From the good old days of 2007…

“Is that yours?” Millions of car buyers spend billions of dollars hoping that this statement will be born of admiration rather than pity. When these words come out of a car dealer’s mouth at trade-in time, they can be especially hurtful– even if the salesman is as honest as their spiel is long. That’s the moment when most car buyers finally discover whether or not their automotive “investment” has walked off a cliff and fallen into the financial abyss known as depreciation.

Here’s how to avoid the freefall.

It simply can’t be stressed enough. Depreciation is the mother of all automotive operating costs. Even if gas soars to four bucks a gallon, depreciation STILL represents the biggest hit to the car owner’s wallet.

To wit: The average cost for a new car in these great United States currently hovers around $30k. After seven to eight years–  still a few years less than the ever-increasing average amount of time American new car buyers hold onto their whips– the car’s owner will be looking at a depreciation rate somewhere between 65 percent and 85 percent.

In other words, come trade-in time, they’re facing an average loss between $19,500 and $25,500. That’s before any considering of the “opportunity cost” (i.e. money lost by NOT investing the cash in a house/money market/alpaca farm). Or inflation.

Bottom line: if you want to avoid depreciation, forget about buying a new car… or even a near-new car.  Yes, a new car offers warranty-related peace of mind and late model vehicles can be purchased as certified pre-owned models. . But it’s an extremely expensive security blanket. A carefully-selected used car may need repairs. But in most cases, repairs of those expenses still cost a lot less than depreciation.

If you’re willing to forgo that new(ish) car smell, figuring-out your buying pattern is the next step. There are two basic buying types: Keepers (keep cars for the long haul) and Traders (trade them in after a few years).

Many Keepers are ready, willing and able to enjoy a vehicle for well over a decade. “Keepers” believe their car should be a cruising companion until the point where the perceived risk of owning it (usually the cash outlay for major repairs) outweighs the fact that ownership itself eventually costs them nothing/virtually nothing.

In the automotive world they are what we call “married.”

The key to being a successful Keeper: marry genuine quality, not reputation. Say what you will about “import bigots” and brand loyalty. The automotive market is a place where perceived reputation translates into dollars and cents.

Toyotas and Hondas routinely receive price premiums– even though many of their products fall far short in value and performance as compared to their peers. By the same token, overlooked or unloved models represent an excellent way to keep the hounds of depreciation at bay.

In most cases, car buyers get more bang for their buck (power, features, etc.), lower up-front costs, and lower depreciation costs simply by buying a used example of a less well known/accepted car. Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Buick– there are plenty of brands that sell excellent products that simply fail to capture the public imagination. The fact that these cars take a huge initial hit on depreciation works entirely in your favor, both buying and selling.

For example, if you’re looking at a midsized commuter, a 2004 Buick Century or 2004 Oldsmobile Bravada, both of which finished first in J.D. Power’s dependability study and received strong ownership ratings, will cost thousands less to purchase than a comparable Camry, Accord or Pilot. Remember: badge snobs must pay for the privilege.

The Trader is a different animal. They are looking at a shorter time horizon than the Keeper. They require a different strategy.

To avoid depreciation, Traders are best off buying a carefully vetted seven to nine-year-old car of their choice. At that point, depreciation has exacted the majority of its revenge.

With due diligence, Traders can get a superb return on their money. The average seven-year-old car kept for two years experiences minimal depreciation (20 percent or so). The average nine-year-old car experiences even less, and so on. It’s a simple but highly effective buying pattern.

And then there is the Sage. The Sage can buy nearly anything and make a buck at it. Yours truly has enjoyed hundreds of vehicles over the last few years– and it’s only taken huge chunks of my free time to do it. Mechanics, auto auctioneers, wholesalers, retailers and hobbyists will always have an edge when it comes to depreciation costs. We know what’s hot, and we know plenty of people who appreciate hotness.

Again, wisdom comes at a cost. Sages don’t pay for depreciation (much), but their insight requires years of hard work, money (mistakes are never free) and a feel for the auto biz’ cycles of fashion and fame.

