1959 Bel Air versus 2009 Malibu - NMC but at least car-related

On Oct 17, 12:34*am, Lanny Chambers > wrote:
> In article
> >,
> *"Tim M." > wrote:
>
> > The "bad" American cars I owned ranged from 1974 to 1985 and ended
> > abruptly right there. *Even the "bad" ones were totally reliable and
> > inexpensive to own and operate. They were bad because Detroit was
> > reeling; trying to accomodate unleaded fuel, catalytic converters, 5-
> > mph bumper laws, and low compression engines all at once.
>
> Foreign manufacturers had to comply with the same regs if they wanted to
> sell cars here. But instead of wasting time and money lobbying against
> the law, they put it into engineering and were ready, for the most part.
> In particular, domestic car companies resisted making good small cars
> until their opportunity was lost, skimping on quality and features on
> the assumption that everyone bought cars by the pound. They were wrong,
> and by the time--decades later--that they realized their mistake, it was
> too late. And they STILL don't make good small cars, just cheap ones.
>
> Reliable and inexpensive aren't the only characteristics of good cars.
> American car design has always been gross--huge, garish splashes of
> chrome instead of restrained style, interiors that look like they came
> out of either army trucks or whorehouses, enormous panel gaps, terrible
> seats, miserable handling and brakes. No finesse. The American public at
> large didn't, until Japanese cars, know there was an alternative. But
> it's why American cars have never sold well in Europe: they're seen as
> ill-conceived junk thrown together by monkeys, not something one would
> want to spend a proportionately-higher fraction of one's annual income
> to buy.
>
> Even the current Corvette, with its stunning performance, is cheaply
> built. Floppy, flimsy plastic bumpers, hard plastic inside, outsized
> styling details--they're clown cars to the rest of the world, where the
> market hasn't been brainwashed into wanting a truck with a massive
> chrome grille.
>
> --
> Lanny Chambers
> St. Louis, MO
> '94C

I remember the early Honda cars & motorcycles (late 60s early 70s).
They were far from what you would call well designed or engineering
vehicles. I think their sales were mostly fueled by novelty, and the
reviewers took them to task.

At this point a company's choices might be to leave the market, put
serious money into Advertising, Marketing-Research or into
Engineering. Honda appeared to throw everything into Marketing-
Research, listening to everything the reviewers and surveys told them,
then into Engineering to redesign & build it, and then into
Advertising. In the short span of 2-3 years, they were producing
vehicles with the features & reliability people had asked for.

They succeeded partly because their products were so bad. They didn't
have the confidence to sell us their vision, and completely adopted
the vision they were given. An example of the opposite extreme
(unfortunately an American company) is H-D, which has a very strong
and unwavering vision of what a consumer wants for a motorcycle, so
their money goes into advertising and marketing.

Regardless of nationality, all companies move around between those
extremes. _Generally_ speaking, my opinion is that more Asian
companies have followed Honda's lead for design & reliability,
followed by more European companies who have good design but are still
struggling with reliability. More American companies are good at
selling.

Speaking of selling, every Mazda newspaper ad I've seen, did NOT show
the MX-5. There must be a mathematical formula for this (diminishing
returns). As a product reaches a certain stature (in reliability,
function, common knowledge etc), the sales benefit for the advertising
expense is incrementally smaller. Off hand, I can't think of any
other vehicle (American or otherwise) which was left out of a
manufacturer's advertising line up. Either everything is listed (ie:
Chevy), or nothing is listed (ie: Ferrari).

Net

It also looked to me like there was no powertrain in the 59. Most had a
straight six that was a large chunk of metal that should have gone through
the firewall on the 09.
As I remember, the 59 had a "bullet" in the center of the steering wheel
that would have crushed the drivers chest.
We will likely never buy another GM car again. Too many problems with new
ones, poor factory reps, etc.
I will not go into a litany of all the problems over the years. It is or was
true that when you happened to get a GM car that was actually built properly
(labor) with good parts, it was a good car, and would last. Example 76 Buick
Regal, 14 years. Never could fix a thumping rattle -- turned out to be the
flapper doors in the heater.
A better test would have been to use a 57 Buick Century instead of the
Chevy. The 57 was a tank. I hit a Ford Falcon almost head on with one in the
middle 60's. No contest.
The Buick was driveable, and I was uninjured. The Falcon was not even
towable, and had to be trailered. The Falcon driver was knocked out, and had
broken her hand.
The "old" GM is now all but history. It will be interesting to see if the
new GM can overcome all the hate and discontent left over from the old GM.


