Success in manufacturing is no secret. Look, while, GM went bankrupt, Chrysler worked itself into virtually disappearing and now Ford seems to have discovered how to fail its way out of the car business, companies like Honda, Toyota and Hyundai/Kia seem to be building cars in America, with American workers, and making money. Sure, you can make a crappy product and make money off your reputation for a while, but eventually your loyal customers will realize they are being played for chumps and they will move on.
I expect the remains of Chrysler and the dregs of Ford will be owned by venture capital tech investors in 5-7 years. Waymo just contracted to buy tens of thousands of Pacificas to use as driverless shuttles, and GM got in bed with investors to create automated people movers.
âSomethinâs happeninâ here and you donât know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?â
âSomethinâs happeninâ here, what it is ainât exactly clearâ (from my generation ).
âThere are things that we know we know, things that we know we donât know, and things that we donât know we donât knowâ. - Donald Rumsfeld
Itâs the last category that always catches prognosticators off guard.
You may be right. I guess weâre all going to get to watch together.
In Hemmings this month there is an article on a 58 Desoto. I really liked those cars. My BIL had a 54 (I think) and then a 58. Fast, smooth, quiet, just a great car-maybe they had a rust problem. The 54 was so tough that heâs slow to about 20 then drop it into reverse, squeal the wheels a little, then back in drive and kept going. I just think of the engineering back in the late 50âs and early 60âs that they pioneered. Like I said, I donât know what happened but I donât think it was inevitable. Someone started sucking them dry or something.
So at any rate, anyone hear what the jerk announced today except his retirement? Or maybe it was a trial balloon.
It wasnât exactly inevitable, but there were (and still are) unpredictable events in the world that have dramatic effects on the profitability of auto manufacturers (and others) that cannot be controlled, forseen, or even adjusted for. Wars are the most obvious example. Changes in international trade relations, tariff laws, political alliances, the economy, and countless other things make long term profitability for a manufacturing concern far from simple.
The period from 1945 to the late '60s was an unusual era of sustained economic prosperity the likes of which weâd never seen before and might not ever see again. Everyone who wanted one had a job, even basic wages were decent, pensions and employer-provided health insurance were the norm, houses in my area were about 1-1/2X average household income 9theyâre 5X average household income now), cars were about 25% of average household income (theyâre 60% now), and life was good. We âbaby boomersâ tend to reference everything to that era, but in truth most of history is filled with economic struggle. I fear for what my grandchildren will have to endure. But one war anywhere in the world, or an economic collapse, could change everything.
I would say you are correct from 1907 until about 1925 or so. Heck, after WWI, half the cars on the planet were Model Tâs. The sales peak came in 1923 but really took a dive in 1926. Ford had some very credible competition from other brands although at higher prices. A cheap car, even then, wasnât enough to spur sales!
People were willing to pay those higher prices to get better features. Henry Ford hung onto the Model T to the detriment of Ford in the late 20âs. Fortunately, Edsel Ford got his way and the 1927 Model A was created. Then the Model B with the V8 in 1932
All US automakers suffered from the legacy cost inherent in an industry that becomes more and more efficient. All the Big 3 build cars with far less labor content than needed 30 years ago. Since the companies didnât really grow during those years because the increasing market was absorbed by the Japanese and Europeans, they needed to decrease their workforce.
Add that the companies needed to widen their product mix to more models. That adds a lot of R&D costs. Each model selling fewer cars but the total sales volume stays the same. The UAW didnât like this and the contract provisions reflected that. Retire 2, hire 1, even though the 1 wasnât needed.
Toss in the fact that fewer factories were needed to build the cars at the higher rates at which they were being produced, now you have plant closures and the holding costs for empty plants filled with old equipment that canât be sold but is taxed year after year.
The business model car companies used is based on growth, as nearly all are. when that growth doesnât happen, a new model needs to be applied. It wasnât.
Let that fester for decades and bankruptcy looks to be the only way to rid the company of those legacy costs. Chrysler and GM did it.
If Chrysler does disappear, I will be sad. No other car makers products fit me as well. I am very long legged and no one else gives me a seat that can be adjusted all the way up and all the way back at the same time. No one elses heater puts the heat right on my feet instead of my ankles and shins. My Toyota is a wondw=erful, reliable and fuel efficient car. It just doesnât fit quite right, nor does anything GM.
And, even with Edselâs intervention, Ford lagged most of the industry in regard to adopting hydraulic brakes. That was reportedly because of Henryâs fear (?) of that type of technology.
Additionally, the transverse leaf spring suspensions remained far too longâafter other makers had moved-on to independent front suspension with coil springs. Old Henryâs stubbornness and intransigence held the company back from developing new technologies, while he had his engineers working on soybean-related products and developing charcoal briquets instead of automotive-related projects.
Supposedly, their bookkeeping methodology was so primitive that they weighed invoices in order to estimate costs, but I have a hard time believing that tale.
