Forty years ago, Toyota’s invasion of America (and effectively, the world) began in earnest. In 1968, the newly-minted Corolla was sent stateside to do battle with the perennially best selling VW Beetle. Only two short years later, the Corolla was the second-best selling car globally. By 1975, Toyota surpassed Volkswagen as the top import brand. The Corolla has taken all the global production crowns (1.5 million sold in 2007; over 33 million total). It has been the engine powering Toyota’s rise to the world’s largest carmaker. Has the Corolla achieved immortality, or will it eventually lose its way like its spiritual predecessors, the Model T and VW Beetle?

Toyota’s “little crown” started out a bit under-armed to take on the world. More suitable for the crowded and slow streets of Japan, the first Corolla was tiny, narrow, lightweight (1637lbs), underpowered (60hp) and notoriously under-braked. But its $1660 sticker ($10k inflation adjusted) went a long way to compensate for any limitations.

Toyota’s ambitions were limitless, though. Tatsuo Hasegawa, Corolla’s chief engineer, expressed his lofty (and prophetic) goal: to build “a Corolla for the welfare and happiness around the world.” It’s certainly done wonders for the welfare and happiness of Toyota’s shareholders.

The Corolla was launched with a defining statement: “that quality, reliability and durability could be affordable.” That the statement is as true today as it was then can be credited to Toyota’s never-wavering focus. It is the key to the greatest automotive success story ever.

That defining statement would certainly be applicable to the previous global production record holders, the Model T (16.5 million) and the Beetle (21.5 million).

Yes, well, Henry Ford permanently destroyed his company’s market dominance by refusing to change his beloved T for twenty years. And VW experienced a deep crisis as a result of ten years of dithering about the Beetle’s replacement after its thirty year run. But Toyota committed itself to a rigorous self-renewal program with the Corolla, spitting out a substantially refreshed model every four or five years (ominously stretched to six for the latest U.S. generation).

The Gen2 Corolla (1971-1974) was the breakthrough success. It grew just enough to accommodate four adults in comfort (as it was defined then). In 1971, Car and Driver praised the Corolla for “its spacious and attractive interior, good overall quality and economy” as well as being “fun to drive… as it feels more like a sports car than the others.”

Given Toyota’s unwavering focus, if “fun to drive” had been part of the Corolla’s initial defining statement, we might still be grinning behind the wheel today. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, because the Corolla was just hinting at fun when C/D tested that 73hp 1200cc four-speed sedan.

In 1971, Toyota introduced the legendary 2T-C engine, a 1600cc hemi-head that spit out 102hp. In the lightweight Corolla (1800lbs), it represented the best dollar/horsepower/weight/fun equation in the land. And when the five-speed SR5 coupe arrived (hand-in-hand with the 1973 energy crisis), the formula overwhelmed Detroit.

Confronted with bloated, emasculated, fuel-gulping 4,000lb “intermediate” coupes with opera-windowed padded tops and fake wire-wheel hubcaps, buyers voted with their feet and Toyota sales exploded. The Corolla SR-5 was the perfect antidote to seventies malaise.

Gen3 and Gen4 Corollas refined and consolidated the rear wheel-drive (RWD) era up until 1984. The Corolla’s durability became legendary; outside of the rust-belt, they’re still a common sight on the streets, earning their keep. But sportiness increasingly took a back seat, especially with the switch to front wheel-drive with the 1985 models.

The exceptional gifted exception to FWD dullness was the AE86 RWD GT-S coupe, with 124hp. It was the last of the old narrow, light RWD formula. Pistonheads still seek it today for its drifting potential.

U.S.-bound Corollas since 1985 have stayed true to the original concept, except that ride quality increasingly displaced any lingering hint of sportiness. But as the Corolla increasingly became a global commodity, it had to adapt, especially in Europe.

To compete against the class-leading Golf, the European Corolla took on Germanic attributes. (The current version has even dropped the Corolla moniker for Auris.) Its angular Golf-esque hatchback body doesn’t share a single panel with U.S. Corollas, and sports Toyota’s advanced diesel engines and a sophisticated multi-link rear suspension. It’s the equivalent of the euro Focus to our notoriously white-bread version.

