<VV> ulterior motives, reasonable design goals

Sun Sep 3 15:02:23 EDT 2006

I'd have to agree completely.  The domestic manufacturers have effectively
cut their own throats.  They may be able to turn it around, but it would
take some drastic changes I don't think are likely to happen.  I do own an
01 Suburban, only becuase you can't put 3 car seats in the back of anything
else.  I had a 69 Suburban that I liked better, but it was too rusty, as
that body style is known so well for.  Aside from the Sub, everything else
we own is 72 and earlier.  I vary which vehicle I drive depending on the
needs of the day, but I routinely put 2-300 miles a week on vehicles at
least 30 years old.  All but 1 get 20+ mpg and are far more fun to drive
than some late model egg.

Devin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Underwood" <tonyu at roava.net>
To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 03, 2006 1:37 PM
Subject: Re: <VV> ulterior motives, reasonable design goals

> At 09:13 hours 09/03/2006, djtcz at comcast.net wrote:
> >I find none of those design goals objectionable or devious.
> >I think if we replaced "emissions" with good gas mileage they apply
> >exactly to the 1960 Corvair.
> >When stylish and fun-to-drive enters the mix a manufacturer SHOULD
> >sell a ton of them.
> >
> >I am just saddened that excess in the form of 4WD and pounds is SO
> >popular recently, apparently only made un-attractive by higher fuel
> >prices.  We Americans are clearly a fickle bunch, and strongly prone
> >to crowd behaviour.
>
>
> Not all of us.    ;)
>
> No SUV for me.  Instead, I drive a car that less than .01% of the
> rest of America drives daily.     Hell, that figure could well be
> kinda high.
>
>
> >I don't see how I can blame the manufacturers for that.
> >GM/FORD/ Daimler Chrysler can't really force us into buying
> >anything.  Otherwise Toyota wouldn't sell a single CAMRY .
>
>
> One would kinda hope that car makers here would look at what people
> want rather than a bottom line.  That's what got GM into trouble in
> the first place.   They were insisting on making what they thought
> people should buy.  DC got into a rut the same way, while continuing
> to lose out on sales of sporty coupes which Honda and Toyota and
> Nissan readily provided, while offering up a new Dodge "charger"
> based on their luxo-barge 300 LX platform, even including 4 doors...
> expecting it to sell like hotcakes and it didn't, while Ford had
> already seen the writing on the wall after realizing that they'd been
> doing the same thing as everyone else here by building dull cars with
> no identity...  thus the resurrection of the classic lines of the
> Mustang for their 2005 model year which sold so well Ford couldn't
> keep up with demand; in fact the new Mustang was about the only thing
> Ford was actually selling in good numbers.
>
> Now DC is bring us a new Challenger next year...  and of course it's
> a 2-door coupe, in spite of that nitwit Trevor Creed's dictate that
> "...DC would dedicate itself to the FWD 4-door automobile"...  which
> we all know wasn't working.   Someone among the suits at DC woke up
> and read TC the riot act, evidently.   Not only is the Challenger
> back, but expect a redesign of the "charger" along the way to make it
> more of the car that should be living up to the name.    Chevrolet
> has its hands full making the Camaro comeback a reality, seeing as
> how everyone knows it's a "meeee too" response to the new Mustang and
> Dodge's Challenger efforts.    GM needed to do *something*...   That
> rebadged Holden GTO at 40 thousand bucks didn't pan out.    At least
> it did shift the mindset among the beancounters towards building cars
> that were RWD and V8 powered again...  retro ain't out of style just
> yet.    Even the Impala, which isn't RWD yet, does offer a V8 this
> year.    However, there remains a lot of catching up to do yet.
>
>
> >Toyota has earned a pretty darned good rep for reliability.
>
>
> The people running Toyota are ruthless.   They are also smart.   THAT
> makes them dangerous competitors for domestic auto makers who had
> damned well  better wake up before Toyota pulls the rug out from
> underneath them altogether.   Toyota has wanted to rule the auto
> industry for decades now, and they've been working tooth and nail
> towards that goal.
>
> Pearl Harbor didn't work out as expected, so now they're "buying US
> out" via running the domestic auto industry outta town.    The
> sorry-assed part of this is that so few people actually realize what
> Toyota is doing.
>
>
> >Whether US mfrs are really behind may be open to debate,
>
> Not in MY camp.   US car makers are in the red (well, except for DC
> which *did* finally wake up) because they refused to look at the
> markets, instead listening to their own beancounters.   Rice
> continued to advance in sales...  GM and Ford scratched their heads
> and wondered why.   Meanwhile, DC was listening to their new CEO ("Dr
> Z") who had only recently stepped up from running Chrysler, left
> behind some pretty good policy exchanges which have been working out
> pretty well... Chrysler seems to be at least making  little money
> while Ford and GM continue to struggle to keep from losing *more* money.
>
> GM should have listened to what Bob Lutz had to say to them years
> ago, instead of waiting for things to get better as-is.    Dumb-asses...
>
>
> >but the ability to routinely go 150 kmiles with the barest of
> >maintenance is pretty well documented.
>
>
> US car makers could do this; they have the tech and the know-how but
> they're too busy paying out the ass to unions to be able to afford to
> build a car that can compete head to head with the Rice
> Brigade...  which doesn't have the union issues to deal with.
>
> US car makers dug their own hole...   now they're paying for their
> lack of vision.
>
>
> >It was not always thus.  I can remember when those cute little
> >Corollas were the subject of a factory upgrade around 1972/3.  New
> >valves, rocker arms, etc, etcs at less than 20,000 miles.
>
>
>
> They got over it.   Toyota went to work making a better product,
> improving and advancing...
>
> ...using the same techniques which originally had made GM
> great.    GM forgot...  Toyota didn't.    GM *let* Toyota do it to
> them by default.    Now, whose fault is it?   Likewise Ford, which
> got into trouble playing that same beancounter game.
>
>
> "Why are you still driving that old Corvair?   Why don't you buy a
> real car?"
>
> Trouble with that logic is that if I buy a "real car" I'm likely to
> end up paying more for it than I paid for my house.
>
> What's wrong with that picture?
>
>
> I bet that old Corvair will go another 100,000 miles yet again and it
> will likely cost me less than 1000 bucks on maintenance the whole
> way.   That includes the repaint I keep promising to do...
>
>
>
> Normal people wouldn't do this sort of thing.  They'd be going into
> hock for a new SUV...    I have no car payments and in fact outside
> my mortgage I'm debt free.    Now, if someone made a new car that I
> thought was worth the money and was something I actually *LIked*,
> maybe I'd consider it.   But right now, there's not much out there
> that I'd buy...  not that there's nothing I like; it just costs too
> much to justify putting my daily driver 'Vair out to pasture.
>
> I'll not go into debt to buy a new car just to keep up with the Jones
> bunch.    Scrue that noise.
>
> Besides...  is there *anything* being built today that would likely
> last anywhere nearly as long as my current daily driver?    The
> cliche "they don't build 'em like they used to" ain't just idle chatter.
>
>
> tony..
>
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