Whatever Happened to the American Family Car?

Most of us are either too young or too old to remember what American cars were like in the 1920s and 1930s. Unless we watch classic car auctions, we are unaware that America produced some of the greatest family cars, especially luxury ones.  In the 1920s and 1930s America produced luxury cars like the Duesenberg, Pierce Arrow, Packard, Auburn, Cadillac and Lincoln.  These cars could compete with Europe’s Rolls Royce, Bentley, Mercedes and Jaguar in beauty, power and luxury. 

Many of us are too young or old to remember American family cars of the 1950s and 1960s.  After going through the 1940s with a non-productive period caused by bad design and the war, American cars started a comeback in the early 1950s. 

For me it really began again in 1953 with the Buick Skylark convertible and the Cadillac 62, which also came in a convertible. The following years saw the birth of America’s sports cars - the Chevrolet Corvette and the Ford Thunderbird and then the boom of 1956, one of the best years ever for American cars.  The 1956 Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac were perhaps the best they have ever been. Chrysler had the Imperial and the 300 that began the year before.  Even the Mercury had its best year ever as far as design and popularity. And the Lincoln Continental was every bit as exquisite as the finest foreign make.  Cadillac had its super luxurious Eldorado Brougham which just got better in 1957 and 1958.

During these years, people would go to the dealers in August or September to see the new models.  Each year each model changed slightly, not always for the better.  By 1959 cars had become too big and unattractive.  The huge fins destroyed the graceful lines of 1956.

Around 1962 America decided to make smaller family cars. There was the Chevrolet Corvair, the Pontiac Tempest, the Buick Skylark, Olds Cutlass, the Plymouth Valiant, Dodge Dart, Mercury Comet and Ford Falcon.  They were smaller but well equipped.  They were challenged by foreign cars like the Volkswagen, Volvo and Saab, which were smaller and used less gas in their less powerful engines.  Each year these American small cars grew a little larger.   By the mid 1960s many of them became muscle cars.  The Olds Cutlass evolving into the mighty 442, the Pontiac Tempest grew up to become the Lemans and then the awesome GTO, even the Skylark got a big engine.

For the second half of the 1960s, America fell in love with the big, powerful American family car.  Chrysler Corporation came out with the Plymouth Barracuda and Roadrunner, the Dodge Challenger and an even bigger 300 series.  The two sport cars had grown considerably with the T-Bird becoming a large four passenger car even available in a four door model. The Corvair had been killed by Ralph Nader who claimed that it was unsafe at any speed. The Studebaker and the Packard went the way of the Duesenberg and Pierce Arrow, which disappeared in the 1940s. American Motors, which produced the Rambler and the Metropolitan was also on its last legs. By 1969, American cars were neither attractive nor reliable.

The 1970s saw the American family car fall further from grace.  The foreign invasion not only from Germany and Sweden but also from Japan began threatening our car production.  By 1979, the only American family car that we could be proud of was the Cadillac which produced the 1979 Seville and the end of the Fleetwood line. Americans were turning to Honda, Toyota, Datsun which became Nissan and to VW and Volvo.  These cars were more attractive, more reliable and much more fun to drive.

By the beginning of the 1980s American family car was on life support. It appears that at that point American car executives made some terrible decisions.  First they decided to reduce the amount of chrome on their cars in part because of its country of source, Rhodesia.  American government officials did not want to trade with what was considered a racist state. Also chrome was heavy and expensive and Americans were beginning to show concern for gas economy.  The second mistake that has continued to this date, was to follow the lead of the 1975 Triumph TR7 which billed itself as the shape of the future.  The new shape was almost triangular with the front of the car much lower than the back. The ad for it was the car driving into a triangular shaped garage.  While the TR7 probably was the worst and last Triumph ever made, the new shape seemed to be the way to go reducing drag and increasing fuel efficiency.  The third mistake and one that has also continued into the present was to start building trucks with closed cabs and calling them SUVs.  The idea was that the car companies could produce them cheaply but sell them for a lot figuring that we were dumb enough to fall for it.  They were right.  We were dumb enough to pay big bucks for the Escalade, Navigator, Durango, GMC,  Explorer, Tahoe, Equinox et al even though they were basically pick up trucks.  They were also attractive to some because they did not use the wedge shape so looked more like cars used to look.

For all these reasons, the American car companies stopped producing attractive sedans, coupes, hardtops, fastbacks, convertibles or station wagons.  The American luxury sedan or hardtop was nowhere to be found.  The Japanese and Europeans rushed in to fill the void. 

Honda, Toyota and Nissan came out with their own luxury lines: the Acura, Lexus and Infinity, respectively.  Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Audi and even VW came out with affordable luxury cars.