The Auris clearly represents one point of departure from the old formula. The automobile market is becoming ever more stratified, in America. The Corolla-based Matrix is a reflection of the trend; Scion also provides in-house competition.

Undoubtedly, the Corolla formula still has legs, here and abroad. But the MINI’s effect on the small car market may turn out to be game-changing, where style and image trump dowdy practicality. The Corolla took the world by storm, but fashion is a fickle creature. Toyota’s fight for dominance must move in a different direction.

The dorsal fin is what put it over the top for me, literally. When I was a tyke of six in Austria, I ogled cars like a fifteen year old with X-ray vision at a cheerleading camp. But the most tataliscous bod my eyes could never get enough of was the Tatra down the street. Its radical aerodynamic form was already twenty years old, but with its dorsal fin, tear-drop shape, rear engine and uncompromising fluid lines, the Tatra positively screamed “futuristic” to me then. Hell, it’s still ahead of the times today. Read More >

There is no greater symbol of GM’s branding woes than Cadillac. During its formative years, the marque’s products stood at the pinnacle of automotive excellence. As The Grateful Dead would say, what a long strange trip it’s been: from coachbuilder to maharajahs to supplier of Chevrolet clones to America’s mid-market motorists. In a world of $30k Rolex watches and $500 wine, Cadillac no longer deserves to be called a luxury brand. Its failure epitomizes all that went wrong with GM’s branding.

Cadillac was formed from the ashes of the first Ford Motor Company. When Henry’s early backers asked Engineer Henry Leyland to appraise the failed business’ assets, the Vermont native convinced them to resume operations using his 10hp one-cylinder engine. In 1902, Cadillac was born.

Leyland applied his experience as a gun maker to spectacular effect. The company’s fanatical attention to parts quality and interchangeability created an extraordinarily reliable vehicle. When three model K Cadillacs aced a series of English reliability tests (including scrambling key components from three cars and then rebuilding them), Cadillac earned its reputation as the “Standard of the World.”

GM bought the innovative automaker in 1909. From the start of the century into the roaring twenties, Cadillac pushed the engineering envelope. The automaker introduced the first electric starter, safety glass, V8 power, synchronized transmission and more.

When Alfred Sloan reorganized GM according to his principle “a car for every pocketbook,” Cadillac occupied the top berth, above Buick. Sloan then pushed the brand into the auto-stratosphere.

Caddy’s 1930 portfolio included the LaSalle, V8, V12 and the V16 (fully the equal of the Rolls Royce, Duesenberg, Packard and other coach-built cars of the Classic era). Prices ranged from $3295 to $9700– roughly $80k to $300k in today’s money.

The Depression killed the V16, and almost took the brand with it. In 1932, GM contemplated shuttering the division. Cadillac’s president Nicholas Dreystadt presented an alternative: sell the brand’s less stratospherically-priced products to America’s nascent African American upper class.

Opening its doors to this neglected market saved Cadillac from oblivion, but subjected the brand to a new threat. As Sloan’s once-sacred pricing structure eroded, Cadillac’s top-of-the-pile price premium shrank. In 1940, the cheapest Cadillac was 150 percent more expensive than the most expensive Chevy. By 1950, it was 65 percent. By 1960, it was just 30 percent.

The fifties and early sixties were Cadillac’s second golden era. America’s income distribution was the most compressed it had ever been; a brashly styled Caddy was a commonly-shared icon representing the American dream.

While Caddy’s prices continued to fall in this era, their models were still a fantasy for the typical working-class family. Factory workers were known to pool resources to buy a Cadillac on a time-share basis.

During the ‘60’s, America experienced an explosive growth of Median Household Income (MHI). Cadillac chased the booming mid-market, losing touch with its rapidly fading luxury remit. In 1960, a basic Cadillac cost 87 percent of MHI; by 1970, it was down to 64 percent. In 1971, the Calais cost only 25 percent more than a Caprice.

GM singularly failed to do the right thing: take Cadillac back up-market to cater to the rapidly growing ranks of wealthy and near-wealthy, and enhance Buick and Oldsmobile to take Cadillac’s place in the lower-premium market.

Product wasn’t the problem. In a 1965 Car & Driver luxury car comparo, Cadillac finished a close second (just behind the three-times more expensive Mercedes 600) and handily beat Roll-Royce, Lincoln, Imperial and Jaguar.

