From the ArcaMax Publishing, Politics Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/politics/s-559719-297126
WASHINGTON -- When I was a kid growing up in the pre-Pearl Harbor
days, the word that often described the average American family car
was "transportation." It meant that the automobile was primarily a way
of getting from point A to point B, with few bells and whistles.
After World War II that all changed, as the auto industry cultivated a
huge public romance with the look, size and speed of the means of
making that same basic journey. The kind of family car you drove
became a prime status symbol, with enhanced appearance and design as
well as performance.
Big-and-flashy crowded out simple-and-dependable as the all-powerful
American car business installed itself as the chief generator of the
nation's economy. When GM CEO "Engine Charlie" Wilson as President
Dwight Eisenhower's nominee for secretary of defense famously
proclaimed that what was "good for the country" was "good for
But with the invasion of innovative foreign competitors and the
American concept of big-is-better eroding the home industry's
commanding position, Engine Charlie's axiom eventually withered away.
Exploitative foreign oil prices hastened the erosion as Detroit
gas-guzzlers like the SUV continued to roll off the assembly lines,
seemingly oblivious to the dire consequences ahead.
The once-unthinkable outcome of
Well, maybe it's time to go back to those pre-Pearl Harbor days when
American cars were looked upon primarily as "transportation." A sign
of dim recognition of this need has been seen in the forced decision
of GM rival Chrysler Motors to hook up with Fiat of Italy, presumably
to turn out more small and energy-efficient cars.
Both GM and
If the home market for domestic-built cars is to bounce back, it may
take more than higher fuel efficiency and smooth road handling to get
Americans to start buying GM and
It's a dilemma for the "new" managers of the essentially nationalized
domestic auto industry, many of whom apparently come from the
management corps that was steering the business down a road to nowhere
all these years.
No matter what a stumbling industry is, sometimes it takes a radically
fresh mind to get the creaking Tin Lizzie out of the ditch. After
World War II, to give just one example, a little-known entrepreneur
named George Romney in Michigan took the skeleton of a failing Nash
brand and turned it into American Motors as an upstart against the Big
Three.
He introduced the concept of the compact car with the downsized
Rambler that quickly caught on with low- and middle-income buyers. It
was derided by competitors as just "transportation," but it met the
existing market hunger.
Romney personally capitalized on the compact-car success by running
for governor of Michigan in 1962, was reelected in 1966 and became the
frontrunner for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination, until his
own candidacy ran out of gas and he lost out to Richard Nixon. The
Rambler, like Romney's political fortunes, also was eventually run off
the road by the American car owner's romance with size and glitz,
provided by the Big Three.
Maybe the U.S. car market needs another Rambler, and another George
Romney -- the auto innovator, not the politician.
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Jules Witcover's latest book, on the Nixon-Agnew relationship,
"Very Strange Bedfellows," has just been published by Public Affairs
Press. You can respond to this column at juleswitcover@earthlink.net.