is hurting, but those with top quality choices across their model lines are in a better position to survive. It just isn’t true that CAFE, or speed limits, or pollution standards, or radar guns are to blame for GM’s death.
Let me just take a second to thank RF and all those who write for this site and those who comment on the articles. I only agree with about a quarter of the posts, but I do appreciate the wide range of insights and perspectives I read here.
GM is at least $120B in debt to the government-gun/jail-backed UAW parasite…Small, cheap, reliable autos means instant bankruptcy.
The UAW, backed by government theft “laws”, killed GM…Nothing else.
RF – Excellent summary, as usual.
There is no way GM could sustain 650,000 pensioners with only 70,000 employees. Those UAW-negotiated contracts and benefits have been killing them by a thousand cuts. The UAW can declare victory now.
My observation regarding appliances (like the ones in your kitchen): the stainless steel ones don’t work any better than their white-clad kin, but are made of the same components and cost substantially more.
GM’s badge engineering has the same problem – the name “Cimarron” comes to mind most readily, as well as practically every SUV GM has produced over the last 5 years.
Ford now has the dubious honor of being the last soldier standing (unless you count Tesla and other tiny domestics). Good luck to them.
I would rather die tomorrow in a ZR1 than live forever in a Camry.
Are you speaking in the first-person, there ajla…or are you mouthing the words of a Sr. GM “Executive”?
If the later- you will get your wish…and on-time tomorrow at 6am.
Be there for the funeral…and please, wear California-unfriendly black. Black is most appropriate regardless of what the Eco-Nazi’s say.
I only wish my grandparents were alive to see this :)
http://www.fathersarducci.com/images/sarduccioval.gif
As Hippo demonstrates above, if you want to believe something, you’ll find “proof.” Often to the point where you disregard the obvious: that a majority of car dealers are Republicans.
GM under Wagoner/Lutz also wanted to believe conclusions that were banal misinterpretations:
1. That a 9 million vehicles per year manufacturer could aim for the edges of the market.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/the-disconnect/
2. That Americans were becoming richer, when they were sinking deeper into debt. Wagoner and Lutz were making cars for a market that wasn’t there, and in the end reality caught up.
Decision making is much more solid, leading to conclusions with substantial longevity, if you begin by taking a stark and unflinching look at reality – even if it means conceding that what you are doing right now is wrong. Wagoner never went there.
I’m in a mood to quibble…
RF: “Like Lutz, O’Rourke believes that American car culture is practically dead. Both men mistake the end of a certain kind of enthusiasm—their own—for a wider malaise.”
Is this a conclusion El Lutzbo has only recently reached? Has this been reported somewhere that I missed? It’s certainly not a long held belief or he never would have approved the Camaro (big mistake) or the Solstice/Sky (small mistake).
RF: “Lutz’ highly-touted Chevrolet Malibu was a singular vehicle;”
If you mean “singular” as in, “their single OK vehicle,” then I’d agree. If you meant exceptional… No, the Malibu is merely OK.
—
On the big picture; I think O’Rourke is on to something. I do think, on the whole, we’ve lost a lot of our passion for cars. I put this down to our dependence on them and to congestion. No one can afford a cantankerous car any more; they are a daily appliance and commuting is a serious and tedious business. There’s no joy to be had in it. Even driving a Ferrari to work (unless you’re a psychopath) isn’t any fun. A clutch is a real source of aggravation. A good stereo and sound isolation are more important than road feel.
If autos were principally for fun, if the roads were less congested, if were were free to spend time behind the wheel only when we wanted to, I think we’d still have that passion.
As it is, we might as well slide back and forth in pods on rails.
KixStart’s comments are along my own line of thinking.
Strangely I was reminded a little of that this weekend driving my F150, in a hurry, stuck behind an ancient Ford Explorer either full of tourists or something definitely mechanically amiss as slow as they were moving.
