I was really trying to stay out of this... Profits go to the shareholders. You can buy shares in these companies. These companies are owned by whoever holds the stock. There is no such thing as an American car and a foreign car. Where are Toyota's made? How is Chrysler an American company? How is a Ford or Chevy that's made in Mexico or Canada somehow still more American than a Honda or Toyota built in the United States? How does "the profit go overseas". Explain that to me. If the CEO of a company and his cronies are based in the USA and the cars are built in Mexico, why would you support them over a company who has a CEO in Asia and cars manufactured in the States? Who is benefiting from your loyalty? And how does ANY of this apply to building early-style hot rods? It doesn't. What a joke.
Haha.....I can explain it....a large percentage of people in this country are ignorant as to how the corporate landscape really functions. I don't watch Nascar at all, but yesterday we had the race on in the shop while we were working. I could not believe the backlash against the Toyota participation - they had interviews with fans stating "this is an AMERICAN sport, with AMERICAN cars...we don't need foreign cars in OUR sport" I felt embarr***ed that some people outside of my country would see this type of ingnorace on television, and think that all Americans are that ignorant. It is a small world people, and getting smaller every day in this age of m*** information and transportation. White christians are a small, small percentage of the p***engers on this planet - and they need to start acting like it.
That's funny. Look at the models they race in Nascar. The Toyota is the only one made in the United States. The Charger, Ford (whatever they race, 500 maybe?) and the Monte Carlo are all built either in Mexico or Canada. The Toyota (not sure what model that is, Corolla?) is made in the US, I think Tennesee.
I'm not sure if it would be good or bad..... They should definetly remain an American company if they get bought back over here. Anyway, I agree with the "build something we'll all like" theory..... I've said for years they should just take a '57 Chevy, make it 7/8 scale and sell it to us. Think about it.... the cl***ic guys won't get their values knocked, and we'll see cool cars again! Hell, make it 15/16 scale if thats better! Hell again, make a 55 chevy, then next year a 56, then the 57..... I'd buy a new tri-five with the 4.3 Vortec and fuel injection!
I purchased a Model A video made from the 30,s. showing the actual production of the A,s. however this was a film taken in a Ford plant in Japan! The parts were shipped in wooden crates and the car was mostly just ***embled there, by japanes labor, but Ford allowed very few Japanese parts in the car. for years cheap ford model T,s and A,s flooded into japan the japanese auto market! Then in 1935 japan kicked ford out, and the rest is history!
I agree. The last time I looked at a GM car was the last year for the SS Camaro. The sticker was $32,000. That's unjustifiable for a car I could use 5-6 months a year. I drive Ford trucks, nothing less. Two months ago after hearing how bad off Ford was I went to my local dealer. I thought I'd turn in my two year old F150 with 27,000 miles on it and get a new one. They said they'd give me $17,000 for a like new 2004 that had a $36,000 sticker. My new F150 would only cost me $707 a month!!!! That's almost $300 more per month than I pay now and $50 more than my house payment!!! Who can afford that? I'm a single guy with no kids and a really good job and I can't swing a $700 monthly payment on a rapidly depreciating item. The salesman tried to calm me by saying I could lease the new truck or a meer $567 a month. What a deal, I left in the same truck I showed up in.
When I sit in my '57, the first thing I notice is how small it is. I tend to think of it as a big car, but they're really not that big. I don't see how scaling it down would be a good idea. I've often wondered if a "new" car was a carbon-copy of an old car, if it would sell or not. I doubt a '57 could conform to modern safety standards without totally ruining the design. Interesting thought, though.
so, ive NEVER bought an asian car, but i just traveled throughout japan, china, etc. and from what i can see.... - i still have belief that americans invent things better than anybody else. that cowboy way that's in our blood..... yee haw. - i think the japanese have long overtaken our ability to refine an invention and perfect manufacturing protocol and technique. americans tend to quickly lose interest in the repeated funcion. japanese are obsessive. - i think american manufacturing is losing to multiple asian countries. while americans worry about what they can consume next at home and whine along with their unions, the asian workers have simpler needs and continue to chomp away at everything our country used rule in. it was our ability to out invent / manufacturer everybody that sealed our WWII victory. do we still have that same edge? america no longer regarded as the best via chevy and ford. you see many more starbucks and american consumer food chains around the world nowadays than you see **real** things we built. just my observations... -scott noteboom
Someone needs to buy Chrysler that can build a vehicle. My new Charger company car has been in the shop for three weeks waiting for parts for the transmission...and it has a whopping 2000 miles on it. POS as far as I'm concerned. I would have chosen the Impala or the Grand Prix but they look like **** compared to the Charger. But I can say the Charger isnt too appealing while its up on the rack with the transmission in a jack. My rental is a Toyota Avalon. Sorry to say I hope they keep the Charger on the rack a few more weeks. After years of having "American" company cars the Avalon is the nicest thing I have driven in a while...Nicest new thing anyway...Probably more American content than the Charger, too. Who knows.
