My favorite of the period was the juxtaposition of American Cars sucking ass, Japanese cars gaining market share, American Manufacturers screaming for Protectionism, and then at the same time claiming that their (bloated yes men) Marketing Departments were telling them that Americans wanted to buy the vehicles that they produced.
They got it right by '84 but nobody cared.
My family happened to get a '75 Nova that’s an outlier. It’s got 175,000 on it and still going strong. The only really major work that’s been done on it was rebuilding the transmission. Yes, it’s rusty, and it rattles like a bucket of bolts, but when pulling away from a stop light, it out-accelerates at least a third of all modern cars.
Lots of rose colored glasses toward non Detroit iron from the 70s and 80s.
Let me put this to you simply. In the 1970s all cars sucked. The only difference between Detroit and the imports? The amount of suckage.
Want some examples?
When was the last time you saw a Datsun B110, B210, F10, 510, 610, 710 or 810 on the road? Why don’t you see them? They rusted out.
Toyota? When was the last Corona, or Carina (plus probably a bunch more I don’t remember the names of) you saw?Same fate.
Honda? When did you see a Civic with a CVCC badge on the back?
In the 1970s as a group the Europeans could not paint a car to save their soul and have the pain last. The clear coat died a quick and painful death.
Interior? Ever see a 1970s Datsun that had been parked in the sun for a week or two? You could not see through the windows due to all the chemicals off gassing from the upholstery fogging the windows. After a year or two the dashes and seat vinyl split and died. Toyota and Honda were not quite as bad, but nothing to brag about.
Engines? In the late 1970 early 1980 Honda had such a head gasket problem, that I knew a service manager that hired two helpers and taught them just how to disassemble Honda engines so his trained techs could spend all their time doing the reassembly.
Toyotas wore out timing chains which required removal of the cylinder head to change.
Don’t get me started on Volkswagen.
Don’t get me wrong, Detroit sucked, but speaking as a guy that worked fixing cars back then so did everything else. The only difference was how badly they sucked.
Excuse me, not all 70’s era cars sucked. I had a 72 Hillman Hunter that was 20 years old and it was perfectly adequate. Took me for many thousands of miles without a breakdown. Sure, it had a rust problem, but what car then didn’t.
Landrover made vehicles that lasted too.
(Guy looking at dash of old Landrover)
All those switches! At night how do you tell them apart?
(LR owner) Doesn’t matter none of them work.
Ford actully create
Ford actually created a division called the Premier Automotive Group (PAG) in 1999 to focus operating thei high-end marques they acquired. By 2004, Ford had invested over $17 billion in PAG. They began selling dismantling it 2006 and sold Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo for barely $5 billion.
Ford owned a major stake in Mazda starting in 1979. By 1996, Ford owned a 33.4% stake which gave Ford controlling interest in Mazda. They remained the largest shareholder with controlling interest until 2008 when the stared selling off large amounts of stock. Ultimately, the stake in Mazda was worth just over $1billion.
Ford (IMO) should never have bought those marques in the first place. They were a sink for money and resources that led to neglect of the “Blue Oval” side of the business, and only got one notable Lincoln out of the deal (the LS, which shared quite a bit with the Jag S-Type.) But there were a lot of things done at the behest of Jac the Knife which Ford is still trying to recover from.
Sadly, this alliance was actually quite beneficial for both Ford and Mazda. But ultimately, I don’t think Ford had any choice but to divest. There’s no real reason to rely on a foreign partner for small engine designs and smaller car platforms when you have European operations who can do the same thing. the biggest sea change in Ford is no longer treating Ford North America and Ford of Europe like completely separate companies.
It really depended on the model of the car.
My family got lucky, I think.
My father bought a used 1984 Pontiac Bonneville with about 75k on it, and drove it another 150k- he had the water pump replaced at some point, and had the transmission worked on, but overall, it was pretty reliable.
My grandparents bought a 1982 Dodge Diplomat with the famous Chrysler Slant Six; that car stayed in the family until about 2002 or so, when my brother finally sold it after college when he could afford a new car. I think it had 150k or 200k at that point. No major mechanical work at all, just body work when my brother got in a small wreck.
All that being said, I still marvel that my 2005 Dodge Dakota has NO rust anywhere, and hasn’t (knock on wood) had anything actually fail yet at 72k, except for the belt tensioner pulley bearing, which just meant that it made a horrible squealing sound. I replaced that, and it’s been quiet and smooth sailing ever since.
I keep thinking that it ought to be more decrepit than it actually is- even the interior is in great shape, even if it’s kind of grungy.
Ford is an interesting story. They bought Jag back in the late 80’s IIRC. I recall reading in the early 1990’s that at the time Ford was pouring 2-4 million a week into keeping Jag afloat.
Fast forward to when Jac Nassar took over. He wanted to run the biggest car company so he started buying other car companies. Like Volvo, LR, and Aston Martin.
Ford then decided to create the Premier Automotive Group head quartered in Irvine Ca.
About this time is when the problems with the Firestone tires and the Explorer surfaced. This put the money hurt on the entire company PAG included.
At the time Volvo was making money. Lots of it. I think it was 2003 Volvo had a profit of 800 million. That same year Jag lost 1.6 Billion. I love Jags but at the time I said that the smartest thing Ford could do would be to put a bullet in Jag’s head.
Anyway Ford cut and cut and cut. This is one of the reasons Volvo is in such a world of hurt now, during the years leading up to the sale there was no money for advertising or new model development.
Ford’s cost cutting moves put them ahead of the game when the rest of the US auto industry imploded and needed help from the government, Ford didn’t need loans as they were already on the road to recovery at that point.
BTW Ford lost money on the Volvo sale.
Rick, Ford got $23bn in loans in 2006. Just not from the government. However they did have to essentially put the entire company up as collateral to get it. Don LeClair made that financing happen, and timing was everything. had they waited too much longer- as the credit markets started slamming shut- that financing wouldn’t have been available and Ford would have been up the same creek as the other two.
as for the cost-cutting, yes it helped ride out the misery but the other edge of that sword is that you’ve had a massive brain-drain and now you’re faced with trying to grow rapidly while simultaneously staffing up to handle the workload.
Awesome! I salute you jz. The only automotive component with that kind of complexity is an automatic transmission. Except that an AT is child’s play compared to the CVCC emissions setup.
And kudos to the rest of your post.
I never said they did not get loans, they did, but without the cuts and restructuring they did prior to the car business going to shit they would not have survived.