Were American cars ever any good?
November 1, 2020 7:22 AM Subscribe
The standard narrative is that American cars declined in quality in the 1970s, leading to the rise of imports. But is this true? Is it possible that the quality of American cars stayed the same, while the imports were just better?
This came out of a conversation I had with my dad, where I brought up the idea that American cars were higher quality before the 70s. He responded sarcastically, "Yeah, they were such good quality, you had to buy a new one every two years!" This set me to wondering, were they ever all that good in the first place?
Sure, there are no shortage of obvious flops (the Chevy Vega, the unfairly maligned Ford Pinto), underpowered victims of the oil shocks (the Mustang II, the Corvette from the bad year), and the just plain ugly (the Gremlin/Pacer), but this could just be cherry picking.
Is there any evidence that the average new American car was less reliable after 1970? Or is it possible that Japanese and German automakers were just really innovative, and produced cars that were higher quality than what consumers were accustomed to?
This came out of a conversation I had with my dad, where I brought up the idea that American cars were higher quality before the 70s. He responded sarcastically, "Yeah, they were such good quality, you had to buy a new one every two years!" This set me to wondering, were they ever all that good in the first place?
Sure, there are no shortage of obvious flops (the Chevy Vega, the unfairly maligned Ford Pinto), underpowered victims of the oil shocks (the Mustang II, the Corvette from the bad year), and the just plain ugly (the Gremlin/Pacer), but this could just be cherry picking.
Is there any evidence that the average new American car was less reliable after 1970? Or is it possible that Japanese and German automakers were just really innovative, and produced cars that were higher quality than what consumers were accustomed to?
is it possible that Japanese and German automakers were just really innovative, and produced cars that were higher quality than what consumers were accustomed to?
Yes, this was the evolution and enlightenment occurring in the American car buyers' minds from the 1960s (with VW) and into the 1970s (when Honda started augmenting their motorcycle imports with cars). These imports were cheaper, easier to maintain, the dealers were more pleasant, and the styling was appealing (once you'd become eco-conscious and realized bigger was NOT better). Unlike their American counterparts, the import companies weren't embracing Planned Obsolescence (yet).
posted by Rash at 8:26 AM on November 1, 2020
Yes, this was the evolution and enlightenment occurring in the American car buyers' minds from the 1960s (with VW) and into the 1970s (when Honda started augmenting their motorcycle imports with cars). These imports were cheaper, easier to maintain, the dealers were more pleasant, and the styling was appealing (once you'd become eco-conscious and realized bigger was NOT better). Unlike their American counterparts, the import companies weren't embracing Planned Obsolescence (yet).
posted by Rash at 8:26 AM on November 1, 2020
I think the reality is closer to the middle ground between your "standard narrative" and "were they ever good in the first place." Certain engines, certain models, and certain layouts all had different survival rates than others; some were good, and some were bad. Even after the 70's, there were good years and good makes of American manufactured vehicles.
Like mskyle suggests, there was a period of time where foreign producers were doing a better job overall than American producers, that has largely been erased with more globalism and developing nations shouldering the bulk of production (which isn't to say that is a bad thing necessarily, but it homogenizes the workforce thats producing the vehicles). Mexico for example, is assembling a LOT of the cars you'd find at the entry level for the American market, regardless of the parent company's nation.
This is also heavily colored by like, what part of the world you're in. I don't know why, but American trucks in Australia have an insane reputation borderline on fetishization; even GMC trucks from like the 80's are revered by a non-scientific subset of Aussie's I've known. Those trucks by American standards were kinda shit at the time, yet they retain their reputation for quality abroad. I'd say the opposite is true for like, Mercedes cars; there are a few unkillable machines out there that were produced in the 60's and 70's, but in the 80's and 90's quality was no better (and sometimes worse) than other cars in their price point/perceived quality bracket.
So, were American cars any good? In context, yeah, some of them were. Reputations, however, don't always line up with realities and often lag behind facts-on-the-ground.
posted by furnace.heart at 8:26 AM on November 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
Like mskyle suggests, there was a period of time where foreign producers were doing a better job overall than American producers, that has largely been erased with more globalism and developing nations shouldering the bulk of production (which isn't to say that is a bad thing necessarily, but it homogenizes the workforce thats producing the vehicles). Mexico for example, is assembling a LOT of the cars you'd find at the entry level for the American market, regardless of the parent company's nation.