GM and Honda getting together would make more sense. GM still can't get the quality street cred they deserve so Honda would help on that front and HOnda can't figure out how to make a truck, so GM could handle that. The new Toyota Tundra pickup has a 5.7, 350Cubic inches or at least close to it, gets **** gas mileage, but runs hard just like the Nissan ***an. Honda has the ridgeline, nuff said. Also GM needs some help with the whole Hybrid craze. The best MPG is from a Daewoo and it is only around 36-38 MPG. Sad when the Toyota and Nissan are making cars running on dead dinosaurs to the tune of 40+ MPG.
Seems that the ..."Good Ole American Way" just isn't cuttin' it anymore.................Time for the big 3 to wake up........Might be a bit too late.
I don't think any of the cars built out of plastic and beer cans will be around to rod when they are 70 years old.
We have three toyotas in the family with over 600,000 miles between them with no issues other than a wheel bearing making noise at 180,000 miles(and was replaced). I also have a F250 that grenaded a transmission at 65,000 miles and now has intermittant driveability issues at 106,000 miles. Yeah, I'm ignorant ..............for buying the Ford.
We are becoming a nation of consumer's. The hurt is being put to the Big Three, period. Skilled labor? The dumbing down of America has happened. It's in the media everyday. Wake up America. Sold out, by the money master's. Depressing isn't it? The power's that be will not stem the tide of 'fair trade'. Watch Lou Dobb's. He really care's about Middle America. ****, Bill O'Reilly, **** Rush Lumbaugh, and **** Sean Hannity with jack hammer.
A few misconceptions: The British motorcycle industry did NOT die completely, John Bloor owns Triumph lock, stock and barrel, making it VERY British, and the ONLY privately-owned major vehicle manufacturer in the world. And the bikes are very, very good. Packard bought Studebaker, THEN looked at the books. That's when they **** their pants, 'cause they knew they'd been had but good. Studebaker-Packard were Mercedes' sales arm in this country for a few years, over and done with by '63. GM and the Chinese are NOT the only possibilities for purchase of ChryCo, there are other manufacturers who could certainly make use of the manufacturing and sales networks in this country (PSA Group, anyone??) Unless I forgot someone, Navistar and Volvo are the only US large truck manufacturers left, all else seems to be owned by DaimlerChrysler. It's all fine a good to rant "Buy American". It worked very well for the British, didn't it... Face it, the average consumer doesn;t really give a rat's **** about where something is made (hence Wal~Mart's large income on Chinese goods), they want either cheap or good, or both. Which is why the sales charts are tilted in just the way that they are; the other companies build better product. If Toyota were really as bad as FatHack wants us to believe, someone other than him would have figured it out before now. Mercedes is still trading off the reputation of the W114/W115 and W123 cars' reputation. Sadly, nothing since then has been even close in reliability or build quality. But they do do a very good job supporting the older cars, unlike certain, um, 'local' automakers. As to older cars on the road. I don't see any older than mine (1984 300CD Merc) at all. And all I do is drive. The main problem with the US domestic producers seems to stem from just after WWII. Every other major manufacturer of motor vehicles had been bombed into the stone age; every other economy reduced to an "export, or die" existence. In this postwar age, GM, Ford and ChryCo could, and did, sell whatever they could produce, regardless of style or quality. This went on for some years, after which the 'Big Three' price-warred the independents into insolvency. Again sales were huge. The foreign cars, at that time, were being produced as fast as possible, with the same lack of quality, and suffered the more for it, as they hadn't the cache of the chromed style kings of Detroit. Yet W. Edwards Deming was attempting to interest Detroit in building better quality, to better provide for a future (which is upon us), There was no one to listen. Then he went to Japan. They listened. They started building better quality. Now we claim that they are unfair. My bottom line is that it is now, and has been for some time, a global economy. If you can't cut the mustard, you're done. If GM, ChryCo or Ford bite it, they'll have only themselves to blame. And that blame goes far back in time. Cosmo
"So give the American companies a few years to catch up and get their heads out of their ***es and then things should be interesting and sales will come back..." Uhh...I think I first heard that in the 70's, as I was sitting in a late Pontiac watching chrome tape peel off of the interior panels* on doors hanging loosely in their latches, and feeling the draft as speeds over 50 peeled the door windows right off of their gaskets abd the Turbo 200 died for the third time and...hey, didn't someone on here just say the same things about a 2006 Chevy rentacar??? *footnote...after the wretched heap went to an early grave and was melted down into Yugos, I found the GM service bulletin covering this problem on thet car...dealers were instructed to avoid replacing defective tape on defective panels by adding a layer of clear tape to affix the disintegrating silver tape to the rotting mulch of the fuzzy bordello look panels, thus insuring customer loyalty...