Whether you’re a Keeper, Trader or Sage, remember: a car is an expense. It may excite you or be a daily nuisance, but it is still an expense. By minimizing depreciation you will avoid the single largest cost in the process. With that money you can save the world, buy groceries or save up for your next car.

The familiar wail of a police siren cuts through the chilly early winter morning air rudely snapping me out of a cold-induced slumber. Our minibus slows to a crawl as our minder winds down the window to wave his papers at a bunch of stern-faced traffic policemen.

The officer that checked the papers gave the 17 university students on the bus a once-over before waving to his partner to turn off the siren. It seems that a Toyota Coaster minibus filled with students is a rare sight in this part of the world.

Then I caught sight of a little round badge bearing the smiling face of the “Eternal President” Kim Il-Sung on the officer’s coat.

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” the voice in my head whispered.

Welcome to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), or better known as Communist North Korea.

In the capital city of Pyongyang, the roads are wide but not as empty as you might think. An eclectic mix of cars ply the six-lane dual carriageways, sharing space with run-down electric trolley buses and trams.

The most common car seen on the streets is the Romanian-built Dacia 1310. Most of them are part of the city’s taxi network though our minders were quick to add that these taxis are expensive to take and most citizens only take them as a last resort.

How expensive is an average cab ride?

According to one of our minders, Mr. Kim Mun-Chol, the fare upon flag-down is 3 USD and a 15-minute ride would set you back nearly 20 USD. The international exchange rate stands at 1 USD : 133.75 North Korean Won (KPW) but the local exchange rate is closer to 1: 100, presumably for easier rip-offcalculation. Foreigners are explicitly forbidden to use or even hold onto the local currency and are only allowed to deal in USD or Euros.

Most other Dacia 1310s seem to be private vehicles barely kept in running condition with homemade parts and the owners’ tenacious will to get by. I saw a local attempt to change a wheel on his Romanian love just outside the restaurant that we were about the have lunch at.

The pins holding the brakes together were roughly cut bolts that looked seemingly as if they were scavenged pieces of metal put together. The amount of welding done within the wheel well also hinted at the numerous repairs that have been performed to keep this car going in a country where getting spare parts is difficult to say the least.

Just as I was about to take a photograph of the man working, another of our minders appeared in front of my camera and said with an almost too cheery a grin: “This way please, we are having lunch here.”

He refused to budge till I entered the restaurant.

With housing issued by the state, where you stay is a poignant reminder of your social status. For the roughly three million citizens living in the city, they consider themselves amongst the fortunate ones in the country with barely acceptable access to electricity, food, and running water.

Whilst some struggle to keep their cars going, others indulge in conspicuous consumption with Mercedes Benz topping the unofficial chart of most popular marque in the city.

Mercedes of various models and age serve as the premium mode of transport for the rich and powerful. Parked right outside the Koryo Hotel, a North Korean rated five-star hotel where we stayed, is a fleet of presumably armoured S-Classes wearing the Red Star marked diplomatic plates.

And it is not just the stereotypical “dictator special” S-Class that is the mark of a made man here. More modern products like the GL-Class and the latest E-Class models are occasionally seen barreling down the road at speeds well above the legal limits with relative immunity from the local law enforcement.

For those just a few rungs beneath the top of the social ladder, Volkswagens, in particular, the Passat and Jetta are choice picks. Further down, citizens seem to shower their favour equally between locally made Pyeonghwa Motors products and Chinese-made Brillance, BYD, and FAW products.

The roads in Pyongyang are never packed enough to cause any real traffic jams and drivers mostly subscribe to the driving style of the right-of-horn. But that is not to say that they disregard lights at junctions. At the few working traffic lights in the city, drivers, regardless of how expensive the car they are driving, placidly wait out the change of lights.

At junctions without traffic lights, and there are quite a few in a city with hardly enough electricity to go around, there are female traffic police officers conducting traffic. One of our minders joked that these ladies are picked for their attractiveness and dedication to the job. Judging from the officers’ rosily made up faces, it seems that there is a seed of truth in his jest.