Anyway I finally got around them and slammed the pedal down on a 4.6L V8, when the 4speed auto downshifted, the tires barked and I recalled a little of that good old feeling that driving used to bring when I was a kid. Sigh………
ajla, I hear you. I’ve seen a Corvette ZR1 on the streets in North Palm Beach/Jupiter. I think it was the one at Schumacher Chevy on the corner of Northlake and I-95. I guess they finally sold it.
Goodnight, all. I’m going to sleep, going to meet with someone to get a few things tied up with regards to my new job, watch the Microsoft E3 press conference, and come back to you guys once the dust settles on GM.
the powers-that-be have designed a set of policies that are hostile to the automobiles we American car-lovers like,
Sad, you still don’t get it.
We are both car loves but as I sit in bumper to bumper traffic with my car pool I want comfort, quiet, and have the ICE turn off in my Prius when it is my turn to “drive” (sit in traffic).
It isn’t “the powers that be” who are against you. The “powers that be” have built us the greatest road system in the world and we overwhelmed it.
The “powers that be” have gone to war and supported despots to keep oil flowing for us. The “powers that be” have kept fuel taxes lower for us than almost anywhere else in the world.
And now you blame “the powers that be” for responding to our balance of payments problems, for making cars safer and cleaner, and perhaps forcing what ever will be left of GM to make the cars many of us do want and need.
The “powers that be” just can’t support us any more. We have been on car welfare for 100 years. Stop being ungrateful for all the welfare we got, enjoy the memories, but expect to pay more.
Ads for Acid Reflux and Blockbuster Video?
You’ve gotta be shitting me. Wow- I understand people have to make a living…I do (LOL). :)
PS- re: “We have been on car welfare for 100 years.” That my friends is a boldface lie. Since when do you call something being paid for via sweat and labor as “welfare”.
If anyone went to “war” for oil…it was not for “YOUR” benefit my friend. Shell, Mobile, BP- maybe…in fact, I would have to say “yes”. But it has absolutely nothing to do with you and your Prius.
“Welfare”…I love your choice of words. The fact that our gov’t doesn’t rape us as hard as they do in Europe is called “welfare”, huh???
Well,
The data and methodology are laid out in the article. Numbers are a lot more believable then political hacks.
Actually the numbers point at Rattner perhaps having gone off reservation because of his wife’s connections. The statistical oddity is with Clinton contributors.
“Welfare”…I love your choice of words. The fact that our gov’t doesn’t rape us as hard as they do in Europe is called “welfare”, huh???
Exactly right, Ras
Government is supposed to work for US- not the other way around.
Think outside the prison.
I am having difficulty understanding the government haters.
Do they want total welfare? Free roads, free cars, free food delivered on free trucks, strong military – but who will pay for all this?
Or do the government haters think they can build their own roads, organize their own police who won’t enforce any laws, farm/inspect/deliver our food, and have a military well armed with homemade sling shots?
Maybe government haters just haven’t taken the time to sort out what they really want because they don’t want to balance what they want with what is reasonable.
Or maybe government haters are afraid of the freedoms we have and they are looking for a tough guy to come along and tell us exactly how to behave and think.
Robert, I think your analysis misses the mark a little. Given a choice, Americans do prefer reliable cars. However, a car enthusiast minority enjoys modifying relatively reliable transportation appliances to make them faster and to make them stand out from the crowd. Early Fords, Model T and Model A, were the starting point for early hot rods in spite of Henry Ford’s best efforts to crank out transportation appliances. A generation ago, used GM cars were the relatively reliable mass market transportation appliances that attracted aftermarket parts and engine swaps. A decade ago the mundane Honda Civic attracted a different set of enthusiasts following the same basic formula: increase engine power of a mass market car you can afford and add custom wheels and aftermarket accessories. GM made some excellent engine families up to the end, but their high volume cars were just less suitable platforms for performance modification than some import brand cars. However, no matter what happens with GM, a car enthusiast minority will take some mass market appliance car of the future and modify it too.
The American “get it (government) down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub” mentality (Grover Norquist) is extremely surreal.
A strong, tax-supported government is what made the USA a superpower … the last two decades of government drowning has led to another result.
