The problem with the American Auto Industry
As I was watching Alan Mulally the CEO of the Ford Motor Company on my favorite cable news channel the other day claiming he was going to save the American auto industry by working for a dollar a day I began to ask myself why both cars that had taken refuge in my garage were of Japanese descent. After all, I had grown up in Middle America where one saw the USA in their Chevrolet, enjoyed a Sunday afternoon ride in a better idea from Ford or motored around in wonder at how a Chrysler was responsible for the time of their lives in the car of their lives.
When I first started driving it was behind the enormous steering wheel of a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air that had been purchased new by my grandfather. The Bel Air was Detroit iron at its finest. No power steering, no power brakes and you actually had to select what gear you hoped to be in by moving the column mounted gear shift up and down while pushing in the clutch pedal with one foot and letting off the gas pedal with the other.
The Bel Air was more than a decade old when I started to drive it and showed the toll many a Wisconsin winter can take on anything made of steel. But, the Bel Air roared to life when the temperature was reported in minus degrees and refused to be hampered by frozen precipitation that was recorded in feet. Regardless of how bad the weather or how dark the night, that tired old hunk of Detroit iron performed flawlessly.
The Bel Air instilled a confidence in American built cars that carried over for the next twenty years. Every few years I would walk into an American car dealership and purchase the newest and best Detroit had to offer. The problem was, with every new car more knobs fell off, more leaks developed and more squeaks could be heard. What was even worse was the fact when you took the car back to the dealership the first thing they would say would be, “I’m not sure that’s covered under your warranty.”
“What do you mean my warranty?” I would ask. “Are car warranties like finger prints? Everyone’s is different?”
Of course the response would be, “I will have to call the district office and they are only open the third and fourth Tuesday of every other month. In the meantime you can pay to have your car fixed and we will see if the district office will approve this as warranty work which never happens.”
That’s when I drove my ailing last American car to the dealership that sold cars from the Land of the Rising Sun and never looked back.
My Japanese car doesn’t have knobs falling off, leaks or even squeaks. Even more importantly it always starts, performs flawlessly and even on the rainiest darkest nights gets me home safely. Sound familiar? The problem with the American auto industry is that my grandfather’s Bel Air is now built by Toyota.