This is also heavily colored by like, what part of the world you're in. I don't know why, but American trucks in Australia have an insane reputation borderline on fetishization; even GMC trucks from like the 80's are revered by a non-scientific subset of Aussie's I've known. Those trucks by American standards were kinda shit at the time, yet they retain their reputation for quality abroad. I'd say the opposite is true for like, Mercedes cars; there are a few unkillable machines out there that were produced in the 60's and 70's, but in the 80's and 90's quality was no better (and sometimes worse) than other cars in their price point/perceived quality bracket.
So, were American cars any good? In context, yeah, some of them were. Reputations, however, don't always line up with realities and often lag behind facts-on-the-ground.
posted by furnace.heart at 8:26 AM on November 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
Modern cars are certainly far safer.
posted by brianogilvie at 8:27 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by brianogilvie at 8:27 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I think reliability is a notoriously hard metric to judge. JD Power and a few others measure on perception or consumer confidence which is an important metric but doesn't answer your question. Also new cars tend to be much worse for a variety of reasons, so during the 70s oil crisis you saw American manufacturers push out new models while imports were generally relying on second generation models.
The business school explanation is itself muddled in politics and stereotypes. The Japanese were good with electronics or Unions killed the car or Andon manufacturing was what caused it. I find there's a certain fetishism among MBAs of the era to see Japanese car manufacturing as some sort of exotic Far East religion. This 1983 NYT article introduces nothing that should be revolutionary to a modern reader:
But cars are something households have maybe two of, so one bad car can really skew people's perceptions. This is why a lot of research companies measure perception -- also because measuring reliability in a new car is a hard task in itself. I remember my parents complaining that American cars were big and you could hear things rattling about, or that the electronics were unreliable. In the same breadth they bemoaned that you can't work on foreign cars because they were too compact. For some reason no one talks about computers in the same way but I bet it is because computer are advancing so quickly that any models is far from a replacement and usually a large improvement.
So when you talk about reliability and ignore politics it is hard to get good numbers. I think objectively you could say Tesla has some pretty unreliable cars. They're also brand new and the only truly objective measure I could find is that reliability is highly correlated with new manufacturing techniques. If you take out nationalism you'll see that this is the case in the time where American cars were seen in decline: new smaller models, imports relying on existing models.
Overall, automation and manufacturing tolerances have improved so significantly that older cars would simply be lumped by us as unreliable. It'd be hard to see differences.
posted by geoff. at 8:38 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
The business school explanation is itself muddled in politics and stereotypes. The Japanese were good with electronics or Unions killed the car or Andon manufacturing was what caused it. I find there's a certain fetishism among MBAs of the era to see Japanese car manufacturing as some sort of exotic Far East religion. This 1983 NYT article introduces nothing that should be revolutionary to a modern reader:
The manufacturing techniques being used here, at the newest automobile assembly plant in Japan, are a clear indication of how Japanese engineers are challenging long-established industry practices: They are increasing automation, using labor more efficiently and smoothing the flow of materials to the assembly line by reducing inventories.And really this was talking about a $144 million plant 40 years ago with robotics. Automobile manufacturing is highly competitive so change is quick but even so it would take several years for American manufacturers to simply adapt to more automation.
In most American plants, a car sits on a moving conveyor built into the floor. To work under the car, workers have to stand in pits under the line, reaching uncomfortably over their heads with heavy tools.
At Hofu, the car in process is suspended from an overhead conveyor, leaving the floor area uncluttered.
But cars are something households have maybe two of, so one bad car can really skew people's perceptions. This is why a lot of research companies measure perception -- also because measuring reliability in a new car is a hard task in itself. I remember my parents complaining that American cars were big and you could hear things rattling about, or that the electronics were unreliable. In the same breadth they bemoaned that you can't work on foreign cars because they were too compact. For some reason no one talks about computers in the same way but I bet it is because computer are advancing so quickly that any models is far from a replacement and usually a large improvement.
So when you talk about reliability and ignore politics it is hard to get good numbers. I think objectively you could say Tesla has some pretty unreliable cars. They're also brand new and the only truly objective measure I could find is that reliability is highly correlated with new manufacturing techniques. If you take out nationalism you'll see that this is the case in the time where American cars were seen in decline: new smaller models, imports relying on existing models.