Because of the great regional diversity in the USA, each locality can’t for the life of them “comprehend what D.C. is up to” – as each would like the laws passed to take their local variation into account. To this respect, there’s a curse in being too big, as GM has found out.
The cars that enthusiasts dream about can be made by smaller manufacturers, with businesses scaled to the niche they are seeking to serve. But once you become as large as, literally, Government Motors, you no longer have that privilege – you’re manufacturing for an enormous base of potential customers, and you have to aim for The Land of Averages as I called it in the editorial linked to above. There’s no escaping this — just as D.C. is aiming for the same Land of Averages, enraging people at the fringes in the process.
In the case of governments, when unity is a low priority for the governed, and fractional diversity becomes the rule, then you’re in for some very interesting times – which is precisely where the USA is now, I guess.
Spot on RF.
And I have to give you credit – I’ve never wanted to read anything more by PJ, but you almost make me want to read his book.
But no, that would put money in his pocket.
As for Hippo’s accusation that dealers were picked for closure on a political basis there is a simple explanation:
Can dealers are businessmen. Businessmen tend to vote and contribute to Republicans more than Democrats. Business is part of the Republican base just as labor is part of the Democratic base.
Just throwing darts at a list of dealers would likely hit more Republicans than Democrats. If the number of Democrat dealers closed equaled the number of Republican dealers closed, it would be an indication of bias against Democrats since there are likely fewer of them.
As a long term whore in the automotive propaganda bordello, I can tell you that you need both:
The sexy models that get the heart pumping and the wife worry.
And the four wheeled appliances that get bought in large numbers because they make sense.
The sexy models usually don’t move in serious numbers, but they keep the excitement alive and the journos writing. They also make attractive conversation pieces in what would otherwise be a bland showroom.
Sorry Robert, but until gasoline is consistently priced at $3.00 a gallon or more, the market for “the small range of bland, reliable, competitive, cost-effective automotive products” is limited, and currently dominated by money losing Japanese and Korean firms.
It make me laugh how otherwise intelligent people can decide to ignore basic economics and consumer taste to put forward the idea that Americans will buy small cars with low priced fuel being readily available.
Beancounters and MBAs killed these companies, not the car guys. Beancounters and MBAs drove quality out by squeezing the supply base and decontenting lower priced models. I have a ringside seat to this, and am not sitting in a home office blogging from afar.
rmwill> Not sure where you are, but at least one station next to my house has been over $3 for regular for a week.
Good editorial Robert. It makes me think of something I read one time: “American cars are designed by marketing types, Japanese cars are designed by engineers.” Well, let’s see what happens today…
Robstar: I am in the Detroit area. about $2.75 here.
Until the driving public is convinced that gas is never going below $3 again, with higher holiday and summer spikes, they will choose to drive large powerful vehicles.
There is no shortage of exciting cars available for purchase, O’Rourke. Just not many at GM. Witness the excitement around the GT-R, 370Z, Mazdaspeed3, every BMW sedan but especially the M series, Audi S line, Benz AMG cars. Ford has a super Mustang they can sell you.
O’Rourke is painting GM as if they are a bunch of auto loving geniuses that built great cars which nobody wanted to buy. Victims, really. Absolutely not true. I would say that the culture is a bunch of passive desk jockeys that built too many iterations of mediocre cars. Instead, they should have focused on building one good Civic fighter and one good Camry fighter.
GM is not a victim of the consumer, the perception gap, the economy, or anything else you can name. They’ve built crap cars for as long as I’ve been alive.
Bertel Schmitt :
June 1st, 2009 at 6:53 am
As a long term whore in the automotive propaganda bordello, I can tell you that you need both:
The sexy models that get the heart pumping and the wife worry.
And the four wheeled appliances that get bought in large numbers because they make sense.
The sexy models usually don’t move in serious numbers, but they keep the excitement alive and the journos writing.
Yes, Bertel. But while your communication focus can be on “the best that you can be” – through those sexy models; your organizations efforts and rewards should be tuned to the appliances. Simple fact of business life.
