Yesterday we saw the death of an industry giant..a giant so large that the American auto industry itself may never recover.  A sigh of relief on Wall Street, where the General’s seat (along with CitiGroup) was removed.  I’m sure there’s a lot of dust in the air from the many former company leaders (and proud autoworkers, for that matter) rolling in their graves as this fascist spectacle unfolds.

I have always loved cars.  I remember being in grade school, wondering what I could be when I grew up…liked music, but couldn’t play well.  Enjoyed sports, but never excelled in any of them.  There was one thing that dominated my interest…drawing cars; figuring out how they worked; learning how to identify ALL the new models on sight.  At the age of 9, my parents bought me one of those working “visible V8” models that, when completed, moved just like an actual automobile engine.  From that point on, I was hooked !!  I couldn’t wait for the day that I could take apart and put back together an actual car engine…something I’ve done many times since, right up to building the motor for my latest project that will,sometime soon, include a supercharger.

Having had such a deep interest in that industry, I have followed the many developments that have brought us to where we are today.  I find it fascinating that EVERYONE blames the industry itself, with the least informed among us chortling about how they couldn’t build what America wanted.  On the contrary, they have always built EXACTLY what the consumer wanted…usually larger cars and trucks, occasionally adding some smaller, fuel efficient models when the price or supply of gas was threatened.  And they learned that, after the “fuel crisis” of the mid-seventies, they needed to produce quality cars if they were going to compete with the new imports.  They didn’t always build a great car, but they always had at least something to offer everyone.

That was the decade when government decided to get involved…which we can now see as the “beginning of the end” of our American auto industry.  Because that is when government started to mandate exactly what cars should have as equipment.  Seat belts, smog devices, other “enhancements” in the name of safety as required by the NHTSA; these are all things that the leaders of the auto industry began capitulating to in an effort to get along with government regulation.  Now, I’m NOT saying these items were bad; they did (and they continue to) save lives.  But each time something was added, the cars usually gained weight.  And it’s a simple rule of car physics that more weight means a safer car, less weight makes a fuel efficient car.  A safe, fuel efficient car is strictly a matter of degree, and when you mix the field of vehicles out on the open road, you’re going to want to be in the bigger, heavier car when they collide.

I guess my biggest complaint is the never-ending whining of the EPA, CARB and the AQMD…these agencies have, through the decades, forced the industry to comply with ever-changing rules and regulations regarding emissions.  While I agree they have done some fine work in reducing smog levels in general, they take this issue far too seriously.  With each successive year after about 1978, they hammered the automakers with more and more stringent rules.  Now, in conjunction with CAFE standards, government intends to take the “car” out of cars…making them into appliances that have a “small carbon footprint”.  Our role in the so-called global warming is still smaller than that of volcanoes and cows, yet the “leaders” of today (following advice from socialists and third-world dictators) have us trying to build the impossible.  

Simply put (sorry to drag you through all this), the American auto industry was the best in the World when it was able to build cars without government interference.  It began to falter when it gave up the ability to innovate on its own.  Once government got involved, the builders in Europe and the Far East began to make huge strides in their own auto industries, because in those countries it was common to have subsidies and cheaper labor.

It IS safe to say management could have handled all this better…they could have been more aware of how benefits for workers might someday strangle financial resources…they could have stood up against some of the things mandated by government that eventually cost more to produce (here) and therefore cost us market share…they could have pointed out how different they were, and how much better they were when government did not intervene.  But no, they had to “go along to get along”, and now they (and we) are paying the price for cowardice.

I, for one, will NEVER, EVER purchase another GM vehicle.