Wednesday, April 20, 2005
The Decline of the Domestic Car (or: every blog can't be a winner)
A bit of my vehicular history
To do them credit, my parents almost always drove foreign cars. The first car I remember (though only vaguely as a beige sedan) was an Austin Martin that dad came home with instead of the Volvo station wagon that he had gone out for (this was a contributing factor to the divorce almost a decade later). Before that they had owned a Mini Cooper and an MGB convertible. Granddad had a Jag way back when and ended up with a Nissan Sentra (diesel) that was driven by dad and then me and I am certain would still be going strong if my wife hadn’t backed a 26 foot cube van over it. When I was six or seven we crossed Canada in a VW Camper Van and, a year later, we crossed the U.S.A. in another one. Mom’s first car post-divorce was that same VW Van and while dad did have a brief post-divorce encounter with a domestic station wagon we always had Volkswagons at home after that. Currently I own an used Izuzu Trooper and my wife has a Jetta, one sister has a Jetta Wagon, another has two Golfs and a third has a Saab and a Volvo (both very pre-owned). My brother, when he can be bothered having a car, is partial to Renaults.
The first car I ever owned was a 1975 Toyota Corrolla that a good friend gave to me in 1993. It had not had a working gauges, was about to drop the spare tire and the passenger onto the pavement had 400,000 kilometres on it when my friend got it in the 80s and lasted almost exactly the 500 kilometres it took for me to get it home. After that I inherited my granddad's Nissan the fate of which you already know, bought a used BMW 520i that is still parked somewhere in a garage waiting for me to win the lottery and fix up and then a 2-door 4Runner (one with the removeable roof - what a great truck) and finally the Izuzu. As far as I know, the engine from that 1975 Corrolla is still being used to chop wood somewhere.
Me and the Domestics
Of course, I have had some experience with domestic automobiles. One sister has a Ford Focus (her husband has a Toyota 4-Runner - good man) and my mom has a Cavalier (think dirt cheap). With 6 kids and a dog, my dad had a ¾ ton suburban and I have one brother-in-law with a GMC half-ton. My (ex) step-dad was always partial to the price of American cars but they always had problems (and so, it turns out, did he). I have driven Mustangs and Econoline Vans (there’s a misnamed vehicle) , Pontiacs, Buicks and even Citations. In fact, from 16 to 18 I would drive anything that anyone would let me drive and you would never hear me complain. Even back then, however, the domesticsever seemed as good as the foreign built models.
They still don’t.
Why am I on this topic at all?
(after all, I know squat about cars)
All this is my long winded way of saying that Steve Maich's column in the April 4th edition of MacLean’s in which he describes the decline of the “big three” car companies (GM, Ford and Chrysler) really intrigued me ... but failed to surprise. You see, although I have been driving a mere 20 years, I have always had a bias against "domestic" (i.e. "North American", i.e. "American") cars.
There were several aspects of the decline of the American Automobile that Maich did not raise and I for one would be interested to see more about them.
To begin with, "educated" "Gen-Xers" like me have been extremely slow coming into money of our own. In fact, from what I can tell, we are just now moving into positions that allow us the luxury of a new car (or even a "certified" used one). Add to this extreme lack of fiscal power the difficulty corporate America has had advertising to our deeply cynical demographic; mix in some social consciouseness that naturally gravitates away from all things born in the U.S.A.; stir in the image that Ameri-cars have always had as containing more horse power than horse sense; combine the price of fuel, the retro-sci-fi steel box designs coming out these days; finish off with a dollop of being turned off by "big sales events" and you have a recipe that explains why none of my friends, acquaintances or colleagues (who can afford to) own any vehicle created by what was the big three auto makers.
Design Distraction and Digression
Having mentioned design I feel I should take a moment to criticise what I loathe about contemporary American automobiles and hate about almost all other models. What in the hell are designers thinking. Granted, with Pontiac caught on quickly that the Aztec was not going to sell well (although you can still get one). But who thought it up in the first place? My wife actually feels sorry for people who bought one of those space leggo designs the min-van visual atrocities (I kid you not).
