| A recent article in the Wall Street Journal decried | | | | All of a sudden Toyotas and Datsuns and |
| the loss of style in products by American car | | | | Volkswagens were flooding the country and |
| companies, principally General Motors. The author | | | | people were buying them as fast as the dealers |
| commented on the trend of outsourcing the | | | | could get them in. We were scared out of our |
| design and manufacture of its small cars and | | | | wits that we wouldn't be able to get enough gas |
| stated: "Detroit's eagerness to attach its famous | | | | for our cars. These foreign cars were gas sippers |
| brand names to cars that were designed | | | | compared to the average American V-8, and we |
| elsewhere may have something to do with its | | | | couldn't buy them fast enough. |
| downfall: Cars get us around, of course, but they | | | | American car companies had been trying to |
| also, in their look and feel, capture a cultural | | | | compete at some level with this foreign import |
| outlook, a spirit, even a national identity." Style | | | | threat for a decade-the Ford Falcon and the |
| corresponds to "cool" and cool cars sell. But GM | | | | Chevrolet Corvair were examples, but US car |
| and Ford, and certainly Chrysler are a little short | | | | companies didn't have the same experience with |
| on cool these days and have been for several | | | | small car designs as did our Japanese and German |
| decades. | | | | competitors who had survived the post-war |
| But it wasn't always that way... | | | | period of shortages and high fuel prices by |
| When I was in high school, somewhere back in | | | | learning how to build good, fuel efficient small cars. |
| the Pleistocene Epoch, American cars were all that | | | | American companies "discovered" the 4 cylinder |
| there were. Oh, a stray Volkswagen, Vauxhall, or | | | | and the V-6 engine and front wheel drive some |
| Fiat found its way onto American streets, but | | | | time in the Seventies, but cars like the Chevy |
| they were rare and largely ignored as oddities. | | | | Nova and the Ford Maverick were disasters, and |
| Foreign-built cars were just not relevant. The | | | | it just got worse. The American love for big, fast |
| American cars that followed World War II were | | | | cars just couldn't be translated into the designs of |
| refreshed versions of the pre-war designs and | | | | small, fuel-efficient automobiles from the same |
| not very exciting. The left over designs from the | | | | companies that they had venerated for years. |
| Thirties and early Forties just didn't cut it in the | | | | Ford and GM didn't have the talent to compete |
| cool department. (I once had a '46 Ford pickup, | | | | with Asia and Europe in the small car department. |
| which was just a '40 Ford pickup with a new grill.) | | | | But it was worse than that. By turning their |
| It took the American car industry a few years to | | | | attention to small cars and eventually trucks, |
| re-tool from tanks and half-tracks to designing | | | | American car companies lost their way. They |
| and building new passenger cars again. | | | | forgot how to put style into regular size coupes |
| But sometime in the mid-Fifties American car | | | | and sedans. Cars became an afterthought, |
| style took off and we got some very cool cars. | | | | especially when the SUV craze allowed |
| The '53 Corvette, an American sports car made | | | | manufacturers to make huge profits on trucks. |
| of the new material, fiberglass, the two seat '55 | | | | But Europe and Japan didn't stop with small cars. |
| Ford Thunderbird, and the '55 Chevy hardtop, | | | | They improved their bigger, more expensive |
| each with V-8 engines, were the first really | | | | versions as well. Mercedes, Lexus, Jaguar, and |
| exciting cars of our youth. And after those came | | | | BMW, not to mention Porsche and Ferrari, |
| a succession of mind-bending designs, a seemingly | | | | became the lust objects of a new generation. |
| never-ending buffet of chrome, horsepower and | | | | These cars were stylish. They were cool. |
| tailfins. We discovered cars and girls at about the | | | | American car companies floundered with small |
| same time-and it was hard to tell which one was | | | | cars, and now their regular offerings, for years |
| our first true love! For a teen-age boy this was | | | | the mainstay of generations of car lovers, were |
| Nirvana. Of course we couldn't afford to buy any | | | | ignored and faded into oblivion in favor of trucks. |
| of them, nor were most of us old enough to | | | | Mercedes, BMW, and Jaguar don't build pickup |
| drive them, but we camped out every | | | | trucks-at least not for sale in this country. Oh |