At this time, the end of 2012, America has no desirable luxury cars, does not produce practical station wagons, makes few if any convertibles,  has few if any good hatchbacks and can not compete in the small car arena.  America now produces mainly pick up trucks, SUVs and large family cars that few Americans want.

Have you seen the Cadillac or the Lincoln models lately?  What are they?  They are not luxurious or attractive.  Who would buy them other than drug dealers, pimps and second string professional athletes? This was Tony Soprano's choice and he could have had any car.

What can the American car industry do?

First, we must admit that we have only six actual car lines.  The Dodge line should be a truck line for Chrysler corporation as is GMC for General Motors. Then each line should come up with as many as three size models: one that is about 165 inches - plus or minus a few - and includes a hatchback; another that is 175 inches - plus or minus a few - and includes a station wagon and a convertible and a third that is about 185 inches in length.

General Motors should bring their 1956 Chevrolet and Cadillac to their designers and say make a modern version of these and use chrome and never mind the wedge look.  For the small model, they could also be shown a 2006 VW Golf hatchback for inspiration.  The G.M. car models should have names and not numbers.  There could be the Chevrolet Corsa, Bel Air and Impala.  The Cadillac would have the Fleetwood, the Seville and maybe the Eldorado.  Attention should be paid to the proportion of window size to body and that of tire size to body.  This was not a problem in the 1950s, but is one now as in the new Camaro with windows too small for the body.

At Chrysler while developing a new larger Fiat for their small model, they could produce a medium sized car also with a station wagon and convertible and a large, luxurious Imperial like those of the 1950‘s and early 1960s.

Ford should produce three models of the Ford and two of the luxury Lincoln with a midsize model and a most luxurious Continental to top its line.  Lincoln designers can be shown the 1956 Continental and one produced in 1964 that also came as a four-door convertible with suicide doors for direction. Lincoln has been such a mistreated neglected line, almost as bad as was Mercury.  The new model is doomed to failure.  I would tell Lincoln designers what I did GM, forget the wedge look.  Porsche did not go wedge.  Neither did Rolls or Bentley. Triumph no longer exists because it introduced the wedge.  Don't go the way of the Triumph that true to its name, produced great cars like the TR2, TR3, TR4a with irs even the TR250 only to end because the dread wedge.  Forget the wedge!!!

There is no reason why America can not produce beautiful, economical, well sized,  high quality, desirable American cars that Americans and foreigners will want to buy.  We’ve done it before, we can do it again.

Why He Lost

Presidential political pundits predictions of a razor thin election for president proved terribly wrong.  Speculation of what might happen if there were a tie was idle at best.  The election ended up with the President getting more than 62% of the electoral votes winning all but one  of the “battleground” states.  Perhaps compared with re-election wins by LBJ or Ronald Reagan, it seemed razor thin.

Now there are questions as to why the President’s opponent did so poorly.  The losing candidate blamed the President’s largesse, giving gifts to certain voting groups like men, women and children. The losing party’s propaganda channel blamed the loss on the fact that America has suddenly changed demographically making it a different country from the one we knew and loved just four years ago.  Another group blamed Hurricane Sandy for the challenger’s bitter defeat.

So why did the Republican candidate for President lose his bid amid such difficult economic times?

I think that I know why.

Early on it was clear that anyone wanting the Republican nomination would have to please the extreme right wing of the party.  Members of that wing are against abortion for any reason, gay rights, the Affordable Care Act (also known as Romneycare), higher income taxes, government oversight of private industries and illegal immigration.  The successful nominee would also have to appeal to Independents, who tend to be much more moderate in their views.  Many Independents favor gay rights, abortion, higher income taxes for the rich and corporations, and they want some solution to the illegal immigration problem that does not involve mass deportation.

The person finally selected to represent the Republican party after a brutal primary process against an almost laughable array of competitors, tried to walk the fine line to satisfy both the extreme members and Independents who tended to be much less radical.

The only issue the Republicans had against the incumbent was that he had not fixed the economy that was almost fatally crippled by the previous administration.  The challenge was to present an alternative to the President’s “failed” economic policies.  The challenge turned out to be too overwhelming.

One possible way of improving the economy would be through taxes while another would be by reducing the cost of government by cutting programs that add to our deficit and therefore retard our economy’s recovery. 

The Republican candidate’s solution was to lower taxes on the rich, totally eliminating the capital gains tax meaning that he himself would pay no taxes.  He also wanted to increase military spending to a higher percent of the GDP regardless of need.  These two ideas would have added $7 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, exactly the opposite of the stated goal.  The theory was that this would create jobs because the rich would not send all their money to Swiss banks and offshore island accounts.  The top two percent of income families have been named “the job creators” disregarding the fact that the other 98% create jobs by consuming products and services.  You can’t get rich without customers.

