Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics Bailing out the auto industry - yes or no?

There is only one thing you can do with a Pinto OR a Vega to make it worth owning.






You CAN'T rear end one of these because there is no way
you'd be able to catch up to them in the first place.

Bernard Baruch would give you a cigar.
OF COURSE it's because advertising AND GOP inspired propaganda created demand. For eight to twelve years we were told that
"the Heartbeat of Amurrica" was big pushy trucks with big pushy owners who guzzled what their fighting men protected, because we were "an empire now!"

Tell a society that they are leaders of a world empire, and that their way of life is non-negotiable, light a match under the Madison Avenue rocketworks and watch them scoop up every last one of those macho reassuring surrogate penises on wheels!

Then, when the cost of fuel goes through the roof, tell them it's the fault of "Haji" standing behind that 7-11 counter, and they will continue buying them, expecting any minute that victory is around the corner and someday they will be able to fill er up again for five bucks and get a six pack with the change.

YEEEEEE HAAAAAAAW!!!

Jeff, thanks. I didn't know that. You know a lot more about cars than I do.

The thing is, most of the rest of the world has gotten the benefit of GM, Ford AND Chrysler while we get the scraps, the rotten leftovers. Yes the electric window switches probably go bad on a foreign GM car just as quickly as they do on the domestics, but the foreign models get amazing gas mileage because fully HALF of them have BEEN diesel powered since the 1980's!

And it's not just the subcompacts either.
Take a walk down any street in Brazil or any part of South America and you will see the same American cars that you see here, even a lot of the midsized models.
But a lot of them are diesel powered, and the engine of choice is a four cylinder diesel.

In prior years Brazil even had a restriction on V-8 engines for a while so you would see CADILLACS with 250 cubic inch Chevy inline six cylinder engines, four barrel carburetors and performance camshafts so that the cars weren't underpowered.

The venerable Ford Falcon is still made in Argentina and Australia, and it's a midsize sport coupe now, with a Ford Taurus 2.5 liter four cylinder engine or an available Cortina fuel injected V-6 for the sport models, and of course a dependable diesel option.
It's currently a cross pollination of a Ford Focus and it sits on a larger body shell but the family resemblance is clear.
But what does not fit the family resemblance is the legendary fuel economy, five star crash rating and incredible dependability.

Why?

Because both the Argentine and Australian governments told Ford to shape up or ship out, and that their continued survival depended on them creating something worthwhile.

Here in the USA, we're WIMPS.
We wouldn't dream of pitching an ultimatum to the Big Three, or if we did, we'd give the job to WHO????
Nancy Pelosi?

I'd like to see her car credentials before tossing her the football, please.

Thanks for your car posts Strang, they were both informative and entertaining. I know/knew quite a bit about cars myself as I was once in the business in my former life and was curious about them virtually all my life. In the last 15 or so years my interest has waned somewhat but I still appreciate learning about new (or old) technologies.

We’re did you get your extensive knowledge? Were you in the business?

A friend (a true motorhead) bought a drag car back in 1974 from an old farmer. His son had gotten killed in Nam and this had been his "project" and the old guy couldn't bear to part with it. Finally the day came when he had to sell the property and of course there was no place to put the project car.
It was a 62 Falcon with fiberglass doors, hood and trunk, complete sheet metal interior, wide wheel tubs, tube frame chassis and full race rollbars.
Everything was done except the powertrain. The dash had all the switches, gauges, even a front brake "line lock" for doing burnouts.
We stuffed a blown (Paxton) 440 Chrysler big block with a Hemi-style four speed into it and went racing at the local strip and did pretty well for a couple of years.
The engine was balanced and blueprinted, had a roller cam, hi-rise pistons, race ported heads, the whole magilla.
The cam on that motor had more lumps than a grandpa's butt with poison ivy on it.
It barely idled at 1400 RPM.
Dyno said 940 HP, 890 ft lbs torque.
The car weighed approx 1900 pounds.
I've been a motorhead all my life but I don't know a thing about the modern computerized engines...I am strictly old school.

This car was scary fast, at least for 1974 anyway.
We were pulling quarter mile ET's in the low 10 second range with it and topping out at around 155 plus, but there was a lot more room to go.
I suspect this car could have broken 190 with enough real estate.
Pretty damn good for a "Ford Falcon", even though there wasn't much original Falcon left on it LOL.

I also owned a couple of very nice muscle cars of my own but they were also daily drivers and not full out drag cars.
My two favorite cars I ever owned were a 72 big block 396 Chevy Nova which was cool, and a 66 Dodge Coronet with a very nicely built 440 wedge dropped into it, which was, in a word, deadly.

That Dodge was flat BLACK all the way around, not a speck of chrome on it except the wheels...gorgeous.
And, it was NOT "jacked up" in the back.
I lowered the front end instead.
That car easily passed the "hundred dollar bill test".

Another friend had an actual Hemi Cuda, which was also a blast to drive. I know people are nuts about today's Hemi cars and trucks but I have to tell you there is nothing quite like driving a vehicle with a real 426 Hemi "Elephant Motor" under the hood.

The funniest thing that always struck me were the "published" horsepower figures on this engine.
Chrysler rated it at 425 HP, but everyone will tell you that a well tuned properly built 426 elephant will spew out a conservative 600 w/600 ft lbs torque. Chrysler's figures were to keep the insurance companies happy but they were pure fantasy.
The greatest thing about those engines were the enormously wide
"power band". They just made gobs of power over a very wide range of RPM's...."useable power".

But the biggest motorhead of them all has to be my older brother.

CS, I dearly love the passion with which you speak of those cars. I don't know what the "hundred dollar bill test" is and I'm afraid to ask.

Still, I feel it behooves me to say that, well, that passion for speed and power in automobiles is one of the major problems we need to overcome now. And it's deeply rooted in a certain percentage of Americans. It's why that Dodge Ram sign says "It ate a luxury car."

In short, it is no longer a positive attribute, and maybe hasn't been for some time.

Another cultural issue (and this is one I'm guilty of) is the love of the road trip; the "don't fence me in" attitude. We tend to think it's part of the American soul but, in reality, it's more likely a product of the American cinema...these lusts (so to speak) need to be redirected if Americans are going to start looking at cars as actual utilitarian tools, and not wallet, sex appeal, and or body part extensions.

Hmm. Extensions. Maybe an SUV is like an extension -- a bad weave makes your hair fall out, and too many SUVs makes your auto manufacturers go under.

My muscle car was my all stock 1970 Camero (gold). It was the kind of car where when you floored it the acceleration caused you to sink deeply back into the seat. Seriously cool feeling. The fastest I took it up to was 135 on a two lane before I had to back off because I was running out of road -- not many long, straight roads in the mountains. I was also running it on bald tires so that was a consideration. By the way, have ya ever tried driving a car with two radials on the front and two regulars on the back? Did that from the Virginia to Utah and back. It kinda kept you awake.:-)

As to the crap that is under a modern car's hood, there is no doubt in my mind that the manufacturers intentionally made the stuff unreachable or unfixable just to get rid of the "shade tree" mechanic.
Yours,
Issodhos

Or, how about this guy, the Motorhead Messiah?

(OT)
Speaking of long straight roads and excessive power, do you remember the Legend of the Home-made Rocket Car? Well, here is the true story of the Rocket Car.

Very funny... Enjoy!