Posted on 09/23/2010 7:29:51 AM PDT by Scythian
Can you feel it?
It's your gravy train crashing to a halt.
A gal I knew in college was a raving liberal attorney until she worked for a GM plant that built Corvettes in MI.
She saw drinking, beds, prostitution and some stuff she wouldn’t tell. She came round, but slowly.
Chrysler: making lemons since 1925
My dad had one, a 1957 300C. He and the dealer tried to keep the thing running, but no dice. He finally got his money back and bought another Ford.
Great image! I think you’ve hit on the underlying reason for the 5-point star logo!
Absolutely. One of the views of the plant was taken at the Conner ave. entrance.....I spent 35 years with the stamping plant located across the street on Charlevoix on the west side of the Chrysler plant.
Here's a funny story. Many years ago a group of employees were stealing new vehicles that had just come off the line, driving them out the back of the plant, down the railroad tracks that went into Chrysler along the back street of our plant and down about a mile where they were then taken away.
At the back of our plant police set up surveillance in our observation room that overlooked the train tracks and our train receiving dock........and finally busted them.
Thanks for the post; ping.
WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! DRINK BEER! SMOKE POT! GET HIGH! GET PAID!
(sheesh, where do I sign up? /sarcasm)
I suppose your story is indicative of why Chrysler had to ask for a government bailout several decades ago, why it is owned by Big Brother today, and why that LeBaron didn’t make it to 50,000 miles. Amazing that management still can’t keep their house in order.
I’ve always driven them. There was a kick-ass Dodge commercial (the one with the Redcoast turning and running as George Washington roared up in one of those big sedans) over the past couple of weekends, it was great. But I’d like to know who’s actually building them and where they are being built; also the main problem with every Chrysler I’ve owned has been in the electrical system. A 1968 Dodge a family member used to have had a POS electrical system. It’s not as bad as the old Jags were said to be, but annoying, and it’s completely inexcusable. I think it’s probably due to the smaller production volume pushing up unit costs.
In the early to mid-1950s, Chevrolet was selling close to 40 percent of all new US autos; the high-water mark was around 1956 I think, the first (and for a long time, last) 10 million vehicle production year. That’s a lot of cars. And that was just the Chevy division of GM. Chevy still makes a nice solid car; despite some of the inutterable BS (Monzas, Citations, Vegas) Chevy made in the 1970s and 80s, the Cavalier was excellent.
Of course, I like to wander through antique car shows, and there are lots of working Fords from like 100 years ago. Part of that is because Ford was by far the number one producer of that time. But part of it is, they were built to run forever. When Sloan put together the group of smaller automakers that became GM, and started offering cars in different colors and with lots of options, the Nazi sympathizer Henry Ford famously remarked, “Americans will buy any car, as long as it’s the Model T, and as long as it’s black.”
Ford sales took a dump. He shut down everything, and retooled, and introduced the other Model A, with colors and options, and struggled to hang on to market share. GM grew into a growing market, much faster than Ford. GM has been a bit bigger than Ford.
In Flint there are highways with various names on them, including one that is in memoriam to the Willys auto company, one of the many smaller makers which survived until the auto production shutdown of WWII (the automakers shifted their assembly lines into tanks, jeeps, heavy trucks, and of course, airplanes; Plymouth built 30,000 tanks, not their fault the design was a little weak; similar numbers of airplanes were built in other plants; and by 1948, most of those ever made that weren’t destroyed in the war had been scrapped, hundreds of thousands of machines). Very many of the smaller brands tried to emerge in the postwar era and either vanished, or vanished into another competitor. DeSoto and Plymouth were one company, and wound up part of Chrysler; the Dodge division began early in the century by the Dodge brothers; the Chalmers automobile, as well as the LaSalle (I’ve seen one of those, they are pretty cars), Whippet, Cord, Hudson, Studebaker... all gone.
Dixie Bee Line (for my favorite Ford fan):
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DdQU1cxb64nM
Having worked many years as salary @ GM, I can confirm that it is much easier to get a copy of Baraq’s birth certificate than it is to fire a UAW worker.
Whoops, I meant to say, the entire US auto industry had the 10 million units, but Chevy was near 40 percent of those.
I’m saving that post, SC.
Yes, I’m a Ford gal, so thanks for the classic “Dixie Bee Line” by Uncle Dave Macon.
Hubby and I bought two black, 1996 Chevy Impalas (the Killer Whales) in 1997, and we just love them. After that, Chevrolet kind of went downhill.
Mine has 20,000 miles on it, and his has 254,000. They both run like new.
Our “baby” (latest purchase) is a 2007 Ford F150.
We also have every other car we ever bought, a 1973 Pinto, and a 1984 Trans Am, and four motorcycles. Sigh...
Hubby has trouble getting rid of old, useless things, lucky for me.
I edited my copy of your original post. Thanks.
;’)
What are you, 12 years old? At least your username is almost right. Just replace "bad" with "dumb" and it will be perfect.
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