And that’s where GM lost the plot.
I don’t think there is anyone to blame except GM. They did not invest well. They did not make a wide range of top quality vehicles. They did not take their challengers seriously. They were willing to milk the SUV cow as long as they could, and they never thought that their strategy might be short sighted. Every car company is hurting, but those with top quality choices across their model lines are in a better position to survive. It just isn’t true that CAFE, or speed limits, or pollution standards, or radar guns are to blame for GM’s death.…
ruckover:
Well said. You saved me from a lot of typing. I agree with your entire post. All those alleged boogymen were there for all of the auto makers who chose to sell in the US. Don’t forget the other reason that so many have soured on GM is their total lack of responsibility when they made design errors and ignored them. Consider this a revenge of the unpaid beta testers. Even as improvements came at the higher cost models, the cheapest still sucked. So they sowed the seeds for another generation of anti GM sentiment. Sad to say, GM’s best vehicles are being sold on its deathbed. But nobody cares anymore. Now, for a not insubstantial number of people, the choice to buy a GM vehicle becomes mired in political crap. The last thing GM needs now is the “redneck vote” to decide that they are buying Ford F 150 instead of a Silverado because of the government financed restructuring…(Bought $10K worth of Ford at under $2 counting on this, however)
And as for the UAW being the primary cause of GM’s troubles, please. Had GM maintained their market share, paying for benefits would not be nearly the issue it has become today, well, up until today. I feel bad for those who earned their compensation, were promised it, set their lives by it, and now find they are in deep sh*t. I guess the American dream includes working at Wal-Mart when you are 75. Sad, real sad. And the hot shot execs who fathered this screw up will still be ok.
Stein X and folkdancer, you nailed, too. Although I have to say keeping exciting models in the line up is important too.
folkdancer:
“I am having difficulty understanding the government haters.
Do they want total welfare? Free roads, free cars, free food delivered on free trucks, strong military – but who will pay for all this?
Or do the government haters think they can build their own roads, organize their own police who won’t enforce any laws, farm/inspect/deliver our food, and have a military well armed with homemade sling shots?
Maybe government haters just haven’t taken the time to sort out what they really want because they don’t want to balance what they want with what is reasonable.
Or maybe government haters are afraid of the freedoms we have and they are looking for a tough guy to come along and tell us exactly how to behave and think.”
No.
No.
No.
and No to your questions. I can’t speak for all of us “government haters”, sometimes known as followers of the Constitution, but I will chime in with some very short answers to your questions (other than the above “No”).
1.) Nothing is free. But is it too much to expect that our taxes for things like licenses, registrations, tolls, and oh yeah, gasoline, actually go for building and maintaining our ‘free’ roads? Please see my comment on the gas tax money going for museums a few blog posts ago. (hey RF, do we have a search feature for looking up comments as opposed to posts and editorials?). I don’t think we want free oil, but more of our own oil would be nice for a change while we expand our alternatives for energy.
2.) There are certain functions for which government (even a strong central one) is better equipped to handle than any individual. But deciding what color a car should be allowed to have is not one of them. If in doubt, don’t regulate, or at least keep it under local control where citizens have the most voice. Maintenance of infrasturcture and safety inspections, yes; behaviour modification and control, no thanks.
3.) We know what we want. It’s in the Constitution, a document that most of our lawmakers local, state, and federal, couldn’t tell you what’s in it. Or they do know, and just don’t care, or they hope YOU don’t know as they pass laws “for your own good”. As for what is “reasonable” that is just code for I’m going to limit your freedoms, economic or otherwise because I don’t like your particular set of goals, policies, lifestyle, etc.
4.) This is just so silly on it’s face that I don’t even know how to answer it.
I agree with RF here. We all pine for the exciting cars of the 60s, but we tend to forget that there were a lot more Chevy Biscaynes, Ford Custom 500s and Plymouth Fury IIs then we care to remember. These and others were the transportation appliances of the day. A Ford Country Sedan station wagon with a 302 and no air was common as dirt then but nobody loved them like enthusiasts loved Corvettes, Torino GTs and GTOs. They were, however, cars that you could count on to start and run and get you from point A to point B with a minimum of drama.
