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What caused the decay of the U.S. auto manufactureres

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Telecolor 3007

I love old stuff
U.S.A. had what is called the Malaise Era. "G.M." took it quite hard and made some really bad stuff and bad management decisions - including that downsized "Cadillac" - seen one pun : "Here is your ´´Cadillac´´. "No sir, I think that's my ˝Buick˝".
"Ford" took it better, trough all that in the late '80's made some very modern looking cars, but with really bad transmisions.
Dont' know too much about "Chrylser" Corporation a.k.a "Mopar".
In the '90's, there where some good cars, some bad ones.
But even before the crisis of the 2009, U.S..A. made cars wheren't the dream that they used to be and the source of inspiration that they used to be. "Lincoln" made some nice models in the early '000's, "Cadillac" camed with that ugly 'Escalade', but... no more of that power of American cars. O.k., the Europeanens and the Japanese made some good cars, some not good, but which still had the looks, but I don't think this is the only reasons that caused the decay of U.S.A. auto manufacturers.
 
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Read John Delorean's book - On a Clear Day you can see General Motors.
Its not the final word, of course, but he gave the impression that much of GM management was a clueless monied class who
underestimated the American public and presumed their market were dummies who'd buy anything presented to them,
no matter how bad. My brother was a mechanic at a Chevrolet dealership for a number of years in the 80s and saw some really bad things -
poor designs, porous castings, non-support of their buyers, generally just screwing their market. And many buyers went elsewhere.
And some of us just walked away from ever trusting Detroit again. My daily drivers have been Honda for many years - many trouble free miles.
My wife is still enjoying the 2000 Honda Civic SI I bought new; 25 years old and folks come up to her weekly asking if she wants to sell it!

Yes, there were some exceptional cars from Detroit after the early 60s, but there was a lot of bad designs that burned the poor souls who bought them.

Sheesh - my 1980 retirement sports car has a very fine 1960's designed GM small all aluminium V8 GM sold off to British Leyland, design, parts, castings, all of it.
(A previous owner tweaked it with cam, manifold, headers and 4bbl carb). It's a lot of fun.

TR8-UnderHood-DS-Wide_7773.jpg
 
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Personally, I think it happened as far back as the late 40's (after WWII).

The idea of time management/constant upgrading was introduced, but the Big 3 seemed not the interested in this aspect of production and the philosophy behind this reasoning. However, certain oriental factions were invited to this POV of manufacturing at the time as well, hoping that they would help get their fledgling car building off the ground and underway. And, unlike their American counterparts, they stayed, watched, and learned, putting much of what was offered in the way of streamlining, and taking in some of the basic aspects of constant improving design/function.

On this side of the world, fashion/style/power were foremost in the minds of the buyers, and the car companied complied, manifesting what was important at the time. And, as they say...the rest was history!

Q
 
Well, you have to consider that after the war Detroit was still using factories and tooling that had been in place for many years,
while the Japanese and others built new factories with new tooling (without Unions) and were able to respond more quicker to trends and changes.
Don't misunderstand, there is a lot of good with American unions - but with the money involved, a lot of corruption occurred.
Again - #2. Greed.
 
hjames said:
Read John Delorean's book - On a Clear Day you can see General Motors.
Its not the final word, of course, but he gave the impression that much of GM management was a clueless monied class who
underestimated the American public and presumed their market were dummies who'd buy anything presented to them,
no matter how bad. My brother was a mechanic at a Chevrolet dealership for a number of years in the 80s and saw some really bad things -
poor designs, porous castings, non-support of their buyers, generally just screwing their market. And many buyers went elsewhere.
And some of us just walked away from ever trusting Detroit again.
Click to expand...
My mom worked at a Toyota dealership for many years.
She told a story (I cannot confirm the veracity of this) that in the 1970s/80s Japanese dealers
who imported cars manufactured in the US would often take the cars apart and reassemble
them as the workmanship was deemed unacceptable to Japanese buyers.
 
As Tyrell said to Roy "Revel in your time"

We'll always have the '57 Chevy and the '72 Trans Am
 
kirk57 said:
Manufacturers blame CAFE standards for whole bunch of stuff when the problem was that they didn’t know how to build fuel efficient vehicles (or didn’t want to)

All related to point #2: greed
Click to expand...

CAFE standards- or, at least the way their implemented- do have some of the blame. It's the old unintended consequences thing.

It's due to the chicanery of the standards for weight/size vs. required fuel economy, that we can't have mini-pickups anymore. Even though they would get better mileage than big pickups, by definition- they don't "fit into the boxes" in the fuel economy "map" under the CAFE guidelines. It's just not economically viable to manufacture them, when the companies can make LOT more money on larger trucks, due to the way the standards are (IMHO rather artificially) constructed.

Regards,
Gordon.
 
Detroit built questionable quality vehicles with bad MPG during the mid 70's gas crisis, and assumed the public would still buy them.

Japan and Europe got a foothold with MPG, and built on that with decent quality.

By the mid 90's the quality was corrected and the MPG followed, albeit slowly.

