The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is a slightly ostentatious cocktail party for cars, and in August we all celebrated 100 years of General Motors. Yay, General Motors, look at all that great 1950s spacecar design.
GM is in a way these days, deep, and thick as thieves with the rest of Detroit. This is an amazing period in the American auto industry, the troubles of which are broad and rooted, even ridiculous. There is in fact a lot of “amazing” going on right now in America.
And the response brewing in America—through policy-makers, through people who make their livelihood somehow by the car, through my barber, who drives a Toyota but certainly understands what Chevy represents as a national brand—that evolving dialog is enormous.
I don’t know a right answer, but my two-cents would include things like “the American auto industry is necessary,” “the American auto industry must be restructured to advance its thinking in efficiency, from corporate to powertrain,” and “the American auto industry should really stop building trucks for a while. There are enough trucks for a while. We can drive three-year-old trucks.”
4 Comments
I’m torn between the need for a certain industry to survive – a national priority, if you will – and my personal need to buy the vehicle that best represents my family’s needs.
Nostalgia and loyalty only take you so far when competing vendors offer products that beat the domestics in reliability, and don’t subject them to dealership shenanigans every time they’re brought in for service.
I’m sad to see the state of the Big 3 these days, but this is what happens when you spend generations failing to stay ahead of your customers.
Stefan-beautiful photos-
Thanks, Karen. Glad to have you here. I hope to keep posting pics you and others will like.
Carmi-
I agree. We’ve moved so much from building things to servicing things in the U.S. that we’ve lost our way a bit. The auto industry needs a huge rethink in the way it conducts business.
In that regard, perhaps it’s time for some serious invasive government surgery, dare I say.
I don’t know a right answer, but I am excited by the prospect of real reform. BUILD US THE CARS WE NEED NOW, DAMMIT!
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