"Christopher Muto" > wrote in message
news
> "pws" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
>>> Good for you Tim! Thanks for the direct link. Mr. XS11E must not have
>>> watched many crash test videos. I've watched allot of them (they are
>>> hugely interesting to see which vehicles do better and which do worse)
>>> and never even crossed my mind that this could have been faked and I'm
>>> one of those 'conspiracy theorists'
>>>
>>> Chris
>>> 99BBB
>>
>> Here is another video that shows the inside of the cars, and the effects
>> on the crash test dummies during the crash.
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xwYBBpHg1I
>>
>> Nice interior on the Bel Air, it looks like they wasted a nicely restored
>> classic car for this test.
>>
>> Pat
>
> The comments under that video are priceless!
> Funny:
> "that will buff right out"
> "I was hoping the 59' would eat? the 09' and crap out something better
> looking."
> Interesting:
> "It appears that there is no engine or tranny in the engine compartment.
> That makes the test suspect and dishonest if that is the? case."
> "I was a volunteer fireman at the site of a head-on collision. Both cars
> were heavily damaged. One was a new 1998 Lumina. The other was a 1972
> Caprice (exact? same frame as 68 Impala).The two Lumina passengers had
> severe but non-life threating injuries. In the Caprice were three dead
> teenagers all wearing their seat belts!"
> and they go on and on...
>
>
>

I take the engine missing back! The second video showed the 59 with the dash
buckle that happens when the engine is pushed back into the firewall. The
video also showed that a six cyl engine would likely have been to the side
of the original contact area. I'm surprised that it didn't go foreward.


"Chuck" > wrote in message
news
> It also looked to me like there was no powertrain in the 59. Most had a
> straight six that was a large chunk of metal that should have gone through
> the firewall on the 09.
> As I remember, the 59 had a "bullet" in the center of the steering wheel
> that would have crushed the drivers chest.
> We will likely never buy another GM car again. Too many problems with new
> ones, poor factory reps, etc.
> I will not go into a litany of all the problems over the years. It is or
> was true that when you happened to get a GM car that was actually built
> properly (labor) with good parts, it was a good car, and would last.
> Example 76 Buick Regal, 14 years. Never could fix a thumping rattle --
> turned out to be the flapper doors in the heater.
> A better test would have been to use a 57 Buick Century instead of the
> Chevy. The 57 was a tank. I hit a Ford Falcon almost head on with one in
> the middle 60's. No contest.
> The Buick was driveable, and I was uninjured. The Falcon was not even
> towable, and had to be trailered. The Falcon driver was knocked out, and
> had broken her hand.
> The "old" GM is now all but history. It will be interesting to see if the
> new GM can overcome all the hate and discontent left over from the old GM.
>
>
> "Christopher Muto" > wrote in message
> news
>> "pws" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
>>>> Good for you Tim! Thanks for the direct link. Mr. XS11E must not have
>>>> watched many crash test videos. I've watched allot of them (they are
>>>> hugely interesting to see which vehicles do better and which do worse)
>>>> and never even crossed my mind that this could have been faked and I'm
>>>> one of those 'conspiracy theorists'
>>>>
>>>> Chris
>>>> 99BBB
>>>
>>> Here is another video that shows the inside of the cars, and the effects
>>> on the crash test dummies during the crash.
>>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xwYBBpHg1I
>>>
>>> Nice interior on the Bel Air, it looks like they wasted a nicely
>>> restored classic car for this test.
>>>
>>> Pat
>>
>> The comments under that video are priceless!
>> Funny:
>> "that will buff right out"
>> "I was hoping the 59' would eat? the 09' and crap out something better
>> looking."
>> Interesting:
>> "It appears that there is no engine or tranny in the engine compartment.
>> That makes the test suspect and dishonest if that is the? case."
>> "I was a volunteer fireman at the site of a head-on collision. Both cars
>> were heavily damaged. One was a new 1998 Lumina. The other was a 1972
>> Caprice (exact? same frame as 68 Impala).The two Lumina passengers had
>> severe but non-life threating injuries. In the Caprice were three dead
>> teenagers all wearing their seat belts!"
>> and they go on and on...
>>
>>
>>
>
>

