[Amc-list] Look

["Mahoney, John" <jmahoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If tomorrow looks like yesterday, it must be today.  A M has been sold, the new Chrysler Concord(e) will be sold in Asia, Europe and in America, and GM will be sold as the new American Toyota --- if it can realize its revival drive. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6442901.stm

http://www.cheryglobal.com/qq.htm

American attitudes are changing now

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2007/March/AutoMakers.htm

American executives are taking note

http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2007/03/changing_percep_1.html

http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/697

Oops, got ahead of myself --- and of GM --- there.  Oh well, one can't be too far ahead of the old car competition.  Remember AMC?  Steve Harris sure would.  He was on the ship of Nash-Rambler-AMC-Jeep-Renault as it went glug-glug. 

("...only Renault I ever had that was not a good car was an '86 Alliance...  best ones I ever had were '81 and '83 18i wagons...  could not kill them!  The first one was destroyed in an accident, the second was sold still running great with over 300k miles on it."  --- Steve Harris, 8/2/06...)

He was the one who announced that AMC would sell 15,000 Espace minivans and he was the one who answered a question about the J. D. Power survey.

"We just don't believe it.  That sample is too small.  It's apples and oranges.  You don't ask people to compare Alliance with entirely different cars such as Mercedes."

He was the director of AMC public relations way back in the fall of '84.

He survived Iacocca and Daimler-Benz.  And he's still alive.  <Shudder.>   

David Kerr was the director of AMC advertising and marketing and he took the stand next, to say that AMC's research consultants used larger samples and "sounder techniques [so they] get results which show us much better --- results we know are quite accurate.  They show us well up in pleasing customers."

Who bought AMC Eagles, Jeeps, and Renaults during the model year of '85.

<Shudder.>

That's what AMC history should be.  First hand.

Oldsmobile planned to sell 1,350,000 1985 cars.

That is American motors' history also.  Facts!!

But...

AMC doesn't need more blog.

AMC needs to become bigger. 

Better built.  Better sold.

Mercedes and BMW now are not big enough not to be bought and torn apart.

Abernethy/Evans saw that only a big AMC could survive: forty years back.

Better do differently.  Now.

And the competition?  It's coming from everywhere; it's led by one name. 

Toyota will increase its non-Japanese ownership from the current 20% and decrease its 25-member board of directors from the current 100% Japanese directorship.  Toyota is not making No. 1 its goal, but simply trying to satisfy its customers.

"We have just being doing our job naturally, and the numbers merely came about as a result."  [Whether or not the English is perfectly assembled...]

-Hiroshi Okuda, retired chairman (1995-2006), now senior advisor, 3/13/07

AN coined "The Detroit Three" after "The Big Three" became GM, Toyota, and Ford.  The world's most profitable carmaker (soon to be its biggest) is the only foreign firm on our "Top 20 Most Admired" list.  It didn't do it by building iconic cars, it did it by becoming bit by building reasonably attractive, generally reliable cars that could be sold in large volumes at profitable prices.  It gave its customers what they wanted and were willing to pay full price for.

25 years ago GM had almost 50% of the US market; today GM has less than 25%.  Asian makers, led by Toyota, took America from GM, Ford, Chrysler, and AMC: car-by-car, year-by-year, dollar-by-dollar.  Toyota now builds vehicles that hope to be as American as Chevrolet was: Asian automakers hope to be as middle-American as were baseball, apple pie, and Ford/GM.

Toyota is not managed by Americans, though, as every action is reported to, monitored by, and approved from, Japan: R&D, styling, manufacturing, marketing, and even involvement in NASCAR must be vetted through Tokyo.

Toyota is a two-tongued, two-headed, too-tough monster not to be taken seriously by the entire automotive world.  Toyota is Godzilla in Seoul, Stuttgart, Munich, Motown, and on Main Street.  But Toyota only wishes to prosper and to survive, not to triumph over an automotive wasteland.
Toyota, as it admits, merely wants to be "managing the decline" of the world's other big brands.

Toyotas are no longer merely "reasonably attractive, generally reliable" cars today.  Neither are many other cars from Asia: coupes called Civic and Altima and Accord show that.  Mazda CUVs and Hyundai sedans step up ahead.  Still one step ahead of Ford's Edge and GM's Vue from G6 to G8.

Audi, BMW, M-B, and the most expensive Italians still see Asian cars in their rearview mirrors, but they do gain fast.  Almost a decade ago, I wrote weekly that Zarrella and the board had to create European-styled cars that were as well built and trouble free as any from Japan for GM to survive past 2012.  Today Japan and Korea build such cars; tomorrow China, India, Vietnam, etc. may build them too.  GM, Ford, or Chrysler may build nothing but memories.  Memories of when AMC was one of them.

Over the past decade, I've whined and prodded, cajoled and joked that AMC as a hobby had to do more than just talk online and turn up at car shows.  I suggested a cooperative AMCyclopedia into which all the info flying about could be captured: a free resource that offered access and permanency.  Matt, Wolfgang, Frank, TomJ, and some others did some things toward making that happen.  I kept flinging facts.  The majority of AMC fans did nothing.  Sat on their thumbs.