Overall, automation and manufacturing tolerances have improved so significantly that older cars would simply be lumped by us as unreliable. It'd be hard to see differences.
posted by geoff. at 8:38 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
Best answer: The history of quality culture in American manufacturing is actually pretty interesting. During World War II, the United States was engaged in total war, with the American manufacturing base fully engaged in supporting the war effort. Most of the factory workers had gone off to fight in Europe or the Pacific, and manufacturers had to find ways to limit failure of war goods while working with a largely inexperienced workforce. The US war department started promoting statistical process control techniques that had been developed at AT&T among the manufacturing base. There were a number of quality gurus behind the application of these and other techniques that any quality engineer probably knows by name today. Walter Shewhart and W. Edwards Deming are known for statistical quality control techniques (which works to integrate quality into the production process), and Joseph Juran is known for his promotion of quality management techniques (which works to integrate quality into the entire business, particularly the design process).
Anyway, long story short, these techniques worked, and when the men who ran the companies came home from the war, the quality gurus were ready to sell the American manufacturers on the breakthrough in product quality available to them through use of these techniques. Returning management's response was somewhere along the lines of "Get fucked, eggheads."
Books by the quality gurus became popular in Japan, as they worked to turn themselves into a manufacturing powerhouse and ditch their reputation for poor quality. Deming and Juran went over to Japan where they found plenty of manufacturers willing to listen and apply their techniques. This is where the Toyota Production System has many of its roots.
Fast forward a few decades, and you see American manufacturing start to realize how badly they need these techniques, so they start trying to implement them. But they're not great at it, because changing management culture is extremely difficult, especially when you're like GM, with lots of infighting between big divisions of the company and union contracts at most plants that can apply the brakes when they don't like new ways of doing things. At one point, they made a deal with Toyota to jointly run a car factory in California, just so Toyota could show GM how to make cars that don't suck.
So, I guess the point of this long answer is that, yes, in the 70s and 80s, Japanese cars were designed and assembled to a much higher standard of quality than American cars. It wasn't so much that the quality of American manufacturing declined--it was more like the Japanese manufacturers raised the standard and a combination of arrogance and inertia prevented the American manufacturers from rising to the challenge.
posted by TrialByMedia at 8:54 AM on November 1, 2020 [34 favorites]
Anyway, long story short, these techniques worked, and when the men who ran the companies came home from the war, the quality gurus were ready to sell the American manufacturers on the breakthrough in product quality available to them through use of these techniques. Returning management's response was somewhere along the lines of "Get fucked, eggheads."
Books by the quality gurus became popular in Japan, as they worked to turn themselves into a manufacturing powerhouse and ditch their reputation for poor quality. Deming and Juran went over to Japan where they found plenty of manufacturers willing to listen and apply their techniques. This is where the Toyota Production System has many of its roots.
Fast forward a few decades, and you see American manufacturing start to realize how badly they need these techniques, so they start trying to implement them. But they're not great at it, because changing management culture is extremely difficult, especially when you're like GM, with lots of infighting between big divisions of the company and union contracts at most plants that can apply the brakes when they don't like new ways of doing things. At one point, they made a deal with Toyota to jointly run a car factory in California, just so Toyota could show GM how to make cars that don't suck.
So, I guess the point of this long answer is that, yes, in the 70s and 80s, Japanese cars were designed and assembled to a much higher standard of quality than American cars. It wasn't so much that the quality of American manufacturing declined--it was more like the Japanese manufacturers raised the standard and a combination of arrogance and inertia prevented the American manufacturers from rising to the challenge.
posted by TrialByMedia at 8:54 AM on November 1, 2020 [34 favorites]
I mean, the malaise era is a thing. In the '70s and early '80s, American car manufacturers had to adapt to higher standards for emissions and fuel economy.
They weren't all that good at it.
posted by box at 9:05 AM on November 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
They weren't all that good at it.
posted by box at 9:05 AM on November 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
Best answer: So, it's easy-ish to build the same car over and over. If you change things, the risk goes way up. If you change things quickly, you're basically doomed.
Most of the cars in the 50's and 60's were body-on-frame, with a handful of motor options and like 1 or 2 transmission options, and not much else. No power brakes or steering (big steering wheels instead), pretty much all rear-wheel-drive, mostly bench seats front and back. They'd kind of float along. The bigger ones were heavy, with pretty rough gas mileage, but it didn't really matter because gas was cheap. They'd change the styling from year to year, but all that is is panels that you bolt onto the frame. Overall build quality was comparable across manufacturers, and since there were only 3 or 4 manufacturers, it felt good enough at the time.
You were going to need fairly significant motor maintenance periodically; piston rings and stuff that you don't even think about today. But the motors were pretty simple, so this wasn't that big a deal and it was just part of the experience.