C&D hit the nail on the head: “Among enthusiasts, the Cadillac is probably the most underrated car in the world, although in some ways, it equals or excels the Mercedes 600. In our estimation, Cadillac’s great sales success is all that hurts its ‘image’ as a prestige luxury car.”

Cadillac’s fit, finish and build quality went downhill from there, as the high-volume, low price strategy meant cheaper materials and rushed assembly. In 1964, nobody would have confused an Impala for a DeVille. By 1971, the Caprice and DeVille were precariously similar in both style and build quality.

GM’s destruction transformation of a globally-respected, technologically-superior luxury brand into a tarted-up Chevrolet for middle class buyers was complete.

America’s upper-income classes abandoned Cadillac for Mercedes, whose sales began a long expansive period around 1970. In 1973, Cadillac sales enjoyed a brief explosion (stealing from Chevrolet?). Sales exceeded 300k in 1973, peaking at 350k in 1978. And then Cadillac began its near-terminal decline.

Today’s Cadillacs have established a precarious foothold where Buick once lived: at the top end of the ‘near luxury’ automotive market. Talk of a new V16 to reposition Cadillac higher up in the food chain has faded, leaving the brand with the prospect of more mediocrity. Badge-engineered SUV’s, price-conscious sedans and an uncompetitive roadster portend a bleak future for Cadillac, and GM.

Buick was the special child in the GM family: the beautiful and temperamental second-oldest daughter that somehow always got the most attention from Daddy. Sure, oldest daughter Caddy got to wear the family jewels and formal gowns, but Buick was lavished with style. Whether it was Harley Earl or Bill Mitchell, GM’s top stylists always blessed Buick with their best efforts. For decades, Buick was maintained in the style to which she had become accustomed, and remained America’s fashion-conscious upscale buyers’ wheels of choice. And then, not.

Scotsman David Dunbar Buick founded his eponymous automobile company in 1903. The following year, the inventor of the overhead valve engine sold the struggling concern to James Whiting, an ambitious wagon builder. Whiting turned to William Durant to help jump start Buick.

With an excellent product to sell (the Model C), Durant’s energy, affability and marketing genius ensured Buick’s ascension to profit and glory. Durant used Buick’s revenues to acquire dozens of other automakers and form General Motors.

Right from the get-go, Buick was GM’s anchor brand. Durant capitalized on the company’s engineering excellence and reputation to expand sales around the globe. In 1926, Buick sold a then-staggering 260k cars.

The Great Depression hit the brakes but good; annual Buick sales plummeted below 40k. GM President and future CEO Alfred Sloan used the downturn to rationalize GM’s brand portfolio. He slotted the consummate “doctor’s car” between affordable Oldsmobile and unapproachable Cadillac.

Priced at around $40k to $65k in today’s dollars, pre-war Buicks were the Lexi of their time: refined, smooth, powerful, elegant and built to last. They were the consummate “doctor’s car.”

By the late thirties, GM’s inter-brand demarcations had begun their inexorable erosion. Buick’s product line overlapped a significant portion of Olds’ and Pontiac’s price range. As internal competition intensified, Buick cultivated two selling points to stay ahead: performance and style.

Throughout the ‘30’s and into the ‘40’s, Buick espoused its General Manager’s “more speed for less money” maxim. In 1936, Buick had a brand-new 320-cid 120hp straight-eight, designed for the large and heavy Series 80/90. When the company shoehorned the big eight into the smaller and lighter Series 40, it was dubbed Century, for its readily attained top speed. Thus the first factory production “hot-rod” was born.

When Harley Earl joined GM in 1927, he created the Arts and Color Section: the car world’s prototype styling studio. Earl used the Buick brand to showcase his most significant creative output.

Earl’s Buick Y-Job of 1938 was the world’s first dream-car. Unlike the European salon specials sold to exclusive buyers, the Y-Job’s was created to build excitement for future GM products, and showcase their styling direction. The Y-Job succeeded brilliantly; it solidified GM’s global styling leadership. And Buick’s.

The 1951 Buick LeSabre and XP-300 dream cars initiated the GM Motorama era, a grand traveling carnival of GM-think. Until 1961, Motoramas showed Americans a tempting glimpse of the (ever better) good life to come, from cars to kitchen appliances. And GMAC would finance the dream.