Oh, they did their AMC thing.  Bought and sold cars, talked where and when they felt motivated.  Found, fixed, repaired, restored.  Went to meets if they chose to, drag raced, conjectured, conjured, concour-ed and called AMC their choice in cars.  Read whatever was written by an AMC expert paid to do so; bought whatever books, magazines, and paper AMC info they chose.  Prices of AMC star cars flew high into the sky; AMC cars grew cooler to someone, somewhere every day.  AMC was on the cusp of being reborn as a true collectible make.  AMC will be the new Studebaker, Packard, Edsel, Mopar, or Chevrolet.  Just watch and wait.  It'll happen.  Somebody else will do it for you.  While you have fun.

So AMC invents the same wheel over and over again --- better or worse than it did the last time around.  So AMC breaks new ground on brakes, wheels, transmissions, and so much more --- from Orange County to the House of Orange-Nassau (in Europe, not on Long Island), and, of course, to the AMC hot spots of France, Germany, and Scandinavia.  Good break.

So every AMC fan knows exactly what's where and uses that info.  Huh?

So Kenosha breaks ground: nice little [operative] Rambler room in its non-automotive museum.  So AMC now stops Studebaker, Packard, etc. in their archive-and-display tracks?  The Nash-Rambler-AMC Center!  Huh?

So CD-ROM means every fact everyone shared is now accessible.  For any AMC-curious car connectors and all AMC-serious car collectors to click on.  No one needs to worry about AMC info any longer.  All done.  Huh?

So now when we "uncover" more fabric of AMC history --- on a handbag, in a Cardin article, in a Chrysler Historical garage sale, or under a rock, we only need to talk about it with our buds, while we're pulling parts somewhere or resetting sagging doors or just standing around some show, or, if we're really up-to-the-minute, in some bursts of typing to [one of the multiple choices in] lists online.  So we're AMC futurists.  Oh yeah.  Huh?

I'm not bothered that someone discovered a purse-maker that I'd linked months or years ago, but I'm saddened by a waste of anyone's AMC time.

Why can't AMC build its hobby in the same way Toyota builds its cars?

Efficiently, effectively, and profitably.

Why can't AMC build its world in the same way Packard built its past?

Cooperatively, continuously, and inclusively. 

Why can't AMC build its break to being big as AMC was without braking?

Over and over again for the same sign.  Stop!

AMC fabrics must not be tattered and torn, but -worn-.  The well designed, well built AMC resource should, after so many years of AMC discussing, be where anyone could click to learn everything AMC anyone knows.  There should be no question about Cardin Javelin color choices; there should be Pacer purses for perusal, and there should be the 24/7 AMC designer car show.  I should post photos of the world's most famous Cassini client's car.  And among them should be the document attesting to its provenance.  An AMC/Jeep/Renault store.

So you really want to know all about AMC?

So you really want to read more AMC lore?

So don't be a Detroit Three: be a Toyota.

Don't reinvent that warped old AMC wheel.  

Don't do what you've done before.  Again.

Build AMC better the first time.  Toyota.


And when you build your drag race '62 Classic, paint it black.  Matte.

>>      
Many truisms I've heard here are not necessarily true:

Front disc/rear drums, the rears always need/get proportioning. WRONG!
Front disc/rear drums, front always gets metering. WRONG!
<<

Wrong or right, makes me brake for a history break and a "Do you know?"

#1 How does the first gasoline-engine Studebaker fit into AMC history?

#2 Why did the first hydraulic-brake Studebaker revert to mechanicals?

Tell us please.


I'll end today's "having-fun-yet-wasting-time" session with pictures.

http://www.autoblog.com/media/2006/06/06lincolntowncar_06.jpg

http://car-reviews.automobile.com/images/cars/ArtImages/12447/07.jpg

May or may not be called "ugly"; may or may not be in need of a "fix."

No point in typing a Cumberford critique to justify any point of view.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; ugly would be in the same place.

It's well built, it's reliable, and it's RM priced.  Is it attractive?

http://www.canadiandriver.com/testdrives/04amanti.htm

It depends.  Its designers saw it as having some room for improvement.

http://www.carpages.ca/go/roadtest/2007_kia_amanti_road_test.aspx

The next step toward Lexus will be along the route of Acura.  In April.

Look for it at the NY auto show.  The Hyundai version of RL.  No V-8 in it yet, yet sized like M-B S and BMW 7 but priced like the fully-loaded Honda Accord and Nissan Altima.  So, learning from Toyota.  Build more.  Build better.  Build beautiful.  Build bigger.  Build profits.  Survive.

The best of the competition is the better AMC to be built. 

http://www.audiusa.com/audi/us/en2/new_cars/Audi_A8/S8.html

AMC tried to build profit from personal luxury to survive.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheogre/329602668/in/set-72157594364413004/

Ugly and beautiful.  Ready to model and ready to be fixed.

That's your AMC.

Build it.

"We just continue to focus on how you can give better customer satisfaction, how you build better loyalty, how you can get better products to the customers.  If there are some other companies that haven't been able to focus as we have on products and customer satisfaction, they're going through the adjustments now so they can."

Jim Press, President of Toyota North America, 3/13/07

If those car companies don't and can't, they, like AMC, will be dead.
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