Bye Bye To The American V-8...

[442w30]

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Luck, or foresight? When the dust settles they will be the only domestic left that didn't file BK and crawl to this admin with a cup in their hand. Maybe they had less arrogance than the other two,and actually released new products on time?


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Luck.

Don't forget that it was just a few short years ago that Ford was in the weakest position of the Big 3. They have had a lot of problems in the decade as well, including:

- the Explorer tire debacle
- letting the equity of the Taurus sink, then introducing the 500 with no identity whatsoever
- letting Mercury and Lincoln become badge-engineered nothings
- not importing the second-generation Focus to America

Ford does not deserve my good graces any more than any other company in Detroit.

[442w30]

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What about the governmental requirement to switch to unleded low octane fuel. Did you forget about that?? Way more to do with the death of performance than insurance.

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Not really.

For all the hype about 1970, the trend against performance cars was already in place. Don't believe me? Look at sales for all performance cars compared with 1969. Certainly lowered compression by 1972 played a role, but performance was not hurt a much as people have said in the past (judging by the Pure Stock races, among other things).

Insurance was the death knell.


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Perhaps in your world view -I have no right to go fast. Thanks for making your positions clear for all to see publicly right here! With this view (your view), the car collector could soon be a target of future "progressive legislation" without a doubt targeting muscle cars- (and needless to say, but I will anyway)... I disagree with you 100% on this opinion and most here would do the same

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You sure about that? We all know the cliche about driving being a privilege, so how is "going fast" any different? And who says you can't modify your car to "go fast?"

Once again, nothing qualified. Show me some proof.

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But I asked you a simple question about the future of the V-8 where you could have been so proactive...

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CAFE is an aggregate item, so the V-8 won't disappear anytime soon.

[70 copo]

Again not so fast...

"Not really. for all the hype about 1970, the trend against performance cars was already in place. Don't believe me? Look at sales for all performance cars compared with 1969. Certainly lowered compression by 1972 played a role, but performance was not hurt a much as people have said in the past (judging by the Pure Stock races, among other things).

Insurance was the death knell."

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Please Dont make me Scan copies of my automobile performance Magazine collection from the early 1970's that point clearly to the advent of Emission controls and unleded Gas with the production effect of lowered compression ratios and loss of HP. Insurance was a gripe and hurt sales also but the government's own regulations strangled the life out of these cars. This is factual and in print over and over again from '71 forward.

The zenith was reached in late '74 for the 1975 models with the Catalytic converter which caused GM to decide to drop the Z/28. Not a darn thing to do with insurance rates as the cars were selling strong in 1974.

As to the remainder of your opinions - good for you!

[JoeG]

GM/Government Motors is a micro management corruption fiasco in the making......
Look,.....more stringent emission standards were enevitable, but I think it would have been wiser to see if GM could at least survive and produce a vehicle that the American people would buy before putting an added burden on the car companies with untimely overstrigent emission requirements..but I've afraid the boys from Brazil will just keep recklessly spending our money till they get it right...
I've would have liked to see the consumer decide whether or not he wanted to buy a government green car and get a income tax credit for his leap of fate..this way the money would benefit the individual family and not go back to the Obama's money program pit in Washington..
Maybe ,if GM does get back on its feet it can eventually get some private investors and buy out the government(if this administration will let them)---
Can't wait for the government color charts--Global warming gray---Ozone protection orange--Barack blue---Government green..Pelosi pink .. Recycle red.....Just my lousy $.02 against this Nationalization .............

[Late BrakeU2]

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Luck.



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It is said that luck is when preparation meets opportunity, Ford had a chance to restructure it's debt before someone else did it for them(hint) In the end it only goes on the scoreboard one way though.

Guess it was just bad timing on GM's part?
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=GM&t...mp;q=l&c=F

[70 copo]

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Luck.



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It is said that luck is when preparation meets opportunity, Ford had a chance to restructure it's debt before someone else did it for them(hint) In the end it only goes on the scoreboard one way though.

Guess it was just bad timing on GM's part?
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=GM&t...mp;q=l&c=F

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Boy that chart says it all. Someone at Ford was thinking.

[69Tom]

I not saying this to be a smart-a$$ or be facetious, but honestly, do the majority of people really care about cars anymore? I mean, really have a bond with a brand or a love for their car? We're car guys so I think it's easy to think people care as much as we do. I dunno, out of my group of friends in my age range, I'm one of the few people who's really into cars. I'll meet some people who are into BMWs or Porsches, but when it comes to an American brands, it seems like that was killed off somewhere along the last 20 year road into oblivion.

People are claiming, "But the Camaro had 14K pre-orders!!!" Now, this is a good thing and I'm glad there's still some interest, but when you compare this to production totals of the Camaro in its heyday, it's barely skimming the overall production. Now, hopefully, over the production year, they'll get a lot more orders. But I'd actually be surprised to see it break 50K. Hopefully I will be so.

All in all, people seem to only use their cars to get from point A to B. They want one that does so cheaply, with as little effort or work on their part as possible. I sometimes think if a car was invented that washed itself, never needed an oil change, and got good gas mileage, it would immediately become the best selling car in the US, irrespective of how it looked. If you need an example, check the style (if you can call it that) of the Toyota Prius. That is possibly one of the ugliest cars on the road (in fact, do hybrid cars automatically have to be ugly as hell? is that a governmental requirement?)

I come from a GM family--my grandfather worked at the Tonawanda plant building engines--chances are he built my COPO engine, and my other grandfather sold tooling to GM--so I am not stating this from an angle that come from hope the performance car and the US car companies die. It just seems like that's the way things are and will be unless car designs start sparking an interest in people again.

It'll definitely be harder with those fuel requirements and costs. And definitely hard to sway people's sentiment the other way about it.

Feel free to prove me wrong. In fact, I hope I am wrong. It's just the sense I get from people in the younger generations.

[mockingbird812]

You have friends that aren't into cars!

[70 copo]

Kids still love cars. It is just a heck of alot cheaper to get a honda with a VTEC and put a Greddy Turbo on it.

None of the domestic manufacturers had any thing close to VTEC for years.

Lots of kids went Jap and did not come back.

[69Tom]

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You have friends that aren't into cars!

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Maybe I need new friends!