Keep in mind that all of this is only my opinion but have you seen the new line-up from Oldsmobile?!?! I truly believe that these new designs are an image spawned by the current American social culture. Look at the Chevy Alavlanche or Silverado. Look at the Caddillac STS, SCS, Seville, or Escalade. The Pontiac Montana or the Chrysler 300 series. Look at the Dodge Magnum! People are buying these cars! I have seen them driving around! These are serious cars with serious attitude and that attitude says that you are more likely to come under gun fire than you are to want to look out a window. I must admit that I fall prey to advertising just like everyone else (well, maybe not just like). Because of this I guess that having a "Hemmy" is something powerful in an engine. On the other hand, holy shit! Did they hire 14 year old boys to design the fronts of these things? The style is all "I could crash this through a brick wall and bring democracy to the people on the other side (but I don't want to see the view)" kind of thing. Where is this type of futuristic look seen as cool?!?!
Don't get me entirely wrong. Some of the North American Products look decent (mind you, the Chevy SSR is not one of them ... INTERIOR CHEVY HEADQUARTERS - Chief design guy speaks: I've got it! Remember how much everyone loved the El Camino? Well, we'll make a new one like that, only bigger.). The new Corvette certainly stands out, particularly standing around with the rest of the Chevy line-up. Pontiacs still look like pontiacs so I guess the up and coming red-neck wanna be's are happy (the Solstice may be the exception to the rule). Some of the Buicks look okay (although I haven't seen a real one). The Hummer H1 Alpha is sweet looking (but the H2 Series is a big step down from the original). The Dodge Viper is a dream machine to the Magnum's nightmare and the Sprinter (a Mercedes in disguise I believe) is an interesting looking item.
And that is it!! With this sort of line-up why would anyone bother buying a car that was designed and manufactured on this continent!
Back on Track
Of course, I have several friends with domestic trucks, a few with SUV's and one with very little money who broke down and bought a Focus (poor dear) but the fact of the matter is that the prestige cars of our grandparents do not appear to be the prestige cars of today (if they ever were).
Maybe the problem with domestic cars today is the bottom line mentality. The bottom line when it comes to power, the bottom line when it comes to speed, the bottom line when it comes to size and weight, the bottom line when it comes to price… but very little of the nimble finesse that people appreciate these days.
The bottom line, after all, is usually the bottom of the barrel and no one I have met who is anywhere near my age has ever acted excited about owning a domestic car. In fact, those few who have come to own one through inheritance (and a financial inability to be rid of it) are apologetic ("Oh, yeah, I hate it, but it is surprisingly reliable).
It may not even be so much the image of the cars as the image of the country in which they were born. American car companies have an image as being socially unconscious megopolies with little or nothing to endear them to the up and coming purchasers of today. The boomers are still buying them but that is a market that literally can not last and very few vehicle purchasers remember a time when "Buy American" meant anything other than "Support the Republicans".
Nope. The problems facing American car companies can not be changed by merely re-shaping the outside of their products (trying to be cool always ends in failure) and offering better financing (inexpensive is Cheap). It is going to take the overhaul of the whole Ameri-corporo image and that may mean actually changing the bigger things like, say, how they do business.
A BIT O’ CAR HISTORY
Nicholas Otto built the first practical 4-stroke in Germany in 1876 and Gottilieb Daimler, who worked for Otto, partnered with Wilhelm Maybach and made motor vehicles practical (and founded Mercedes in 1901). Another German, Carl Benz (any of these names sounding familiar) is credited with the first practical, gas-fueled car in 1885 and Rudolf Diesel (a Frenchman who studied in Germany) patented the first diesel engine in 1898. The Duryea brothers were the first Americans to build (1893) and manufacture cars (1896) and John Lambert was the first “American” to invent a car (there’s the rub, where does a country get off insisting that people hold title as “the First American…” to invent anything? The qualifier negates the meaning of the verb). Henry Ford, of course, revolutionized the industry (and the world) with his methodology and Charles Franklin Kettering patented the world’s first electric ignition. But the automobile had already been around for 24 years when Ford started his motor company in 1900 (a year before Mercedes) and the first electric starter wasn’t installed until 1911 (in a Cadillac) and didn’t hit production until several years later.
End Note
For anyone interested, Maich’s column is decent (bit bland maybe but not being threatened is half the reason to read MacLean’s) and can (probably) be found at www.macleans.ca/allbusiness (I have not looked).