Henry Fordâs dream was to put a car in every driveway by reducing costs and increasing volume. That worked really well until customers got more picky and GM capitalized on it by offering anything from a basic 2 door to luxury cars at the top and everything in between. That business model still works. But now foreign car companies are doing it better.
In terms of affordability, you can still buy a basic stick shift car for very little money in terms of income. My first car (new) cost 37.5% of my annual salary. That was 1965.
My last new car, if I had been working full time, would have cost 18.3% of annual salary.
Americans are buying more car than they really need because of the easy payment plans and leasing.
The appliances selloff started in the mid 1980s at Appliance Park in Kentucky. I worked for a compressor manufacturer at that time. We went to Appliance Park to look at machine tools me might use, and report on the condition to management for bidding purposes. GE shut down window air conditioning and at least one other product line. The buyer for most of the equipment was Lucky Goldstar, a company from South Korea. They didnât have a good reputation then, but things have changed. They are known in North America as LG now.
âBuy Americanâ is mostly used by politicians to appeal to the electorateâs lowest common denominator. Trump is a master at this and often gets his facts completely wrong. The USA has a TRADE SURPLUS with Canada, not a deficit. His own people tell him that!!!
The Toyota Camry (made in Georgetown, Kentucky) has the highest US content of any car sold in the US. The Ford F-150 truck might be higher. The US, Canadian and Mexican car industry is quite integrated, and itâs impossible to tell the true content since a casting can start in Michigan, machined in Canada, sent the the US to get the internal electrics installed and then sent back to Canada to be installed in a car to be exported to the US. It would take Trump or the US Commerce Secretary a full day to understand this!
US union leaders know this as well but donât publicly talk about it!
Most Florida orange juice is about 51% Florida and the rest is imported form Brazil in tankers., then mixed and resold in cartons as Florida juice.
International fair trade benefits everyone, and no country does everything best!!! Leave watchmaking and cameras to the Japanese. The US produces rice at 1/5 the cost as what it would cost to grow in Japan! However, the Japanese government cannot shut down the domestic industry entirely for security of food supply and social reasons. So they limit rice imports from the US.
A Canadian professor of agriculture developed a peanut that would grow in Canadaâs cold climate! I tasted it but it never caught on because of cost and a much shorter growing season. Canadians happily munch on US peanuts grown by the Carter family in Plains GeorgiaâŠ
The south has been slow to recognize that their loyalty to US made products is misplaced and taken advantage of by Detroit as well as others. And many here have allowed themselves to become emotionally attached to the rhetoric of loyalty to all manner of traditions and misplaced values. Thereâs too much regret over leaving the âgood ole daysâ behind while overlooking what made them good for many but not so good for others.
I have watched Chrysler products from the time.I got interested in cars from the late 1940s to the present. Oldsmobile introduced the.fully automatic transmission in 1940, yet it.wasnât until 1954 that Chrysler had a fully automatic.transmission. Chrysler offered variations of its âlift and clunkâ transmission where one.had to.release the.axcelerator for the transmission to shift. One variation used a torque converter where the engine, torque converter and transmission shared the same.oil
Another variation had a fluid coupling which didnât multiply the torque. Plymouth had its own variation called HyDrive which was a manual transmission behind a torque converter and the transmission and engine shared the same oil. All the Chrysler products.had a clutch pedal until.1954. Yet, when Chrysler did make an automatic transmission, its TorqueFlite which was introduced in 1957 was the state of the art. Chrysler only offered flathead engines until the Hemi came along in 1951 and was available on everything but the Plymouth by 1953. Unfortunately,.the lift and clunk transmission inhibited the performance. My dad.had a 1940 Chrysler Royal. It had two speed electric wipers. There.were.cars in the 1960s that still had vacuum wipers. Many amateur radio operators with mobile equipment preferred Chrysler products because they had.a higher.amperage.generator. Chrysler was the first to offer an alternator. Chrysler offered a.5 year 50,000 mile power train warranty in 1963 when the warranty other manufacturers was 90 days or 4000 miles.
One of Chryslerâs problems was the quality control. Chrysler would reach a high point and then let the quality slip. The.Valiant and Dart were reasonably good cars, but the.Volare and.Aspen which followed were of very poor quality. This was sad, because the Volare and Aspen were roomy and comfortable riding intermediate size cars.
One can sight all kinds of examples where Chrysler had a good.idea but missed the boat because of quality control.
Yes, I had a Dodge dart in 1965 and recommended this car to a colleague later on. Unfortunately, he bought the successor to it, a Dodge Aspen which was a pathetic car. The only good thing was the power train, the slant 6 with the Torqueflite. The body was biodegradable!
I still see a few of them on the roads here in Los Angeles
I imagine itâs only because the climate here kept them from rusting away. Thereâs many cars here which would not have survived in the midwest or northern states
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