The consumer era was now in high gear, and Buick style led the way.

Buick enjoyed its greatest market-share success in the mid-fifties. From 1954 through 1956, Buick was America’s third most popular automotive brand. During those heady days, models like the Century, Super, Roadmaster and Special defined affordable American automotive luxury, class and power.

In ’57, Plymouth’s radical models pushed Buick back to number four. But it was Buick’s horrendously overwrought ’58 models that really hurt. Renaming 1959’s Buick entire line-up (LeSabre, Invicta and Electra) didn’t help. By 1960, Buick’s market position had tumbled to ninth.

Buick desperately needed a new make-up artist, and found it in Bill Mitchell. The 1963 Riviera coupe was Mitchell’s tour-de-force: one of the most beautiful American cars of the post-war era. It had the class, cachet and authenticity of a Mercedes CL or Bentley Continental. The Riviera’s halo effect worked; by 1965, Buick was back to fifth place.

Fast forward a decade, and Buick’s hot new coupe is the execrable Skyhawk, a clone of Chevy’s Vega-based Monza. Alternatively, Buick intenders could contemplate the Skylark, a padded landau-roofed version of Chevy’s Nova.

The preceding and ensuing string of badge-engineered disasters were unleashed at the exact moment when Buick needed to strengthen its roots– style, performance and quality. Up-scale import competition from Mercedes, BMW, Audi and later, Lexus, stole traditional Buick customers by the tens of thousands.

Buick’s subsequent decline is too painful to describe in detail, especially during the mid to late eighties. After that, it was either too little too late, or another kick in the groin, like the Rendezvous.

No wonder Buick packed her bags and slipped away to China, where she’s once again adored and idolized. All she left behind moldering in American showrooms are ghosts, pale shadows of her former stylish self. And plenty of beautiful memories.

Of all of GM’s domestic brands, Oldsmobile most accurately represents everything that went wrong with GM’s divisional structure. Historically the most innovative GM division, its twilight years were spent pathetically proclaiming “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.” Olds rode a roller-coaster in the sales charts, hitting glorious peaks before its final, fatal free-fall. But the tragedy of Olds is that it could have been the instrument of GM’s redemption.

Ransom E. Olds founded his eponymous automobile company in 1897. In 1901, the Curved Dash Oldsmobile was the world’s first mass-produced automobile. Although expensive in absolute terms, it was the lowest priced machine of its day.

But Olds wasn’t Ford. By the time GM bought Olds in 1908, the brand had moved upmarket. Two years later, Oldsmobile unveiled The Limited, a stunning but expensive ($4600) achievement.

When a Limited won a famous race with the Twentieth Century Limited locomotive, Oldsmobile found its marketing niche. From then on, glamour, power and speed defined Oldsmobile’s appeal.

As part of his brand ladder strategy, GM boss Alfred Sloan knocked Olds down a couple of pegs, placing it right between Pontiac and big brother Buick. While Chevrolet and Ford fought for supremacy at the bottom of the market, GM’s Buick, Olds and Pontiac (BOP) line-up proved a formidable formula. It gave The General a seemingly unassailable stranglehold on America’s automotive mid-market.

When GM’s price structure began to compress in the forties and fifties, Olds embarked on a course of safe, predictable and increasingly boring GM fluff. Although the brand earned its keep with several popular products (e.g. the Rocket-powered 88), as the middle child, Oldsmobile felt the pricing squeeze most acutely.

It wasn’t long before Oldsmobile fielded essentially identical line-ups with both Pontiac and Buick. Style became one of the few distinguishing factors. Olds faired relatively poorly in GM’s inter-divisional beauty contests; the ’58 models are particularly loathsome examples of garish Detroit baroque.

As Pontiac and Buick expanded into Olds’ once happy hunting grounds, the division struggled to make a living in brand limbo. Oldsmobile had to find something substantive to sell, independent of pricing and fashion.

Technical innovation was the answer. Building on a reputation for mechanical creativity– sealed with the Hydramatic Drive of 1940– Oldsmobile became GM’s “experimental division.”

