Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/06/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]There are many things that helped to kill the US auto industry, well above the styling excess of 50s and 60s cars. Corporate Arrogance would head my list, beginning with lackluster to dreadful quality control. The prevailing feeling in the 50s and 60s was that customers would trade in their cars every two or three years, so why build a car that would endure? One former Ford executive who, when I asked about the metal parts of early Mustangs that were not galvanized or painted, said, "these cars were built to last as long as the payment book." Consumer Reports recently discussed the relative quality of the US automakers product, which still fell short of many of their competitors' models. GM was considered not bad, Ford was considered better, and Chrysler still abysmal. Given this, would you put your money on "not bad", when for the same money or less you could own "excellent"? Next would be tone-deafness to consumer preferences about auto size, mileage, and safety features. For every excuse that Detroit offered, a foreign competitor would answer with a product that offered size, efficiency, and safety that exceeded customer expectations. Then would come internal inertia, where the organizations were more focused on their corporate needs than the customer's demands. Those of us who remember the awful generic GM autos of the 80s can attest to the problems of putting "badge engineering" above customer demand for cars differentiated by both style and engineering. Cadillac Cimarron, anyone? Or the Opel-derived Catera? Finally would come the myopia of executive leadership of the past thirty-plus years, which believed that their successors would fix the problems they avoided. Alfred Sloan predicted in the late 1940s that a GM defined-benefit pension plan would eventually bring the company to financial ruin. When GM owned 50% of the US car market, it was less of a concern--but as market share declined (and as retirees lived longer than their parents or grandparents) it became a huge problem. Jim Shulman Wynnewood, PA Who is still waiting for his '57 Dodge to come out of the repair shop. -----Original Message----- From: lug-bounces+jshul=comcast.net at leica-users.org [mailto:lug-bounces+jshul=comcast.net at leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Ric Carter Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 8:06 PM To: Leica Users Group Subject: Re: [Leica] IMG: American Styling I'm a child of the '50s and '60s I LOVE excess;^) ric On Jun 23, 2009, at 7:57 PM, Jerry Lehrer wrote: > > If you are trying to show us some of the excesses that helped to > kill the American auto industry, you > are succeeding! _______________________________________________ Leica Users Group. See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information