The Volkswagen was new to the USA, but was the same car they'd been building since before the war. It was also dirt simple, but it was small. As soon as they started to try to make different cars, they had trouble, too (though eventually they figured it out).
In the 1970's all of a sudden fuel economy started to matter, and your Mustang that got 7 miles to the gallon was a huge problem. So they started trying aluminum engine blocks (Vega), and thinner sheet metal that was louder and rusted right away, and generally they didn't know how to build good small engines anyway, and meanwhile the panels in a Honda actually had consistent gaps between them because they built that in from the beginning. You also had to meet emissions rules, so you couldn't use leaded gas anymore and even though you already weren't good at getting performance out of a small engine, now you had to tune it to meet this other requirement.
You do sort of get the feeling that the manufacturers resented having to build light cars with small engines in the first place, and to a lesser extent you still get that feeling.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 9:10 AM on November 1, 2020 [10 favorites]
Most of the cars in the 50's and 60's were body-on-frame, with a handful of motor options and like 1 or 2 transmission options, and not much else. No power brakes or steering (big steering wheels instead), pretty much all rear-wheel-drive, mostly bench seats front and back. They'd kind of float along. The bigger ones were heavy, with pretty rough gas mileage, but it didn't really matter because gas was cheap. They'd change the styling from year to year, but all that is is panels that you bolt onto the frame. Overall build quality was comparable across manufacturers, and since there were only 3 or 4 manufacturers, it felt good enough at the time.
You were going to need fairly significant motor maintenance periodically; piston rings and stuff that you don't even think about today. But the motors were pretty simple, so this wasn't that big a deal and it was just part of the experience.
The Volkswagen was new to the USA, but was the same car they'd been building since before the war. It was also dirt simple, but it was small. As soon as they started to try to make different cars, they had trouble, too (though eventually they figured it out).
In the 1970's all of a sudden fuel economy started to matter, and your Mustang that got 7 miles to the gallon was a huge problem. So they started trying aluminum engine blocks (Vega), and thinner sheet metal that was louder and rusted right away, and generally they didn't know how to build good small engines anyway, and meanwhile the panels in a Honda actually had consistent gaps between them because they built that in from the beginning. You also had to meet emissions rules, so you couldn't use leaded gas anymore and even though you already weren't good at getting performance out of a small engine, now you had to tune it to meet this other requirement.
You do sort of get the feeling that the manufacturers resented having to build light cars with small engines in the first place, and to a lesser extent you still get that feeling.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 9:10 AM on November 1, 2020 [10 favorites]
By the way, I've driven cars from the 50's, either stock-ish or with upgraded components from later on (some from the 70's, even!), and some cars from the late 70's. They're fine. There's a strong survivorship bias around old cars--the true shitboxes were crushed and melted decades ago; only the good (and lucky) ones are still around.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 9:16 AM on November 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 9:16 AM on November 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
Durability may not have been a major concern due to a tendency to buy newer cars more frequently. From the war up until the mid early 70s, times were pretty good for a lot of the middle class and styles were shifting rapidly. The 93 Civic hatchback I drove for 26 years didn't look all that out of place next to current vehicles but if you compare the style shifts over a similar time span - say 1954 to 1980 - the difference is dramatic.
Also style related is the amount of chrome plating on bumpers and trim that seems to be a basic part of the vocabulary of car design. It started to rust and flake off almost immediately after purchase.
posted by bonobothegreat at 10:10 AM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
Also style related is the amount of chrome plating on bumpers and trim that seems to be a basic part of the vocabulary of car design. It started to rust and flake off almost immediately after purchase.
posted by bonobothegreat at 10:10 AM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
Oh, they were definitely terrible. We have an expectation today that a car will arrive with all of its parts connected and working. A family member bought a new car from an English manufacturer in the 60s and it was delivered as more of an initial proposal for a car rather than a functioning vehicle. Like in a new house where you have a "punch list" of items that need to be taken care of before acceptance of the work. It was basically accepted that you would have to buy a new one every few years if you wanted to have reliable transportation. In the 90s my grandfather owned a pair of 1972 Cadillacs so that he could almost always have one that worked.
I worked briefly at an auto plant (since torn down) in the 90s and there was no idea that Japanese cars were even possibly a competitor. If you live in a town where everyone knows someone who has a very well paying job at the plant, you just don't buy Japanese cars, for essentially political reasons. People would argue endlessly about whether Ford or Chevy was better, but Japanese cars were irrelevant and so no one (at least at the rank-and-file level) noticed how incredibly good they were getting.
