Did you actually buy one?
I remember, but I wasn’t even old enough to drive at the time.
Agree or disagree?
He's 100% correct about that.
You know, I don’t remember the actual car, but I do kinda remember the commercials. I was actually considering buying a new American car (my very first!), until Obama got elected. I’m not willing to take on new debt in the face of the Depression I expect. And now that they’ve gotten that bailout, I’m not buying anything new from the Big Three EVER.
“Trillions in hopelessly unrecoverable debt is going to have to pass through the economy’s colon first.”
Under serious consideration for new tag line.
I am a man who knows who I am.
The Caballero is a car for the man who knows who I am.
I think it would have been in their best interest to have a broader product line.
If they had more high MPG cars during the gasoline price spikes they could’ve ramped up production on those pretty quickly and help mitigate the losses they sustained.
As it was they had a bunch of $40,000+ SUVs that got less than 18 MPG while we had $4.00/gallon gas.
They took a major hit from that swing in consumer buying.
They have to hedge against wild price swings like that.
lol!
I remember that.
My dad owned a Chevy Vega at that time. He often said that on a cold, quiet winter night you could hear that car rust.
He also wondered if one winter morning he would walk outside and find the car completely rusted away, with the only surviving piece being that worthless aluminum engine.
This is the first, and most honest, story about the Big Three in recent times.
The liberal press is solidly in the pocket of the foreign automakers, slavishly reporting how great they are while ignoring massive recalls and defects. At the same time, the same media exaggerates any Detroit defect into certain death for millions of motorists.
This is the same media that hates America, so hating American manufacturing goes hand-in-hand with that.
It’s easy to pick on American iron, so many people do it.
The domestic manufacturers did deliever lousy quality in the past. As conservatives, we despise the UAW and other unions by what they have done to manufacturing in this country.
However, the truth is indisputable.....American cars are every bit as good as foreign cars. The quality ranking are so close that the differences are statistically insignificant.
Of course, the media does not portray it that way and those that have had bad experiences with American cars eat it up gladly.
I didn't think the pinto was all that bad of a car.Put a Boss 302 or a 300 horse 289 in it and you had a street beast!
Actually the 1971/72 pintos where pretty good cars. What killed the Pinto was $.35 a gallon gas. Why buy a little car when you could buy a Mustang or a LTD.
Now onto the article....
The notes of a consumer driven economy.
For better or for worse the Greenspan low interest rates combined with the CRA, Fannie Freedie drove a housing market that was the underlying cornerstone of our consumer driven economy. That house of cards fell.
We do not manufacture anything anymore, much is shipped off shore because the paint they want to use is not environmentally friendly enough so they say screw it and do it off shore.
But what we have now is our assets have had their unrealized gains deflated and the Obamatons want to restart the economy with a Kenseyian Governmental Pump Prime was well as a continued devaluation of our currency with printing more.
IMHO it won't work.
The big-3's problem is a symptom of a larger problem of our economy not having a strong enough manufacturing base.
How do we fix that? set up an environment that is condusive to manufacturing. We have to look at those that are kicking our butts, in this arena, I.E. the former Soviet "Stans:" Many of these countries have Flat Taxes and much lower Corporate Tax Rates. Case in point, I hear Poland is now the world leader in making drills and tools, what happened to the U.S. being the leader here....The bad news is the Obamatons are married to the Left's ideological paradigm and they will not accept such ideas to bring manufacturing back as a driver.
Yes the big-3 are finally getting it right, darn shame half of America doesn't see it or get it, Darn shame dunnerheads like Frank and Dodd couldn't pass an Econ or Accounting course to save their sorry @$$es and come up with more broad range solutions for the big-3 and the economy in general, ditto that the RNC....
The author doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
They should put their money where their mouth is. When Kia decided to switch from making cheap cars to making good cars they put forth the longest warranty in automotive history (10 years), admittedly the fine print includes a lot of limitations on that warranty but just waving that number around in commercials has an effect. For years and years Ford advertised that quality was job one while making cars that suck, now they make cars that don’t suck and they wonder why nobody believes them. Throw a 10 year warranty on there, if they prove that THEY believe the cars are good the buyers will be willing to take a shot.
GM stayed alive selling profitable SUV's and large vehicles. The gas price crunch removed that crutch and GM collapsed.
No, but I did total one on a railroad viaduct. ;-).
I just saw a 1976 Cordoba for sale at a Goodwill auction. It was in pretty decent shape with a $500 minimum bid and did not sell. Probably because it had cloth instead of Corinthian leather! Most of them have rusted away.
Only rich Corinthians bought them.
Unmentioned is the trillions the big three will be shelling out in the coming decades for contractually mandated retiree Health Benefits that will balloon out of control as baby boomers retire.
Unless the big three can get out from under this unsupportable expense there is no hope for their survival. Anything the Government does will merely postpone the inevitable.
They were popular with real estate agents for some reason.
The 440s were hot, but pointless with the softer suspension.