GM’s problem is not so much that it stopped catering to enthusiasts. It stopped catering to appliance buyers. When your cars are both boring AND troublesome, you are in trouble.
Still, ultimately, the beancounters didn’t kill GM. The car guys did.
It looks as if they worked hard in a group effort to do it together.
I have to differ with the implication that GM was building a lot of exciting vehicles in the first place. Most of what they’ve made was just as coma-inducing as the worst stuff in the market, just not as well built.
Mr. Schmitt is right, all sorts of cars are needed. GMNA has a long history of poor execution, and there has almost always been a competing product that is better in some way.
There have been a lot of good reasons to just buy something else, and a lot of people chose to do just that. Pick any segment of the market, and it is likely that the best two choices weren’t produced by GM. No company like that could possibly do well.
Folkdancer,
The thing I most attribute to the government trying to kill the automobile is not any of the things you mention, it is the consistent refusal to build new highways or add new lanes in areas that desperately need them. Instead, they keep trying cram mass transit down our throats. That only works in hugely built up places with a small area, like Manhattan. I have worked there, and when I did, I took the train. I could do this because there was a subway stop within blocks of my office. Now I work in NJ, and while there is a train station in the town, it is 3 miles away from my office. How do I travel that last 3 miles? I am not walking that everyday while lugging a laptop, especially when it is 15 degrees and snowing. So, I drive to work now. So does everyone else. This is why mass transit will never work in most of the country. It works much better in Europe because, overall, their town centers and cities were laid out hundreds of years ago when the only way to travel was to walk or on a horse. Thus, they tend to be very dense, like Manhattan. Most of the towns and cities in the US were laid out when there was at least horse and buggy transportation available. They tend to sprawl much more. People here NEED cars, and the enviro-freaks never seem to realize this fundamental difference. If I head one more Nader idiot spout off about how Europe proves that mass transit can work hear, I will scream.
jpcavanaugh: I agree with RF here. We all pine for the exciting cars of the 60s, but we tend to forget that there were a lot more Chevy Biscaynes, Ford Custom 500s and Plymouth Fury IIs then we care to remember.
Bingo! I always chuckle when people condemn the Japanese for turning out boring “appliances.” Newsflash – that is what most people have chosen to drive throughout the years.
Plus, I would hardly dismiss a V-6 Accord coupe or a Civic Si as “appliances.”
Another problem for GM is that, aside from the Corvette, it has not always executed the “enthusiast” cars very well.
This weekend I saw two brand-new Camaros in the Washington, D.C., area. My first thought was, “That car looks cartoonish and silly.”
Even if GM weren’t going belly-up, I doubt that it will have much long-term sales appeal.
GM forgets that what keeps the Mustang viable are the V-6 models sold to secretaries and retirees who want something different and stylish, but not outlandish or silly.
I agree with RF here. We all pine for the exciting cars of the 60s, but we tend to forget that there were a lot more Chevy Biscaynes, Ford Custom 500s and Plymouth Fury IIs then we care to remember. …
Very true. There never was a time when most cars were exciting. Most of the cars ever built have been ugly and dull. Just like most of the refrigerators.
You used “Going-out-of-business-until-Renault-saved-our-asses” Nissan as a case of solvency?
HA!
Ok, so let me get this straight? It wasn’t Red Ink Rick or other finance guys who ruined the car industry but the car guys who didn’t do a good enough job standing up to their bosses? Heh, that’s as absurd a concept as a truly free market (which doesn’t exist but in economic fantasy land) that can actually dictate if GM dies or not.
Besides, GMs real death knell is hideous debt and legacy costs. They still have shit loads of revenue coming in (even today after the bankruptcy/bail out drama) so that if they could get the cost part of revenue-cost=profit low enough they can make cash even selling one solitary car.