The challenger then promised to make up for the cuts by closing tax loopholes and deductions.  When accused of shifting the tax burden to the middle class, he promised not to raise their taxes and that the rich would continue to pay the same share as they do now and that his tax reform would be revenue neutral.  So he ended up saying that he would cut taxes but not to the rich or middle class and the changes would have no effect on the deficit.

(All along he refused to show his tax returns going back at least 10 years for fear that they would be used against him.  The two recent years he did reveal showed that he paid less than 14% of his annual income in taxes.  He had been betting against America by investing his vast wealth in Swiss bank accounts and offshore tax shelters.  He was the poster boy for tax inequity provided by tax loopholes large enough to fly a tax deductible Lear jet through.)

That left cutting the cost of government.  With one half of the general fund budget going to defense (keeping Social Security and medicare costs and revenues should separate from the general fund budget, as they should be) and only $750 billion in other government costs to work with, cutting defense spending would be on top of the list.  But, remember, he wanted to actually increase this spending.   If he had cut out the rest of the government, he would save just enough to pay for his original tax plan, leaving us with a continued $1 trillion annual deficit.   

The candidate promised to cut government programs but would not say which because he feared that if he did, the voters would reject him.  The exception was Public Broadcasting and therefore, Sesame Street.  That cut would save a few hundred million in a $2 trillion general fund budget.

He chose a running mate who has made a career out of attempting to rob from the poor to give to the rich.  His plan for Social Security was to privatize it just as people like him and his running mate already do.  Neither will be eligible for Social Security payments but neither needs them.

His running mate’s solution to future Medicare financing issues was to abandon Medicare and replace it with a voucher system which would help seniors and the disabled afford a part of their private health insurance payment.  He would save Medicare by destroying it.

When the Republican team realized that talking about the economy was not sufficient, they decided to show their challenger’s foreign policy credentials by taking a trip abroad.  He was to visit London before and during the Olympics, then push on to Poland and Israel.  In London he offended the British by saying that he feared that their security provisions might be insufficient to ensure the safety of athletes and spectators.  They almost booed him out of the country.

He went to Israel where he offended Arabs and their sympathizers by crediting Israel’s great success to its cultural superiority to the former residents, the Palestinians.

In Poland while visiting the tomb of their unknown soldier, his press secretary shouted four letter expletives at a reporter for asking the candidate a difficult question because, he said, “this G-- d---- f------ place is sacred for C----’s sake!!!”

The trip proved that the candidate had no foreign policy credentials.  In a vote of people in Europe and Asia, the Republican ticket did not even reach double digits in their percentage of vote.

Then there were the gaffs, slips of the tongue that threatened to reveal the real him. 

He told a crowd that corporations were people.  He told Michigan residents that one of their best features was that their trees were all the right height.  He bet an opponent $10,000 that he was wrong.  He told a story in one town how funny it was that his father presided over the their annual parade and then closed its American Motors plant and laid off all the workers.  He also told a crowd that he loved firing people which didn’t sit well with those who had lost their jobs.  He told another gathering that he too was unemployed with the only difference being that he still made $21 million a year more than most in the audience could earn working for several lifetimes.

But these gaffs were dwarfed by his biggest one. He told a small group at a fundraiser that 47% of the American people pay no income tax and were hopeless.  He could never change them and they would never stop seeing themselves as victims, unable to take of themselves and in constant need of government’s help.  He later said that he was wrong. He never made clear what he felt he was wrong about.  It seems that he felt that he was wrong for saying what he really believed, a rare occurrence for him.

While campaigning in Ohio and Michigan he attempted to rewrite recent history.  After having strongly advocated against bailing out G.M. and Chrysler in early 2009 and advising that they go into bankruptcy even though credit markets were frozen solid and more than one million jobs would be lost at the height of our recession, he tried to say that he saved those companies.  Then he tried to say that there was a secret deal to ship Jeep manufacturing abroad and eliminating jobs in Ohio.  The story was a total lie but did upset the affected workers who were reassured by company executives that the outsourcing story was totally false.

Ironically, when this candidate was in private equity for 25 years, he was an advocate of outsourcing as a means of increasing corporate profit.

To counter charges by seniors that his running mate’s budget plan would eliminate Medicare, the presidential contender tried to claim that it was the President who was cutting Medicare by eliminating $700 million in unnecessary hospital and insurance company fees.  It was revealed that this cut did not affect recipients and was also in his running mate’s rejected budget proposal, one that the presidential contender supported.

The Republican team then tried to convince voters that the President was undoing the job requirement for welfare recipients because he had allowed two states some leeway as long as the result was getting more recipients back to work.  The requests had been made by two conservative Republican governors.