| September when the new models hit the dealer's | | | | yes, some commercial vehicles, but the car-the |
| show rooms. The walls of our bedrooms were | | | | four door sedan, the coupe big and small, are their |
| covered with car brochures. And later the big | | | | mainstay and have been the luxury leaders for |
| brother of a friend might take us cruising in a '63 | | | | two decades now. Their SUVs, with some |
| GTO, a '62 Chevy SS 409, or a '64 Plymouth | | | | exceptions, are really crossovers based on car |
| Hemi. | | | | chassis with the ride and handling to match. While |
| The mid to late Sixties were a car lover's | | | | American car companies were obsessed with big, |
| paradise already and then we got the pony cars, | | | | high-profit trucks, the Germans and the Japanese |
| the Mustang, the Camaro, and the Barracuda. | | | | snuck in and stole their bacon. Having ignored cars |
| Heavy on horsepower with short, light bodies just | | | | for so long, it's not surprising that the American |
| made for laying rubber up and down Oakland's | | | | car companies have been unable to catch up. |
| East 14th Street between the two Pring's | | | | Cadillac has the closest thing to a foreign sport |
| drive-ins, one at each end of the best cruising | | | | sedan, but it may be too late. Not too late for the |
| street in northern California! | | | | engineering to catch up. Too late to recapture the |
| By the way, gas, even super-premium, was about | | | | cool, the desire, and the public taste for American |
| 36 cents a gallon and this being America and not | | | | iron. GM and Ford lost their sense of style. The |
| post-war Europe, we had all we could burn. Gas | | | | American public has changed and the American |
| wars between rival stations would bring the price | | | | car companies have been left behind. Ford owned |
| even lower (I remember 19.9 cents/gal!) and we | | | | Jaguar. It should have absorbed Jaguar's style into |
| filled up and kept the pedal to the metal, as was | | | | its main line of cars. But when trucks stopped |
| the idiom of the day. A few foreign cars started | | | | selling, they sold Jaguar rather than use its unique |
| showing up in the Fifties and Sixties-the Toyopet | | | | blend of style and performance to recreate an |
| from Japan, MGs from England, and the VW Bug | | | | American passion for its cars. |
| became a bit more noticeable. The bug eventually | | | | GM is a mere shadow of its former self. It has |
| became a cult car and a hippie symbol, so it was | | | | two cars with any degree of cool-the Chevrolet |
| ok, but other than that, American cars were the | | | | Corvette and the Cadillac CTS. Everything else is |
| Kings of Cool. Nash Ramblers were preferable to | | | | a wasteland from the perspective of the |
| anything Japanese, but maybe that was because | | | | American car-buying public. I look out on our |
| the seats folded all the way back into a double | | | | parking lot and can count the American-built cars |
| bed. My friend Kenny owned one and we paid him | | | | there on one hand. The shame of it is that |
| two six packs and a full tank of gas to let us | | | | domestic cars aren't bad, but they are definitely |
| take it on dates. | | | | not cool. They had it once, and they lost their |
| But we came of age with a jolt. First there was | | | | way. There are glimmers of hope, but this |
| the Viet Nam War, and then in 1973, the Arab Oil | | | | economy has wreaked havoc with whatever |
| Embargo. These events were like the lights | | | | remaining fortunes GM had, and there is precious |
| coming on in a theater at the end of a fabulous | | | | little left to use for re-design and re-creation. And |
| movie and all you could see were empty popcorn | | | | their competitors in Europe keep coming back |
| boxes, candy wrappers and a blank screen. The | | | | with better designs, new versions of cool, fanning |
| oil boycott was on and the car party was | | | | desire that was once fanned by the likes of the |
| over--big time. Gas prices shot up over 50% in | | | | '55 Chevy and the Mustang. |
| just a few months between mid-1973 and early | | | | As the song said: "Little GTO, you're really lookin' |
| 1974. But scarcity ruled the day, and at one point | | | | fine. Three deuces and a four speed, and a three |
| there was very little gas to buy at all. The crisis | | | | eighty nine..." |
| ended a year after it began, but the effects of | | | | They really did look fine--once upon a time. |
| scarcity, artificial or otherwise, and the resulting | | | | 1. Felton, Eric: "Intelligent Design: To Save Itself, |
| high prices are still being felt today and it was the | | | | GM Needs Style" Wall Street Journal, July 17, |
| beginning of the end for the American car culture. | | | | 2009, page W11. |