The Rocket V8 of 1949 was a perfect example; it was the first popularly-priced high-compression V8. The engine turned the light-weight Oldsmobile 88 into the first modern performance car, and ushered in the horsepower race. Olds went on to pioneer front wheel-drive (Toronado, 1966), turbo-charging (Turbo Jetfire, 1962) and air bags (1974).

In the ‘70’s, Oldsmobile finally hit its stride. The success of the Cutlass helped Olds leapfrog Pontiac and Plymouth to become America’s third most popular automotive brand.

In 1977, Oldsmobile ran afoul of GM’s increasing predilection for parts sharing. A shortage of Rocket V8’s led to the substitution of Chevy engines instead— on the down low. GM’s response to the uproar was to add the label “GM cars are equipped with engines produced by various GM divisions”. It was another milestone in the terminal decline of divisional brand identity.

With GM’s BOP price strategy in tatters, with the last vestiges of inter-brand mechanical differentiation cast aside, with Oldsmobile dealers demanding (and receiving) badge engineered copies of the genre of the moment (minivan, SUV, compact, etc.), Oldsmobile was on autopilot to oblivion.

In the mid-late eighties, Olds crashed and burned, as America’s mid-market tastes shifted towards imports. The inadequately-developed Olds diesel V8 spewed more fuel on the flames of GM’s quality woes. Between 1985 and 1990, Oldsmobile sales plummeted by 60 percent.

In 1985, GM desperately needed innovative design, engineering, production, quality control and customer service. Oldsmobile coulda/shoulda been the home of plastic panels, or hybrid propulsion, or flexible manufacturing, or any number of potentially liberating technologies.

Instead, GM Chairman Roger Smith spent billions creating an entirely new domestic brand: Saturn. The upstart start-up replaced Oldsmobile as GM’s innovative, experimental division, effectively sealing Olds’ fate.

On April 29, 2004, GM produced its last Oldsmobile: a cherry-red Alero GL. While the model has its defenders, the badge-engineered Pontiac Grand Am was still an ignominious end for a 110-year-old brand, whose powerful and charismatic eight cylinder engine inspired the world’s first rock and roll song.

Oldsmobile’s death taught GM an important lesson: it couldn’t afford to shutter its other moribund divisions, restore order to its brand portfolio and rationalize its business. Strict state-enforced automobile dealer franchise laws punished GM for pulling the plug– to the tune of over a billion dollars. Olds’ death also demonstrated that shuttering one amorphous GM division does nothing whatsoever to help the remaining brand’s sales.

And now Saturn is in the same boat as Olds was during the eighties: competing with its corporate siblings with platform-engineered cars and fighting for limited development and marketing dollars. What’s so innovative about that?

The Big Three entered the 1980’s in typical Three Stooges fashion. GM (Moe) knocked the other two automakers’ heads together, and then gloated over the market share he’d stolen– oblivious to the imports stealing it right back from under his nose. Mild-mannered Larry (Ford) scratched his professorial pate, and cooked up a brilliant scheme to avoid getting hit in the coming (import) brawl. And buffoon Curley (Chrysler) lay on the floor, doing his dry-swimming antics in a desperate attempt to draw attention to his only product: K cars.

GM’s ability to outspend Ford and Chrysler in the first round of seventies-era downsizing paid off, Big Style. In 1978, GM enjoyed a 48% share of the domestic market. During the eighties, Uber-Moe Roger Smith (of Roger and Me fame) staged one of the greatest tragi-comedy acts in industrial history. By 1989, GM’s market share fell to 35%.

GM’s efforts to re-invent their compact cars crashed. Literally. The company claimed their 1980 front wheel-drive X-Bodies (Citation, Phoenix, Omega and Skylark) offered “BMW-like performance and handling.” Note the omission of “braking.” Bereft of a $14 weight-sensing proportioning valve on the rear brakes, X-Bodies were known for their tell-tale kamikaze rear-tire screech– and the subsequent crunch as they found their next victim. Smart buyers/drivers gave them a wide berth.

Two years later, GM introduced their J-car sub-compacts (Cavalier and clones). Chevrolet General Manager Robert Lund announced their arrival with characteristic pugnacity. “We’re tired of hearing how the domestic auto industry let the Japanese take the subcompact business away from us. The whole Chevrolet organization is spoiling for a fight.”

