Ignoring for the moment my Honda’s CRV’s AC dying from the dreaded Black Death, American cars are junk. For nearly fifteen years I did a lot of business travel, and I rented many American cars; mostly GM, but also Ford and Chrysler, and every one of them was awful. The relatively few times when I got a Toyota Corolla or Camry, the contrast in quality was striking. And over a period of nearly fifteen years the American cars just didn’t get any better, at least not in comparison to most Japanese cars. “Have you driven a Ford… lately?” was used as a slogan for way too long. I’d driven a lot of Fords lately, but I didn’t want to own any of them.
The American car companies have had thirty years of warning that they had to change. The future was foretold when Lee Iacocca asked Congress for a bailout loan. Change or die was the lesson they should have learned, but did Detroit fix itself? No. Instead, it went back to lobbying against better fuel economy standards, then it ridiculed Michael Moore for “Roger and Me.” And look where that got them. Begging for a handout.
I say let GM go. There’s no point in trying to prop it up. OK, maybe there should be one American car company, just to keep things interesting. Call it General Ford. But for years and years, Toyota and Honda have been heading for the #1 and #2 spots, and there’s no point in denying any longer that they’ve arrived.