...but the damage was already done and the market share was lost.
 
hjames said:
Read John Delorean's book - On a Clear Day you can see General Motors.
Its not the final word, of course, but he gave the impression that much of GM management was a clueless monied class who
underestimated the American public and presumed their market were dummies who'd buy anything presented to them,
no matter how bad. My brother was a mechanic at a Chevrolet dealership for a number of years in the 80s and saw some really bad things -
poor designs, porous castings, non-support of their buyers, generally just screwing their market. And many buyers went elsewhere.
And some of us just walked away from ever trusting Detroit again. My daily drivers have been Honda for many years - many trouble free miles.
My wife is still enjoying the 2000 Honda Civic SI I bought new; 25 years old and folks come up to her weekly asking if she wants to sell it!

Yes, there were some exceptional cars from Detroit after the early 60s, but there was a lot of bad designs that burned the poor souls who bought them.

Sheesh - my 1980 retirement sports car has a very fine 1960's designed GM small all aluminium V8 GM sold off to British Leyland, design, parts, castings, all of it.
(A previous owner tweaked it with cam, manifold, headers and 4bbl carb). It's a lot of fun.

View attachment 3554089
Click to expand...
Great book and a good read. I had a 62 Buick Skylark with that engine, four speed, bucket seats, power windows. Good engine, I drove the s--t out of it and it never complained.
 
GordonW said:
CAFE standards- or, at least the way their implemented- do have some of the blame. It's the old unintended consequences thing.

It's due to the chicanery of the standards for weight/size vs. required fuel economy, that we can't have mini-pickups anymore. Even though they would get better mileage than big pickups, by definition- they don't "fit into the boxes" in the fuel economy "map" under the CAFE guidelines. It's just not economically viable to manufacture them, when the companies can make LOT more money on larger trucks, due to the way the standards are (IMHO rather artificially) constructed.

Regards,
Gordon.
Click to expand...

What applied back then still applies in 2025. CAFE continues to wreak havoc on the industry. Small turbo engines in big trucks, cylinder deactivation, auto start/stop, low friction oil rings, lighter pistons and con rods, are used to chase an extra mpg but in fact reduce engine life and cost customers and manufacturers dearly.
 
SoCal Sam said:
What applied back then still applies in 2025. CAFE continues to wreak havoc on the industry. Small turbo engines in big trucks, cylinder deactivation, auto start/stop, low friction oil rings, lighter pistons and con rods, are used to chase an extra mpg but in fact reduce engine life and cost customers and manufacturers dearly.
Click to expand...
GM has a recall on 600,000 trucks/SUV with potential junk engines (they are on a no-sell order right now)- mostly due to the thinner than water 0W-8 oil and the cylinder deactivation lifters that fail. Hyundai/Kia engines have serious issues and recalls (they like to throw rods through the side of the blocks). Everybody who makes a CVT transmission continues to have them crap out early (like they always have- Nissan in particular). Ford has 700,000+ vehicles on recall for fuel pump and or leaky fuel injector issues that can cause fires...
Seems like all new cars today are a crap shoot.

www.cbsnews.com

GM recalls nearly 600,000 trucks and SUVs over risk of engine failure

The recall follows a January investigation by U.S. auto safety regulators into reports of engine failure in certain GM vehicles.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com
 
Fascinating thread with some interesting parallels to what's happening and been happening on this side of the pond.

I well remember several decades ago my works buddy had (and had always had) "British" cars. His local dealership changed to be one of the "new" Japanese ones. Roll on a year and most of the mechanics had been laid off as there was no work for them. The Japanese cars came in for their annual service and weren't seen again until it was annual service time next year. No constant bits falling off, components breaking etc. etc.

Many of the actual designs were brilliant but a combination of clueless managers/owners who didn't focus on the really important stuff, a workforce who, in general couldn't care less - quality control was pretty much non existent - why bother when no-one cares, it's all about the price; and some sort of "belief" that everything would be rosy, forever, led to the death of most marques.

When accountants and not engineers have the final say then you know it's going to break well before it should. Made down to a price, not up to a standard.

Look at what is being produced as "music players" now and compare it's expected lifespan to that which many on here cherish and use on a daily basis (I won't say "HI-Fi" as I believe/hope the what "we" buy as Hi-Fi now shall be alive and well for many decades).

Long live Morgan :)
 
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Yes, British cars where intresting, but they shared some of the problems that the brothers on the other side of the pond had.
"Rover" SD1 was a moder car, but in the early years, built qualty was crap, the old 'P5' beeing more relaible. The British seem to be realted with the Romanians in some terms.
Gas is cheap in U.S.A. But getting 7-9 m.p.g. in the city was ridiculous. 12 m.p.g., let's say it could be acceptable. But they where too high...
 
GM seems to have been making a healthy profit since 2010.

The issues prior to that are explained here in this 2009 article:

fivethirtyeight.com

GM’s Problems are 50 Years in the Making

Let’s take something of a 30,000-foot view on the condition of General Motors. The chart below details GM’s operating margin — its profits divided into its rev…
fivethirtyeight.com fivethirtyeight.com
 
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