Yes, well, the Cavalier’s design wasn’t particularly hot or competitive; pitting it against the increasingly sophisticated imports was like bringing a rubber band to a knife fight. Keeping it essentially unchanged for 23 years was like watching that same fight on an endless loop.

Mid-decade, GM embarked on an unprecedented act of auto self-mutilation. In the first bloody stroke, the Cadillac DeVille, Buick Electra and Oldsmobile 98– The General’s grandest luxury sedans– were reduced to Camry size, and fitted with front wheel-drive, 125 hp, 14” tires and tinny fake-wire hubcaps.

The Seville, Eldorado, Toronado and Riviera were next. GM reduced them to puny “eunuch-mobiles” (Oxenado?). The $27k Eldorado was now virtually undistinguishable from a $9k Buick Somerset compact, in both styling and size. Build and interior quality were equally miserable. The Cavalier-based Cimarron, Skyhawk and Firenza destroyed any remaining premium value of the once proud Cadillac, Buick and Oldsmobile divisions. Enter Lexus, BMW, Mercedes and Infiniti.

During the eighties, Ford was Camelot. CEO Donald E. Peterson was a smart, modest and plainspoken “car guy”. He motivated the Ford troops like no one since, instructing his minions to focus their efforts on higher quality, smaller, more efficient cars.

Peterson gambled the precariously-weak Ford farm on the pioneering aero-look ’83 T-Bird and ’86 Taurus. The T-Bird soared again and the Taurus went to the top of the charts– to become the bulls-eye for the Japanese darts Camry and Accord.

Ford also introduced a dumbed down version of their first “global-car” (the diminutive Escort) and the Tempo. While both models were forgettable, they sold well enough.

When Peterson left Ford in 1990, Ford’s Big Boss expressed grave concerns about the future of the U.S. auto industry. A reporter wrote “The word survival came up a lot [in our discussion]. It’s no joke to ask how much of our home-grown auto industry will exist in a generation from now.”

Peterson’s successors dropped the ball. By 1992, Ford’s lackluster line-up led the company into a $7.39b loss and a potential Chapter 11.

The 1979 government bail-out left Chrysler a shell of its former self. Development budgets evaporated. The K-car, Omni-Horizon, and the ancient hold-over RWD Diplomat (nee Volare) were the only toys in Lee Iacocca’s box. The seemingly endless stream of photo-chopped variants gave testimony to his fertile but tasteless imagination.

Fortunately for Chrysler, its “K-car in a box” (a.k.a. the Caravan/Voyager mini-vans) were an instant hit. In 1987, Iacocca went two-for-two, spending a measly $1.1b to buy AMC/Jeep.

And yet, by the end of the decade, the import brands were devouring The Big Three’s passenger-car lunch. The Three Stooges didn’t really care. By that time, the domestic market had become SUV and truck mad; the profits were phenomenal.

Once again, Detroit thought themselves triumphant. They failed to realize that they’d been lucky; cheap gas and the marketplace had evolved in their favor, rather than the other way around. When safety, rising gas prices and environmentalism eventually convinced American buyers to abandon the SUV genre for smaller, more efficient alternatives, Detroit suddenly found itself at an evolutionary dead end.

GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler are now looking abroad, trying to marshal their global resources to develop passenger car salvation to their union-influenced domestic woes. Live or die, the past has finally caught up with Detroit.

Those of us who lived through the 1970’s have thrown out, remodeled or psycho-analyzed away any lingering echoes of those economically, socially and politically divisive years. But the decade of pet rocks, big hair, anti-war protests, moon landings, presidential pardons, drug-addled introspection, Middle Eastern war and convulsive oil shocks left the Big Three’s collective psyche permanently altered. In some ways, they never recovered.

The Big Three entered the bushy-sideburns decade with the super-size-me version of the formula they’d been frying up for decades. Mega-full-size cars (longer than today’s Suburban), double-pattie mid-sizers, and quarter-pounder “compacts” were deemed the ideal diet for “real Americans”. And for those financially challenged unpatriotic import lovers: a barely-edible gruel of half-baked Pintos, Vegas, and Crickets.

If you had to pick a moment when The Big Three’s hegemony ended, it’s October 17, 1973. On that day, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) initiated an embargo that effectively doubled the cost of crude oil. And the resulting price shock tipped the U.S. economy into recession. Even worse, Americans experienced massive gas shortages.

