Crash

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

Poor American motors: they're all falling down and many Americans won't even consider paying $370 PER YEAR toward their -own- health care costs.  America's biggest auto suppliers are out of cash, America's biggest auto manufacturers are out of customers (Ford can't sell enough hybrids while Toyota can't build enough hybrids?  Or Ford can't sell enough GT and SVT [having already killed SVO] sport cars while Toyota, Nissan, Honda [and, soon, Hyundai] can't put theirs on sale soon enough?), and that "I" word is once again raising its ugly head.  Can a new Matador Malaise "Carter" coupe be re-introduced?  Can Mitt Romney revive George Romney and repeat what a '58 Rambler wrought?  Can Bob Lutz repeat Charlie Nash and retire a Statesman?  Can anything anyone in America can do make any difference?

(Yes, that Nash name will return on a RWD Buick road master for MY '09...)

http://www.channel4.com/4car/news/news-story.jsp?news_id=14076

When inflation requires higher interest rates to keep foreign investment from fleeing America and Americans can't continue their borrow-and-spend negative-savings Happy Days, can Americans count on finding jobs selling imported crap to other Americans?  And can China be counted on to -give- us cute little refrigerators, humongous screen TVs, and fine AUTOMOBILES for free --- out of its overwhelming love for democracy and the US of A?

http://www.chinanews.cn//news/2005/2006-03-08/19917.html

Can anybody see solutions for the fine mess we've gotten ourselves into?

Can anybody see any solutions for the problems we've got within old AMC?

Oh well.  It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp --- even when we're pimpin' AMC.

Here's proof:

>>
Date: Wednesday, March 8, 2006 11:43 AM
TEH AMC authority, Patrick Foster, has informed me that the B. in Thomas 
<<

Suspense?  Suspense???

Or simply not reading?

>>
Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2006 05:29 PM

No , It was Bucknum , not sure on an exact spelling, but pronounced Buck -num.
<<

No, it was Buckland.  An exact spelling but pronounced "BUCK-lund."  And he was born in Stoke, Devonshire exactly 161 years ago this past Sunday!

Sad that he is not better remembered --- by the AMC experts, especially.
<<

Even sadder that the AMC fans don't use the gifts that are freely given.

Good times don't last forever.  Every road has a beginning and an end. 

But flares -never- will be "flairs" --- at any point along that route.


If the other European make that might have been marketed by S-P had not been French (Facel-Vega [hyphen here honorable] was founded when Ford's Mercury was; whether you read French or eat Freedom fries, learn more),  

http://www.automag.be/article.php3?id_article=330

and if its cars had been bodied by Hermann Spohn (here's a great read) 

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/3476018253.03.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

instead of clad in couture by Pont-a-Mousson (here's a great "reality check"--- Name two fine car companies later known for less fine metal products!), it certainly would have given every Cadillac Fleetwood or Imperial LeBaron (or Lincoln Monstromental?) higher heights to climb.

But just as senior Nash, Packard (and others too far forgotten to cry over today) sadly learned, volume versus exclusivity can be a devil's deal.  When F-V turned from V-8 to I-4, Luxury booked its Grand Tours elsewhere.  But they would've made helluva nice Packard Caribbeans or Studebaker Hawks.

>>
from this distance, it looks to me that gm mgmt has always been more
about politics than cars.  i wouldn't be surprised to learn that a
majority of their executives knew nothing about cars and were proud of
it.
<<

If distance makes hearts grow fonder, does distance makes eyes grow myopic?

Some failed auto managers sold soap and diapers, some counted beans and dollars, some were fabled "car guys" --- GM has had all types over time.

It is sad when auto history is forgotten, misinterpreted, or rewritten.

And that fact is true whether it is General or American Motors history.  

Ken linked a Foster piece recently: if anyone clicked it and read it, it contained one view of auto history.  AMC did not always have "excellent" managers, did not always "maximize" resources, did not always choose the "sensible design" and was sometimes neither "bold" -nor- "conservative" enough to succeed.  Mason and Chapin were visionaries, Romney was smart, but some AMC managers were, in fact, idiots who couldn't see or wouldn't read.  Some knew about cars; some knew about other things, and some knew nothing.  That's the real AMC history.  It is not as simple as it seems.

(If GM had a "line of 4wd cars similar to the Eagle" now, it'd be able to fail to sell as well as Subaru -and- as Toyota.)