Ive got a 2002 Dodge Ram 3.7 lit. 1500 pickup I bought brand new, I only change the oil and filter every 5000 miles, and change the plugs, wires, etc every 36,000 miles. Ive gone through 3 sets of tires, and one set of brakes (front rotors only). She's got 157,000 miles. I drive her throughout the whole northeast for work and have had zero problems ---- really, So , to answer someone above, I think Mopar makes a fine automobile. However, in reading this whole thing, my concern is the amount of s**** steel we ship over seas. Working on the east coast in-directlly with the s**** business, I see all sorts of s**** steel including bumpers, doors (an old grille that - I saved on the wall of my garage), etc sent out of the port of Everett, MA (prolerized). People from all around are digging out old cars in the backyard, tearing down signs made of aluminum on the side of the road, and STEALING cat. converters out of cars in parking lots (with battery powered Saws-alls) to bring to the local s**** guy so he can sell it for the money the Chinesse are paying. Last year I had my home heater replaced and the guy that sold it top me said hes seen all sorts of copper pipe cut out of apts by thieves to sell to the s**** guy. My take on it is America is selling it's soul.....I hate to say it, and even hate writting it down here on the hamb more.....and I think that's gonna be a problem for us in the distant future however, a mutual friend of mine did save a 57 ford ranch wagon from going overseas!--- he bought it off a junk guy that was towing it down to NY for 300! These "junkers" are only worried about what they get paid per pound or by the ton..... and....that car is gonna be *****ing!
Fat Hack is 100% Wrong we are not brainwashed and I just mentioned a FEW quality issues with American car companies over the years I am not a GM or a Dodge guy and I can name quite a few problems with lots of vehicles I ****ing love ford as stated and can NAME a ****load of problems over the years. I have worked as a mechanic for a few years now and guess what we get most of to fix, American cars and by the **** loads of issues they should not be having the newest import I have ever worked on it a 1998 Toyota Corolla and it was an exhaust manifold gasket at 180k. I have also done head gaskets a number of times on Fords/GM/Chrysler products made after 2000 now this might be due to owner neglect so either way American Companies build **** cars or the people who buy them are retarded. So we have not been brain washed it is just the truth of the matter if someone builds better products people buy it plain and simple. As whoever said the thing about imports in the 70's come on man seriously they were just getting into the market and as far as seeing rust on them you live where it ****ing snows dude everything will rust I try not to go east of the Pacific time zone because i cry when i see good cars rusted out but I do see new cars from various manufactures rusted out to all hell after 10 years so dont say its any companies fault no one should be living in such conditions anyways. And yes before anyone points out I live in a desert no one should be living here either.
That makes me smile since I have a '73 220D. It's an early one before the mandated huge ugly crash bumpers and plastic mirrors. 35mpg in a full size car made 34 years ago. But even they had body rust problems, I welded quite a bit of steel into the floors on mine to make it roadable again. Everyone has heard about the taxi in Europe with 2.9 million miles on it. Damn impressive.