Should we still wonder why the Republican ticket was soundly defeated in November?  Shouldn’t we be wondering how the Republican ticket even got 38% of the electoral votes.  The answer to that is certain states in the Midwest and South will almost always vote for the Republican ticket, no matter how bad it is. At least they are consistent.

But can’t we say that the Republican team ran a good campaign and that both men on that ticket were decent, honorable men?

No. 

Coming Home

Those who watch the evening news see reports of terrible violence in some part of the Muslim world - from the west coast of Africa north to Tunisia and east to Pakistan what seems like every night on the news.  The violence is directed at members of rival sects and tribes; it is against women and it is against the United States and Israel. There are huge angry mobs - yelling, screaming obscenities, burning flags, shaking fists and making horrible faces in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, the Palestine, Yemen, etc.  While we are constantly reminded that this is just an extremist minority not reflective of the population, we see so much of it.

Many of these angry mobs are in countries to whom the U.S. provides essential aid.  We give billions a year to the Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and Libya.  When the Libyans were revolting against their longtime dictator, they begged for and received American military and humanitarian aid.  The Egyptians also requested and received our support against their longtime dictator.  Now the Syrians plead and insist that we come to their aid.

We have been in Afghanistan with bases throughout the country for more than a decade, longer than any other American conflict.  We entered to rid the country of Al Qaeda and to drive the Taliban from power.  We did that early on, Al Qaeda was defeated and their Taliban hosts surrendered.  Instead of imprisoning or executing these terrorists, we let them go with their weapons, to fight another day.  We then began nation building and training what we have always been told were brave, patriotic warriors willing to fight to their death for the good of their people. We have been nation building and training for many years but can not locate these brave warriors.  And while the people want us out they don’t want to run their own country without us.

In addition to the Middle East and Africa, we have hundreds of military bases all over the world.  We are in South Korea with 25,000 troops to hold the line against North Korea’s one million man force.  We have bases in England, France, Italy and Germany.  We have bases in Japan and Latin America.

The total requested for 2012-13 for defense was not just the $708 billion going to the Department of Defense budget, but also included the following purely defense- related costs: the V.A. - $70 billion, Veteran’s pensions - $55 billion, Homeland security - $47 billion,  Department of Energy - $22 billion, State Department - $6 billion, FBI - $3 billion, Miscellaneous related costs - $8 billion and interest of military loans that paid for Iraq and Afghanistan - at least $109 billion.  The total U.S. defense cost is at minimum $1.03 trillion. 

The entire general fund budget for the U.S. (without Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security costs of $1.5 trillion which are still totally paid for with FICA trust funds and should not be in the general fund budget) is, therefore, not $3.5 trillion but about $2 trillion.  Of that our defense costs are more than 50% of the actual general fund budget.  (Interestingly, the cost of military purchases and research was $215 billion in 2011while military personnel costs were only $154 billion.)

We are providing military and economic assistance to countries all over the world, spending tens of billions of dollars a year that could be spent right here in our country.  We have more than 700 foreign bases and give more than $50 billion in foreign aid.  What do they accomplish?  Do the recipients of our aid and protection appreciate us or do they feel that we are controlling them and their culture? Do they become independent of our largesse as quickly as possible or do they expect it to continue indefinitely? 

Meanwhile, back here in the States, we need to reduce our annual budget shortfall while we need to improve our physical and intellectual infrastructure.  We need better roads and bridges to facilitate both commerce and recreation.  We need a much better education system to give all of our children a complete, well rounded education.  We need to bring our own people out of poverty and into productive rewarding lives by providing them with opportunity and motivation.

All this costs money.  Money we could save by bringing our troops and aid payments home to rebuild our own country.

But what will the world do if we withdraw our military and reduce our foreign aid?  I am confident that they will find that they can manage quite well and feel much better for it.  The Muslim world has been insisting that we leave their soil.  We have left Saudi Arabia and Iraq, let us quickly leave Afghanistan and the region.  Let us leave Asia and Europe and come home.

If there is a struggle in the Middle East (unless it involves Israel), there is the Arab League to turn to.  In Africa, they too have an organization of their many states to accomplish mutual goals.  If there is a civil war somewhere else in the world, let the U.N. deal with it.  Now that Europe is somewhat unified, why not let them have their own defense league?  If our allies still feel a need for some of our bases, let them pay the entire cost.

And let American dollars circulate in America.  Let us be a country that is no longer dependent on oil from the Middle East and is much less dependent on foreign made goods and services, exporting much more than we import. We can be a nation that leads by example and not by money and military power.

Bringing our money and people home would help produce a better educated, less stratified, and more creative and productive people who experience less violence and more harmony.  We can do it.

If we just come home.