Overnight, the American gas guzzler ceased to be an unassailable statement of personal prosperity. For many, it became a symbol of individual and national vulnerability, irresponsibility and weakness. Without warning, The Big Three’s big car dreams had become a nightmare.

As big car sales plunged, the federal government began tightening safety and emissions regulations. CAFE regulations were born. The rules uglified bumpers and choked the life out of Detroit’s V8’s. Imports, especially Japanese, flooded into the U.S. And this time the cars were well-built, durable, efficient, and backed by nationwide dealers. There was no getting around it: Detroit’s way of thinking was under serious attack.

The General launched a wave of Vegas and badge-engineered clones, and derivatives: Pontiac Astre and Sunfire; Buick Skyhawk, Chevy Monza and Oldsmobile Starfire. The engine choices were an abomination: Vega’s shake, rattle and blow four, Buick’s “odd-firing” V6, and a small-block Chevy V8 sleeved, de-stroked and strangled to 110 hp. All these H-Bodies came with a 24 month “will-rust-through” guarantee (36 months in CA) and a crow bar to pry out rear-seat passengers.

GM’s answer to the Toyota Corona and Datsun 510, for buyers looking for an economical 4-door compact? The not-so-small Nova and its clones the Pontiac Ventura, Buick Apollo, and Olds Omega. Just the ticket, especially with the 5.7 V8 and 16 EPA-optimistic miles per gallon. A practical wagon version? No such luck.

Ford (predictably) imitated GM’s genetic-engineering experiments. Unfortunately, their stem-cell line was no more distinguished than GM’s. The Pinto was cloned (Mercury Bobcat) and genetically-modified (Mustang II) with unpalatable results.

Chrysler’s Omni-present daydreams about a small, modern FWD car were still on the far Horizon. In the meantime, their desperation-driven hook-up with Mitsubishi set a pattern for the Big Three’s “if you can’t fight them, hop into bed with them” anti-Japanese import strategy.

Or was it a reverse Trojan horse deal? While the arrangement put Japanese-made Colts into Dodge showrooms, Mitsubishi eventually hung out their own shingle. Ditto for Suzuki, Isuzu and Mazda. These tenuous trans-pacific affairs wouldn’t be resolved for decades, but it’s pretty obvious who walked away smiling from the inevitable divorce.

Nineteen seventy-six saw two significant car introductions: Honda’s Accord and Chevrolet’s Chevette. They weren’t direct price-range competitors, but they were prescient examples of their respective manufacturer’s best shots in the small-car arena.

The Chevette arrived in celebratory red, white and blue bi-centennial bunting. Its only claim to fame: it single-handedly created (and dominated) a new category– pizza delivery vehicle. Chevette-amnesia became a national phenomena in the 1980’s.

The Accord threw down a gauntlet that literally shocked everyone– including Toyota– with its sophistication, refinement and poise. The Accord set the enduring template for the modern American car.

Suffering from rapid-onset ADD, GM was distracted by its big-car problems. In the largest US industrial investment since WW II, GM and Ford retooled their factories to “downsize” their range of cars. Chrysler, the perpetual poor relation, couldn’t match the spending spree.

Their solution: kill the big cars, and transfer their names unto the mid-size range. This shell-game strategy landed them on the Capitol steps with hands outstretched.

GM’s first round of downsizing was relatively successful, especially with its full-size models. Case in point: the new 1977 Impala was within inches and 200 lbs. of the classic ’55 – ’57 Chevy. The Impala looked clean and handled well. And it became an evergreen– until the 1991 “blob-mobile” Caprice reverted to old habits.

The economic recovery of the late 70’s and GM’s enormous downsizing investment paid off (for a few short years). In 1978, GM reached its all time US market share high of almost 50%, and the Feds were seriously talking about splitting up the company. Once again, cigars were passed. Kool-Aid drunk. This time Chrysler abstained.

When a chain smoker develops lung cancer after thirty years of habitual self-annihilation, their ill-health should come as no surprise to either the smoker or a casual observer. Likewise, The Big 2.5’s current tailspin is the direct result of bad habits stretching back some fifty years. Like a pack-a-day puffer, the Detroit automakers “felt just fine” for several decades. Eventually, inevitably, their dirty little habits caught up with them.

