Toyota and Honda are very big companies, but Honda’s new car development cycle is only 3 years from concept to job 1, the first one off the assembly line. The Japanese companies have the advantage that they are still selling those early 80s size econoboxes all over the world; they are family cars everywhere. It is a simple matter to modify them for the US market when the time comes.
The inertia is from North American, and in the past, British car companies that don’t listen to market signals. I once had to listen to an IBM main frame computer saleman who made fun of personal desk top computers as “toys without a future”. There is a fine line between being inward- looking and having your head up your “—”.
The Tercel never died, it was reicarnated as the Yaris (Echo in North America) and filled a very large market segment all over.
The Toyota Tercel and Honda Fit are not the smallest and simplest cars these compoanies make. In Japan there are smaller yet with 800 cc engines and very narrow bodies to meet the tax-exempt status.
The company kept this car in limited production as the Mercedes 1000 for sale in the Middle East (gas price 14cents/liter), and other rich areas. It had the bored out 600 engine, no emission controls and was blown. The color schemes were very un-Mercedes, bright green metallic (like a 1950 Mercury), gold (of course), pink, you name it. It was a built-to-order, no cost spared, attempt to outdo Rolls Royce.
With that much power,and in that climate, the big problem was keeping tires on them.
The Saudis loved them. When you are sheik you don’t get speeding tickets!
It appears that drug dealers favor lexus these days, maybe the retired drug dealers drive cadillacs (if there are any retired drug dealers). The rappers seem to like those cadillac SUVs, with about 53" spinner wheels and 14 video screens (according to MTV, at least).
It’s really scary; at one time Cadillac was the “Standard of the World”
Back in 1916 when they introduced the first car with a conventional controls layout maybe? But for the last 40 years Mercedees Benz S class has been the benchmark.
The turnaround came in the sixties when European cars got larger, air conditioning caught on and a full ranege of convenience accesories made the Merc a better and more user-friendly car.
When I saw rich people in Texas drive Lexuses and Infintis, it was the beginning of the end; no more Eldorados with steer horns on the hood. If Deep Throat was filmed today, Linda Lovelace would no doubt be driving a Lexus or Mercedes.
You cannot buy an 09 Camero. 35,000 are being made and from what I have read all are already sold. If you want to get one you will pay ahuge dealership premium. But that drives me crazy. That extra money will not go to GM, it will go to the dealerships.
A bit off topic, but in 1991 my wife and I bought our first (and only) new car, a Geo Metro 2 door. It was ugly, underpowered, and had very little room. BUT!!! it got something like 48 MPG in the city and 52 on the hiway. You would think that there would have been some better improvement in MPG over the years, but I don’t think there is a car in the US today that gets better mileage then that little Geo did 15+ years ago.
There are very few cars that will compete with that mileage. Americans are still buying performance, not economy. Also, there are real mileage penalties associated with current emissions and safety requirements (no free lunch).
Your car of today is friendlier to the environment by having all types of fuel vapor and oil mist recovery sstems. Also the CATS have become better but more restrictive hence the loss in MPG. There is the added effect of crumple zones and reinforcement for safety reasons that makes the car heavier. For that you can thank the huge SUV and truck population. Their presence has demanded the added Side Impact protection.
That will be great. I assume that there are parts out there to install Disc brakes, good suspension and rebuild the engine by hand to ensure better than stock driveability and relaibility.
If you look at the time it takes to assemble and test an engine on the line and the time we take to rebuild an engine, I am sure rebuilding is a much better choice. But add the cost of rebuilding to a 30k base price and you are talking about a very expensive car.
Disc brakes were optional back then ya know.
I didn’t have any problems stopping in my 65 Chevelle with it’s 4 drum brakes. it was loud enough to hear coming down the road, and people didn’t pull out in front of me on the road(maybe they were just busy admiring my car)