>I agree with your observations, Chris. I have owned Chevys, Buicks,
>Fords, Triumphs, BMWs, Renaults, Datsuns, MGs, Mazdas, and more, and I
>buy what I want based on the individual model, year, features, and my
>own ability to deal with any problems that might crop up. I currently
>own domestice and imported cars and motorcycles, and while I support
>the U.S. economy whenever possible, no U.S. manufacturer is builidng
>Miatas or Miata competitors right now, so I have a Mazda. But I know
>people at work whose PARENTS had one bad experience with a Dodge Omni
>or a Ford Tempo back in the 1970's or 1980's, and those people will
>NEVER consider an American car. They are Honda or Toyota buyers for
>life, regardless of the facts of the marketplace.


Oh god, I owned a dodge Omni 024. What a horrible, piece of **** car.
Yes, that was the last straw for me, I have never purchased an American made
car since. Traded that for a Mazda pickup that went over 100k without a
hitch.
I spent more time fixing that Omni than driving it. From the world's worst
shifter linkage to door handles that broke and left standing outside a
locked car.. (Yes, I had to crawl in from the passenger side most of the
time since the drivers door handle was usually broken. ) I'll look at US
made cars at the autoshow but I'd never lay down money for one of them.

Squat

On Oct 18, 11:01*pm, "Squat" > wrote:

> > I know
> >people at work whose PARENTS had one bad experience with a Dodge Omni
> >or a Ford Tempo back in the 1970's or 1980's, and those people will
> >NEVER consider an American car. *They are Honda or Toyota buyers for
> >life, regardless of the facts of the marketplace.
>
> Oh god, I owned a dodge Omni 024. What a horrible, piece of **** car.
> Yes, that was the last straw for me, I have never purchased an American made
> car since. Traded that for a Mazda pickup that went over 100k without a
> hitch.
> I spent more time fixing that Omni than driving it. From the world's worst
> shifter linkage to door handles that broke and left standing outside a
> locked car.. (Yes, I had to crawl *in from the passenger side most of the
> time since the drivers door handle was usually broken. ) *I'll look at US
> made cars at the autoshow but I'd never lay down money for one of them.

Thank-you for perfectly illustrating my point!

"Squat" > wrote:

> Oh god, I owned a dodge Omni 024. What a horrible, piece of ****
> car.

You say that only because you never owned a Pontiac Grand Am of the
early '90s. One of our customers bought a fleet of them for their
salespeople and I could not believe the problems! It made the Dodge
Omni look like a pretty good car.

Ever hit a bump and have the grill fall off?


--
XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project:
http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