And as I wonder how these ladies keep traffic flowing all day while bearing the brunt of the sub-zero winter cold, our driver pulls into a petrol station to top up the tank. North Korea imports most of its oil from neighbouring China at “friendly prices,” said one of our minders and declined to elaborate on further enquiry. His carefully worded reply did little to prepare me for the biggest surprise of the trip.

Total fuel bill: 50 Won

The price of diesel is one Won per litre.

And I doubt the price of petrol is any more expensive.

The author was part of a team of 16 journalism students from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University chosen to tour the country from Dec 3 to 10 on a reporting practicum offered by the school.

The trip is fully funded by the Wee Kim Wee legacy fund.

All images courtesy: Wong Kang Wei & Edwin Loh

Brethren, we are once again gathered together to mourn the passing of another automobile company. Saab was of that rare breed of car that always had a band of devoted, aye, fanatical followers. In her prime, Saab could not fail to ignite the after-burners of anyone with a predilection to genuine character, speed, innovation, intelligence, and even sexy good looks (at times). Not bad for a company that never once designed a clean-sheet new engine and borrowed more platforms than Heidi Klum. But when you’re small and from Sweden, resourcefulness is essential: Saab finagled an existence in this brutal industry far longer than might have been expected.  But now she joins an august group of other fallen automotive heroes in Valhalla: Borgward, Panhard, Tatra, Kaiser, Glas, TVR, Jowett, etc…better that then whoring herself to another rich benefactor. But Saab’s story is worth retelling.

Forget the “Born From Jets” tag line; it was propellers anyway. And in actuality, Saab was born out of necessity, as so much else at the end of the war. We built the factory, now what do we do? Do what everyone else was doing: build a car. And how? Easier said than done. Contrary to endless attempts to prove otherwise, there’s hardly anything in common between the two. So where to start?

How about with this? Saab wouldn’t be the only ones looking to DKW for inspiration. And what a brilliant car DKW’s F9 prototype was, especially in 1939. A highly aerodynamic body and a two stroke engine driving the front wheels. The car of the postwar future. What’s not to like?

Initially, the sixteen Saab aviation engineers (of which only two had a driver’s license) assigned to the task  came up with something a bit more radical and avaition-like, as in all the openings in the car being stressed members, like airplane hatches. Not practical. So they scoured junkyards, and bought some new cars, including a DKW. The more functional end result, the 92001, or Ursaab, certainly pays homage to the F9 as well as their relentless pursuit of an even lower coefficient of drag.

The prototype was powered by an actual DKW engine and transmission, a two-stroke twin producing 18 hp. With an (ac)claimed Cd of 0.30, the 92001 undoubtedly made the most of that modest power. Or at least looked like it. And rarely has an automobile company (save VW) had a more iconic birth-mobile.

And like the VW, it was hardly original. But what car is? Originality is largely overvalued anyway. As with any birth, what counts is  the harmonious convergence of genes. And although the Ursaab was more fetus than progeny, it embodied the qualities that would hence define (real) Saabs: feminine, creative, intelligent, feline, eccentric, distinctive, progressive.

No wonder Saabs came to be embraced by those attracted to its inherent qualities, to the extent of being stereotyped as a college professor’s car. As limited as any such generalization ever is, that expression did mean something more once than today. Or did it? Is the Prius a college professor’s car?

Maybe it’s easier to define Saab’s intrinsic personality by contrasting it to that other Swedish car company, Volvo. The two are almost perfect complements. Volvo dates back to 1927, and its cars have traditionally been, well, traditional. Firmly embraced by the more conservative set, there is a saying that captures its place in the Swedish mindset perfectly: Volvo, villa, vovve (Volvo, house, dog). No wonder Volvo came to be famous for their wagons, like the legendary Duett.

Volvo’s all-new car for the post war era, the PV444, may have adopted a bit of hump-backed aero-pretense, but it was fundamentally a brick compared to the Saab. And built like one too: tough, masculine, conventional in configuration and execution.  A solid and reliable burgher.

