So, the present of the Ford Motor Company made an announcement today, saying that America's love affair with the automobile is growing stale and may even be dying.
This is a very closed-minded and myopic statement in my mind.
It's true that Americans are falling out of love with the big engined rear-wheel drive American monster machines that Ford and GM crank out every year like it's still 1969. The buying public, especially the youth markets, are looking for cars that handle well and can be worked on and improved cosmetically and from a performance standpoint with low-maintenanc bolt-on parts. Thus the rise of the rice-rockets and similar cars and the popularity of Hondas, Toyotas, and Volkswagens. These cars are also quirky and unique cars. Interest clubs spring up all over the place for cars that aren't terribly fancy: VW Sciroccos (cars that don't even Blue Book for $1000), Saab 900's and 9000's, Honda Civic SI's and old CVCC's. These cars aren't particularly expensive, flashy, or even fast. But they're all unique, fun-to-drive cars that develop intensely loyal followings.
My circle of friends and I are big car fans, but we don't care about sleek looking tailfins or big block engines, we want to know how well this car can handle curves; can I take a 90 degree turn at 45 miles an hour and not drift? The engines we like are the powerful naturally aspirated BMW inline sixes or the fire-breathing turbocharged Porsche flat-six engines. Why waste time and fuel with big block V-8's when you can turbocharge a four-banger and beat most anything the weekend warriors have to offer off the line in a heartbeat and you'll be hugging corners while that GTO is plowing into mailboxes.
Ford and GM just haven't been staying attuned to what people want from cars. It should be a clue that the stylish, sleak, and more compact Japanese, Korean, German, and Swedish cars are, in terms of percentage markets, outselling most everything Ford and GM have to offer in the West Coast and Northeast markets. While Honda Accords and VW Jettas sell like hotcakes in the desirable 16-30 year-old market, Michigan is still cranking out Cavaliers and Tauruses, cars that just are not any fun and are not very stylish. Ford's finally on the right track with the Focus, but it took them a couple years to market one with decent power, the SVT Focus pushing close to 200 horses, as opposed to the piddling 110 in the base Focus. Still, these cars simply lack the comfortable handling of their Japanese and German counterparts.
And don't get me started on the fact that Chevy still cranks out the Corvette with a pushrod V-8.
I leave out DaimlerChrysler, both because those cars aren't 100% American and they're doing a pretty good job at following the lead of the imports. Cars like the Neon and the LHS are definitely tops in their classes for American cars and compete admirably with the Japanese and German imports.
American manufacturers still rule the road when it comes to full-sized trucks: the Silverado, F150, and Ram are all great trucks, but the Toyota Tundra is quickly catching up with the big boys. American manufacturers are fighting even harder in the compact truck division against Mazda pick-ups and the ever-popular Toyota Tacoma. Even SUV's, for a long time owned virtually uncontested by Ford and GM, are branching out, with Honda/Acura and Toyota doing brisk business. Lexus, Merceders-Benz, Rover, BMW, and now Porsche fight it out in the luxury SUV division that Michican still hasn't offered up a decent competitor in other than the over-the-top gaudiness of the Cadillac Escalade and its counterpart the GMC Envoy.
Ford and GM will always be able to sell their cars in the Midwest and South, where everyone wants to be the next guy on the block with a Monte Carlo and Towncar in their driveway, but in the competitive markets in the West and Northeast, they have quite a way to go to break into the mid-sized car market dominated by VW, Honda, and Toyota, and even farther to go in the sports sedan/luxury division where BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, and now even Saab have iron grips. Nobody's going to drive to work at their Bay Area biotech firm in a Cadillac and nobody's going to cruise Santa Monica Boulevard in a Buick. At least no one from California.
Take a clue from the Japanese and Germans, Michigan. Ditch the obnoxious moulded plastic on every single thing Pontiac has to offer. Put out something small and tight with a turbocharger. I can count the number of American cars available from the manufacturer with forced induction on one hand. Basic entry-level cars from VW and Subaru are equipped with turbochargers. Every Subaru on the market is all-wheel drive. These are things that people want in cars and that's where America's love-affair with American cars will be rekindled. Follow Ford's lead with the Focus and in a few years markets should shift and American cars can again be competitive in the auto markets in the West and Northeast. But come on, don't blame the American public for falling out of love with American cars, take a look at what you've offered to the domestic market, particularly the 20-something crowd (the demographic you have to hit if you want love-affairs to last) in the last 15 years.
Cheers.