I read once (wish I could remember where) that in the 80s some engineers at Ford were doing some competitive research and bought a Toyota to disassemble it. They went to measure the tolerances in the engine, and were shocked to find that the parts fit so tightly that their equipment wasn't even good enough to measure how good the Toyota was. The engineers had to go out and buy new metrology equipment. This was when Ford was still producing cars with engines that you really had to warm up for a couple minutes in the driveway, lest they run rough and leak oil.
posted by wnissen at 10:49 AM on November 1, 2020 [7 favorites]
I worked briefly at an auto plant (since torn down) in the 90s and there was no idea that Japanese cars were even possibly a competitor. If you live in a town where everyone knows someone who has a very well paying job at the plant, you just don't buy Japanese cars, for essentially political reasons. People would argue endlessly about whether Ford or Chevy was better, but Japanese cars were irrelevant and so no one (at least at the rank-and-file level) noticed how incredibly good they were getting.
I read once (wish I could remember where) that in the 80s some engineers at Ford were doing some competitive research and bought a Toyota to disassemble it. They went to measure the tolerances in the engine, and were shocked to find that the parts fit so tightly that their equipment wasn't even good enough to measure how good the Toyota was. The engineers had to go out and buy new metrology equipment. This was when Ford was still producing cars with engines that you really had to warm up for a couple minutes in the driveway, lest they run rough and leak oil.
posted by wnissen at 10:49 AM on November 1, 2020 [7 favorites]
Generally speaking, I think US cars were the best in the world up to about 1960. Imports, mostly British, were rare. The first imports that showed the usefulness of a small car were the VW beetles. Detroit had a panic about small cars and came out with the Corvair, Falcon, etc. At this time, Detroit had a sort of planned obsolescence concept and cars were designed to go 100,000 miles.
In the 1950s, "made in Japan" had a negative connotation which was one reason Detroit was so slow to change in response to the Japanese threat, but soon enough Toyota owners started reporting that their cars went past 100k miles. Way past. Japan was competing on engineering and price while Detroit was competing on fashion.
All cars were terrible and unsafe compared to cars today.
posted by SemiSalt at 12:43 PM on November 1, 2020
In the 1950s, "made in Japan" had a negative connotation which was one reason Detroit was so slow to change in response to the Japanese threat, but soon enough Toyota owners started reporting that their cars went past 100k miles. Way past. Japan was competing on engineering and price while Detroit was competing on fashion.
All cars were terrible and unsafe compared to cars today.
posted by SemiSalt at 12:43 PM on November 1, 2020
All cars were terrible and unsafe compared to cars today
Compare the situation to old computers; how could anyone have ever used Windows 98 and thought Wow, this is great?
Following that metaphor, there used to be disk defragmenting, loading drivers, installing fonts, etc.
Maintenance cannot be overestimated.
There's a reason a common image of mid 20th century USA is someone spending their Saturday afternoon listening to the baseball game on the radio, propped up on the open hood of their car, as they wrenched away at timing belts, topped up transmission fluids, and cleaned carburetors.
There used to be so much routine maintenance.
One of the key selling points for something like a Honda Civic (especially at the time, when so many women were in the workforce and buying their own cars now), was that it was the first wave of cars that were set-and-forget.
In 1970, you might ask someone when the last time they changed the oil in their Chevrolet Impala, and it's probably months.
Ask the owner of a Toyota Camry in 1990, and they'll shrug and say "I dunno, I assume it came with oil in it when I bought it a couple years ago?"
In terms of 'better cars', that was a really big leap. Like the difference between owning a horse that needs to be fed and watered and see the vet every six months, and owning a bicycle, that just leans against the shed until you want to go somewhere.
posted by bartleby at 3:14 PM on November 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
Compare the situation to old computers; how could anyone have ever used Windows 98 and thought Wow, this is great?
Following that metaphor, there used to be disk defragmenting, loading drivers, installing fonts, etc.
Maintenance cannot be overestimated.
There's a reason a common image of mid 20th century USA is someone spending their Saturday afternoon listening to the baseball game on the radio, propped up on the open hood of their car, as they wrenched away at timing belts, topped up transmission fluids, and cleaned carburetors.
There used to be so much routine maintenance.
One of the key selling points for something like a Honda Civic (especially at the time, when so many women were in the workforce and buying their own cars now), was that it was the first wave of cars that were set-and-forget.
In 1970, you might ask someone when the last time they changed the oil in their Chevrolet Impala, and it's probably months.
