http://localhost:8080/indie-auto-detroit-dinosaurs Senior Fellow, Hillsdale College Churchill Project, Writer and Historian Wed, 08 Nov 2023 20:22:45 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 http://localhost:8080/indie-auto-detroit-dinosaurs#comment-64699 Thu, 16 Mar 2023 23:39:02 +0000 https://richardlangworth.com/?p=15205#comment-64699 Richard:
I came out to Rootes Canada from Coventry in 1962, a product of a Rootes Group management training program. So I was small-car loyal, firmly believing that the Hillman Minx was all that the average Canadian really needed. Inevitably I quickly came to recognize shortcomings of British (and French and Italian) cars when it came to coping with North American climate and road conditions but, that aside, the thing that disheartened me most was that the mechanics at Rootes-Canada’s retail dealership in Toronto, most of them immigrants from Britain, mainly drove domestic cars—the bigger the better. Such cars were what they wanted—indeed lusted after. Those cars exemplified for them a new standard of living achieved—proof they had “arrived.” Detroit was giving them, and their Canadian friends and neighbours, exactly what they wanted. Incidentally, in my library I do not have the Langworth and Norbye book re General Motors discussed by you here, but I do have your Complete History of Chrysler and Great Cars of the 20th Century, both valued reference works. And, of course, frequently visited because of my love of the Renown, Triumph Cars.
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Peter: In my youth I was a devoted Rootes fan, owned four Sunbeams and a Humber Imperial. Always thought they offered an attractive combination of sportiness and creature comforts. But you’re right about lack of understanding among British producers of the North American market. Kjell Qvale, that phenomenally successful British car dealer in California, used to talk about the MG 1100—thought at one time a rival to VW. Executives back in England could not understand why 1100s were wearing out engines in LA and clutches in SF—two cities so close on the map! They’d never been to California… —RML

]]> http://localhost:8080/indie-auto-detroit-dinosaurs#comment-64689 Thu, 16 Mar 2023 15:41:15 +0000 https://richardlangworth.com/?p=15205#comment-64689 Where do I start? Indie Auto: though there’s food for thought it is littered with latter-day wishful thinking and hardheaded biased diatribes, in my humble opinion. Not that I don’t have my own. I do agree that there was, and is, what I call Michigan Myopia. During the 1960s-70s I devoured Brock Yates’s column and Car & Driver, probably where my thoughts were originally formulated. I can’t say I’ve been dissuaded. Where I disagreed was the broadly thought “European cultural superiority” mindset. Europe sold two cars: expensive, finely engineered cars for the wealthy, and econoboxes for the common man. I’ve always maintained that the Rolls-Royce Shadow was really nothing more than a complicated hand-built Chevrolet Caprice. An American plumber could afford the Chevy. Why wouldn’t he buy one?
Back in the early seventies, as a young man in SoCal, I thought that Detroit had lost its way and was laughably behind the times. For example, Pontiac brought out The Judge, and I winced at the clueless attempt to be “hip.” It was an embarrassment. Until recently, the Midwest was full of Detroit iron, whereas nobody I knew bought any Big Three products except trucks. We bought Japanese. Not as “stylish” but solidly built.
Other notes: The Ford Falcon was a runaway success, and the Chevy II was rushed in as a virtual Falcon clone. The Corvair was an abject failure, saleswise in its originally intended economy car market. Falcon outsold the Corvair 3 to 1 in 1960.
The hoary old theory, “American Motors failed trying to compete with the Big Three” overlooks the main reason for its decline. When the 1964 “Rambler-sized” GM intermediates, specifically the Chevelle, were introduced, the market Rambler dominated was flooded with product. The failed ’62 downsized Plymouth and Dodge were a ready-made intermediate, and soldiered on in this market, after the bizarre styling had been muted. Rambler/AMC had nowhere else to go… but mustered on for another 20 years. Thanks for suffering my own diatribe.
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Scott, thanks for the interesting thoughts. Brock Yates was a great writer, but he did ride the reverse-snobbery wagon. Don Vorderman’s quip that Americans bought the biggest, Europeans bought the best, did not suggest “European cultural superiority,” just car buying habits. Indeed lots of US product planning was clueless, but against the silly Pontiac “Judge” you have to lay the GTO, which virtually invented the musclecar, one of those phenoms where Detroit lurched into a real public desire—and the public responded. About AMC, we’re really saying the same thing. True, the Big Three reacted to Rambler with Rambler-clones. I’m not sure ANY approach would have ultimately saved AMC. Whether it was Roy Abernethy’s full-line company or Romney’s niche company, the trail was narrowing because AMC did not have the same economies of scale. Jan Norbye once said GM was so big, and made so much money selling stuff to itself, that if you started managing it badly you wouldn’t see the results for ten years. That was in 1973, around the time they started managing it badly—and ten years later, sure enough!) —RML

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