NetMax wrote:
> On Oct 17, 12:34 am, Lanny Chambers > wrote:
>> In article
>> >,
>> "Tim M." > wrote:
>>
>>> The "bad" American cars I owned ranged from 1974 to 1985 and ended
>>> abruptly right there. Even the "bad" ones were totally reliable and
>>> inexpensive to own and operate. They were bad because Detroit was
>>> reeling; trying to accomodate unleaded fuel, catalytic converters, 5-
>>> mph bumper laws, and low compression engines all at once.
>> Foreign manufacturers had to comply with the same regs if they wanted to
>> sell cars here. But instead of wasting time and money lobbying against
>> the law, they put it into engineering and were ready, for the most part.
>> In particular, domestic car companies resisted making good small cars
>> until their opportunity was lost, skimping on quality and features on
>> the assumption that everyone bought cars by the pound. They were wrong,
>> and by the time--decades later--that they realized their mistake, it was
>> too late. And they STILL don't make good small cars, just cheap ones.
>>
>> Reliable and inexpensive aren't the only characteristics of good cars.
>> American car design has always been gross--huge, garish splashes of
>> chrome instead of restrained style, interiors that look like they came
>> out of either army trucks or whorehouses, enormous panel gaps, terrible
>> seats, miserable handling and brakes. No finesse. The American public at
>> large didn't, until Japanese cars, know there was an alternative. But
>> it's why American cars have never sold well in Europe: they're seen as
>> ill-conceived junk thrown together by monkeys, not something one would
>> want to spend a proportionately-higher fraction of one's annual income
>> to buy.
>>
>> Even the current Corvette, with its stunning performance, is cheaply
>> built. Floppy, flimsy plastic bumpers, hard plastic inside, outsized
>> styling details--they're clown cars to the rest of the world, where the
>> market hasn't been brainwashed into wanting a truck with a massive
>> chrome grille.
>>
>> --
>> Lanny Chambers
>> St. Louis, MO
>> '94C
>
> I remember the early Honda cars & motorcycles (late 60s early 70s).
> They were far from what you would call well designed or engineering
> vehicles. I think their sales were mostly fueled by novelty, and the
> reviewers took them to task.
>
> At this point a company's choices might be to leave the market, put
> serious money into Advertising, Marketing-Research or into
> Engineering. Honda appeared to throw everything into Marketing-
> Research, listening to everything the reviewers and surveys told them,
> then into Engineering to redesign & build it, and then into
> Advertising. In the short span of 2-3 years, they were producing
> vehicles with the features & reliability people had asked for.
>
> They succeeded partly because their products were so bad. They didn't
> have the confidence to sell us their vision, and completely adopted
> the vision they were given. An example of the opposite extreme
> (unfortunately an American company) is H-D, which has a very strong
> and unwavering vision of what a consumer wants for a motorcycle, so
> their money goes into advertising and marketing.
>
> Regardless of nationality, all companies move around between those
> extremes. _Generally_ speaking, my opinion is that more Asian
> companies have followed Honda's lead for design & reliability,
> followed by more European companies who have good design but are still
> struggling with reliability. More American companies are good at
> selling.
>
> Speaking of selling, every Mazda newspaper ad I've seen, did NOT show
> the MX-5. There must be a mathematical formula for this (diminishing
> returns). As a product reaches a certain stature (in reliability,
> function, common knowledge etc), the sales benefit for the advertising
> expense is incrementally smaller. Off hand, I can't think of any
> other vehicle (American or otherwise) which was left out of a
> manufacturer's advertising line up. Either everything is listed (ie:
> Chevy), or nothing is listed (ie: Ferrari).
>

"kaizen"

Mx5 Na/Nb/Nc with intermediate steps is an example.

Japanese do this with production. Big mistake that US and many other
manufacturers make when they're behind is the opposite - they try to
reinvent the wheel.

By the early 70s, /good/ japanese cars were arriving here (NZ). Not
"revolutionary" in design, but certainly revolutionary in execution. It
was a massive revolution when maintenance was reduced to
tyres/wheels/batteries/oil changes, and the occasional blown light bulb.

>
> Ever hit a bump and have the grill fall off?
>

LOL, No can't say that that ever happened. The 024 just sounded like stuff
was going to fall off while I drove it.

It's funny, I used to give US car makers the benefit of the doubt until I
bought an old, 2nd gen RX7 that had been run pretty hard. I bought it cheap
when I moved tot eh east coast and didn't want to spend much a car that I
was only going to keep for a year or so. This old RX7 had 75k miles or so
on it. We're talking cigarette burns, and all. I bought it for $1200 and
drove it for a year. all in all, it was a better car than any US made car
that I have ever owned.

I worked for National Car rental while in college. They used mostly GM cars,
Kept their mechanics quite busy...

Chuck wrote:

> The "old" GM is now all but history.

Since what year? GM was still making cars that are just awful
monstrosities at least as late as 2004, and I doubt if that was the last
year of crap production.
Are you talking about a change of maybe 2 or 3 years?

> It will be interesting to see if the new GM can overcome all the hate and discontent left over from the old GM.

I doubt it, and I didn't really hate GM until the undeserved bailout, I
simply avoided buying their inferior products.

Fat, lazy Americans make ****ty cars, it is pretty simple.

Pat

Tim M. wrote:

> Thank-you for perfectly illustrating my point!

How did he illustrate your point?

You claimed, and I quote, "I know people at work whose PARENTS had one
bad experience with a Dodge Omni or a Ford Tempo back in the 1970's or
1980's, and those people will NEVER consider an American car."

This was not his parent's Omni that he is talking about, it was his own,
so it actually does not illustrate your point in any way at all.

You are starting to stand very alone here in defending the pure ****
vehicles that Detroit has been producing, and is still producing today.

All it takes is a little common sense not to buy these awful cars.

Pat