Ask the owner of a Toyota Camry in 1990, and they'll shrug and say "I dunno, I assume it came with oil in it when I bought it a couple years ago?"
In terms of 'better cars', that was a really big leap. Like the difference between owning a horse that needs to be fed and watered and see the vet every six months, and owning a bicycle, that just leans against the shed until you want to go somewhere.
posted by bartleby at 3:14 PM on November 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
If you’re curious enough for a book length discussion of this, The Reckoning by David Halberstam was much more engrossing than I expected based on the subject. There were some fascinating dynamics at play, both macroeconomic, cultural and even and familial, that resulted in the cars of the 70s.
posted by mmc at 9:39 PM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by mmc at 9:39 PM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
The oil shock in terms of price in the early 70s led to a lot of imports that were lighter, had smaller motors but better gas mileage. American labor costs were also rising with the run away inflation during the late 70s and Jimmy Carter. In order to cut costs, materials and design were the place to cut so the American car companies did cut back causing them to fall behind the imports in terms of price and quality. That is how I remember it.
I suspect that the value of the dollar vis a vis the Yen also changed the value proposition of importing Japanese vehicles. While Chrysler was coming out of bankruptcy, many of the imports were on more solid financial ground.
I think it also depends a lot on what vehicles to which you refer. American car companies dominated certain categories such as pick up trucks and large sedans. It was the small cars and the mid-size ones that the American companies were slipping on.
posted by AugustWest at 11:37 PM on November 1, 2020
I suspect that the value of the dollar vis a vis the Yen also changed the value proposition of importing Japanese vehicles. While Chrysler was coming out of bankruptcy, many of the imports were on more solid financial ground.
I think it also depends a lot on what vehicles to which you refer. American car companies dominated certain categories such as pick up trucks and large sedans. It was the small cars and the mid-size ones that the American companies were slipping on.
posted by AugustWest at 11:37 PM on November 1, 2020
I think US cars were the best in the world up to about 1960.
While they offered some of the best values, I think it's a stretch to say they were the best cars in the world. In the '50s, I'd probably give that crown to the Germans.
posted by box at 5:36 AM on November 2, 2020
While they offered some of the best values, I think it's a stretch to say they were the best cars in the world. In the '50s, I'd probably give that crown to the Germans.
posted by box at 5:36 AM on November 2, 2020
American labor costs were also rising with the run away inflation during the late 70s and Jimmy Carter.
Sorry to derail but I can’t find anything that shows a rise in 70s labour costs much higher than the general growth in wages since the end of the war. There was also concerns over unemployment and recession during the same period that was called “stagflation” in the media. OPEC sustained higher oil prices and people responded by giving smaller imports a try. I don’t know that Carter's single term in the later part of the 70s could have been expected to do about oil prices.
posted by bonobothegreat at 10:41 AM on November 2, 2020
Sorry to derail but I can’t find anything that shows a rise in 70s labour costs much higher than the general growth in wages since the end of the war. There was also concerns over unemployment and recession during the same period that was called “stagflation” in the media. OPEC sustained higher oil prices and people responded by giving smaller imports a try. I don’t know that Carter's single term in the later part of the 70s could have been expected to do about oil prices.
posted by bonobothegreat at 10:41 AM on November 2, 2020
Ditto the 70's and oil. There was also a good bit of the steel industry shutting down. My father was a QA sort of engineer at the local steel fabrication plant that had three of it's facilities closed in part due to good Japanese steel stuff. Dad was a rarity in our neck of the woods and had been the first sort to buy a 240z and some other Toyota/Datsun in the 70s because of MPG and just damn fine construction. He was also into F1 and other GT road racing sorts of foreign cars vs say putting a 400cc smallblock in a light frame and throwing a blower and some fat tires on it to go drag racing down in front of the K-Mart. I have to say sorta yes, maybe due to Engineer disease, that imports were just better than American cars at least in that 70s-80s range of time.
posted by zengargoyle at 11:12 AM on November 2, 2020
posted by zengargoyle at 11:12 AM on November 2, 2020
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All cars have gotten way better since the mid-20th century. Midcentury American cars were less bad than most other cars available at that time, but by modern standards (other than aesthetics if you're into that kind of thing) they were not good. In the 70s, American cars were not getting better as quickly as foreign cars (especially Japanese cars) were - I think it was more stagnation/getting worse relative to the competition rather than actually getting worse.
posted by mskyle at 8:10 AM on November 1, 2020 [3 favorites]