In the 1950’s, The Big Three rode America’s post-war economic boom to unprecedented profits. Their seemingly unstoppable success crowded out the domestic competition (Hudson, Nash, Packard, Studebaker). The Detroit capos reigned supreme, addicted to the high profits generated by a one-size fits-all strategy. So they cranked out nothing but full-size cars and trucks, counted the cash, paid off the unions, sat back and enjoyed the view. After all, why do anything different when the sun’s shining and hay’s being made?

The annual model change summoned forth more fins, chrome and horsepower– while hiding undersized drum brakes, marshmallow handling, numb steering and declining efficiency. While there were moments of brilliance amid the glitz and glamour, The Big Three decided Americans were suckers for sheer size and superficial flash.

Despite the eternal sunshine of Detroit’s spotless minds, European import cars started trickling into the domestic arena. By the late 50’s, the trickle had become a torrent. Corner car lots sold every conceivable (if obscure) European make: two-stroke DKWs, two-cylinder Lloyds, Renault Dauphines, Hillman Minx, Austins, Simcas, Peugeots, Citroens, VWs, Mercedes, Borgwards, etc. The Big Three launched their first counterattack in 1960.

Enter the Falcon, Corvair, Valiant and later, Chevy II. They were mostly seven-eighths scale full-size cars; vehicles that shared as many components with their bigger brothers as possible. The end result had certain relative merits, but import-style steering feel, handling and efficiency were not amongst them.

The new compacts sold well enough. Sales of “exotic” imports imploded in 1960– and no wonder. By then, most of the fragile machines were either dead or falling by the roadside. VW and Mercedes were a notable exception, importing robust cars within a proper dealer network. But the rest of them weird ferrin jobs couldn’t withstand American-style driving abuse—long distances and minimal maintenance. The lack of parts and service from fly-by-night dealers didn’t help.

The Big Three misread the tea leaves– they saw their compacts’ success and the collapse of import sales as complete vindication.

In Detroit’s mid-sixties’ euphoria, the domestics failed to notice that VW’s reputation and sales continued to grow. Soon, they were closing in on half a million sales per year. In fact, The Big Three’s compacts were stealing sales from the compact Rambler American and Studebaker Lark and their own land yachts– not the sturdy little German cars.

Anyway, the U.S. market was expanding so rapidly that the domestic compacts’ failure to stem the import tide was lost on their creators. Falling back on old habits, they put their compacts on a super-size V8 Juice diet.

By the late 60’s, Fort Detroit once again became aware of the foreign invaders. There were termites in the walls– VW bugs– and the sound of their collective chewing could not be ignored. At the same time, Toyota and Nissan put their heads over the parapet.

GM and Ford responded with a salvo of four cylinder compacts: the 1971 Chevy Vega and Ford Pinto. We’ll dispense with all the old jokes. Let’s just say that one nadir attracted another. Never mind the Pinto’s exploding gas tanks and the Vega’s self-destructing engines (aluminum block with cast iron head?), the terrible 2+2-some were packaging efficiency anti-matter.

At least the Vega handled well. Customers looking for a shrunken Camaro with a suicidal, gutless tractor engine, a three-speed stick (or two-speed Power-Glide) and interiors with all the ambience of a Rubbermaid storage bin loved it. Chrysler’s solution– The Plymouth Cricket (the imported English Hillman)– was no better, and a lot worse.

Meanwhile, Nissan had a hit with its Datsun 510, the “poor man’s BMW.” The Japanese import boasted a lusty OHC four, slick transmission, independent rear suspension and a practical but good-looking body. Toyota’s Corona was a little more boring (the company DNA?) but sturdy and fully equipped.

Never mind. The Big Three entered the 1970’s brimming with confidence. Their all-new ‘71 big cars were the pinnacle (and blow-out) of the American car’s evolution– from the 1200lb Model T to 5000+lb big-block barges longer than a Suburban.

Detroit firmly believed that the cute-as-a-bug Vega and um, inexpensive Pinto would finally show those nasty, cheap, tinny little imports what for. Once again, the big boys in and around Detroit convinced themselves that they had dealt with a problem that would eventually go away, just like the last time.

Cigars were passed. Kool-Aid drunk. A reckoning was on its way.