Now, lets cut to the chase. I'm as die hard an American as you will ever meet so keep that in mind. What Fat Hack fails to mention is the FACT that the cars in the junk yard that are foreign made have 2-3 times the mileage on them as their American counterparts have, exception being those who have been involved it serious accidents. Take a look the next time you strool around at the dismantlers. Lets remember what turned the tide to the foreign cars in the first place. It was the first gas crunch and americans were taken in by anything that could get better mileage than their current ride. Who was supplying the "demand", foreign (Japanese mostly) manufacturers. When we started driving these more economical little beasts we started noticing that the fit and finish was better and the paint was better quality than their american counterparts. Things like Comsumers Report started comparing the offerings and found that indeed, the foreign manufacturers were making a better quality (value)product. These points "sealed the deal" for a lot of buyers and when it came time to replace the car the first place they went was back to the foreign dealership. If this were not tue then how come EVERY domestic auto manufacturer started touting the steps they were taking to improve quality, (QUALITY.....JOB #1.......... WTF, what was job #1 before, seeing how much hard earned money they could pry out of the consumers for the least amount of value)? NOW, I agree, that the quality of american cars NOW are roughly the equivalent of the foreign offerings, but in the meantime the foreign manufacturers have gained such a foot hold that it's near impossible for the tide to turn back. Again, the american people need to take a look in the mirror. The face looking back at you is responsible for 95+% of what's wrong, just like in our personal lives. Pointing fingers and trying to shift the blame is REALLY lame. We've had it too good for too long and we've gotten lazy. Something about a janitor that owns a fairly new home, a new car, a 2 year old PU, a boat, a couple of snowmobiles and a cabin up north says something about how far things have gotten out of sync in this country. I know two examples of just what I describe in case you think I'm pulling this out of thin air. In fact one of them also has a couple of hot rods. Like he says, it takes skill to run a broom and dust pan at the same time, hide from the boss 4-5 hours a day and manage to get in a couple of hours sleep at work so I can go bowling and to the bar before bedtime. Vacant soap box here............ Next!!! Frank
I love this. We need to solve the general sense of en***lement in this country. A person is not worth $20 and hour to operate a dump truck folks.
Unless you work for GM or Chrysler, you do not have anyhting to worry about. I listen to this **** for 8 hours a day, lets get back to hot rods.
Well My Plastic 1995 Pontiac Firebird formula has 195,000 Hard miles on it and still runs well. The interior is in good shape, even the seats look fairly new. My 1995 GMC Pickup had 154,000 on it when I sold it and it was going strong too. Every Ford I have ever owned, save this Mitsubishi designed trucklet that I now drive, has had major Transmission problems. I had a Honda Prelude once but the rats nest of hoses on the carb (1988 had to be the last of the carbs) was a ***** to track down idle problems and when the thing did break it was mighty pricy to fix. The Oldsmobile I have has the ****tacular LQ1 Twin Duel Cam V-6, and that is the biggest maintenance nightmare I have ever driven. Probably why it only has 92,000 miles. But I never understood why overhead cams are always Belt driven. This expensive or time consuming, in my case,maintenance requirement is a negative to most people. I know people who have major sludging problems with Toyota, and Dodge did terrible job on it's OD auto ******. The oiling ports were too small and starved teh diaphragm. Bsically it's not the brand it's the design. and Here is the difference between Toyota and the rest. To avoid a bad rep they are very customer friendly and accept when they have a faulty design. Many of those sludged Toyota engines were replaced free of charge even after the warranty was up. Most companies will fight that even when the warranty is in effect.
Ghost - almost all my OHC motors have been chain driven; from my Opels back in the day to my current DOHC V8. As far as this thread still bein alive... Heard on the news locally yesterday that Nissan/Renault is not interested, Hyundai is not interested, and the only reason GM is interested is to keep the Chinese from opening their three trillion US dollar war chest and inking a cash deal to Mercedes. Unless GM pulls it off, we're most likely gonna see an announcement B4 the UAW negotiations that a Chinese consortium of manufacturers has bought Chrysler. If you want to see exactly how the deal could go down, do a web search on Nanjing Auto (NAC) and MG. It's all there in black and white.
Search: 'Federal Reserve Scam' and see who really controll's this nation. Control has not been 'in the hand's of the people' for some time. We have been sold out for a very long time. Some know and some do not want to know the truth. Look at our so called 'leader's'......................
What has been reported but not confirmed is that GM will be building a version of the Tahoe for Chrysler to sell in the US. Chrysler has already reached an agreement with Chery, the Chinese automaker, to build subcompact cars for Chrysler to be sold in the US.
If I may be so bold....let's let your, probably disgustingly liberal college educated 3-4million dollar a year, corporate big shot drive that dump truck on the same roads as your wife and kids, and we can put the truck driver wwaaayyy up in that snazzy office and he can delegate. Now who's gonna do something REALLY catastrphic first? Or maybe he'd like to pick up your trash?Yeah, there'd be a big line for that job at minimum wage. I can't stand it when people rip on the lowly common man for making a decent living, compared to high end corp. salaries (never mind the perks and bonuses) these guys actually are getting hosed. Oh, uhh, primer, rust,nailhead(on-topic content!)
but we all run down to harbor frieght to get a deals on tools from china, a lot of guys are in a gl*** house on this topic
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