Of course, it was a bit different in the States, where Volvo was one of dozens of import brands, and also came to be associated with college professors as well as engineers and parents with kids in Waldorf schools. But that’s all relative; and even in the US, Saabs were always one or two steps to the quirky side of Volvo. And which company is still around, even if owned by the Chinese?

After a few years of refinement and the deft hand of the gifted industrial designer Sixten Sason, the Saab 92 entered production in 1949. The DKW engine gave way to Saab’s own interpretation of it: 746 cc, 25 hp, thermo-syphon cooling, and a three-speed transmission with column shift.  Top speed: 64 mph (105 kmh). Time to get there: indeterminate.

The nattering two-stroke spewed a plume of blue smoke on acceleration, and blubbered on over-run. A bit ironic then, that the stinky,smoky Saabs were so favored by the progressive set. But the idea of two stroke was enthralling to certain minds. Only seven moving engine parts! Just the thing to brag about over chianti while listening to a jazz combo. Smugness is born from (ram)jets: No moving parts at all!

But two-strokes are very receptive to tuning. By 1952, a Saab 92 (now with 35 hp) brought home the first of many victories at Monte Carlo, copping the Coupe des Dames there, with Greta Molander at the wheel. A delicate foreshadowing of greater things to come.

The skirts were really lifted for the Sonett I, Saabs first tentative foray into genuine sports cars. Developed in a barn by a few enthusiasts, the Sonett had a 57.5 hp version of Saab’s new three-cylinder two-stroke. Weighing some 1300 lbs, this was a brisk little barchetta good for 100 mph, nothing to sneeze at in 1955. Racing would have been its purpose in life, had the rules not suddenly changed. Although only a handful were built, it was not forgotten. How could it be?

The Saab was thoroughly re-engineered for 1955, now called 93. The new three-cylinder yielded 33 hp, still feeding through a three-speed, with over-run. The first Saab to be exported, it arrived in the US just as the great fifties import boom was really getting under way. Yes, these are what I used to see as a kid blowing smoke around the University of Iowa campus, confirming their stereotype.

And one of the kids in my grade school class rode in one of these. His Mom was at least as good looking as this one. Although the Type 95 had a perfectly functional rear-facing third seat despite its compact dimensions, I preferred to sit in the second seat, directly behind her. The back of her neck smelled much better than the exhaust sucked in from the open rear window.

The definitive first-generation Saab was the 96, built for some twenty years, until 1980. A more in-depth write-up can be found here, but  let’s just say Saab was doing a VW during all those years, with the biggest change coming in 1967, when impending emission regs killed the two-stroke once and for all. Ironic too, that an American-designed engine would be the only thing to fit under the hood in front of the axle line.

The little 60 degree V4 was originally intended for Ford’s VW fighter in the late fifties, the aborted Cardinal. The car and engine were shipped off to Cologne, Germany, where the V4 and its six cylinder offshoot powered millions of Euro-Fords, before finding its way back home into millions of Explorers and such. And of course Saab 96s, where it was embraced with welcome engine mounts. A number of other engines had been tried, but the Ford was right-sized and right-priced. Just not right-sounding, as it’s nigh-near impossible to make a V4 sound like its not missing a cylinder or two. But for the 96, it just was just another continuation of its eccentricities: from engine blubbering to engine stuttering.

Saab carved out an impressive corner in the world of racing by sticking mostly to rallying, if not all four wheels. The high-performance GT 850 Monte Carlo two-stroke, and the later V4s racked up repeat wins at Monte Carlo and elsewhere, especially in the hands of the legendary Erik Carlsson.

The Sonett re-emerged in 1966, this time as a coupe and production-ready, with the US as the prime intended market. Making room for the V4 only challenged its intrinsically compromised lines further. It was one of the most eccentric sports cars ever, at least from a mass-producer of automobiles. There were plenty of British limited-production plastic-bodied weirdos then, but who ever actually saw a Fairthorpe or Berkeley Sport? Sonetts, yes. Better to be inside it than the other way around.

The attempt to smooth out its bulbous nose on the Sonett III was somewhat successful. But with arrivals like the cheaper and infinitely more powerful and handsome Datsun 240Z, the Sonett’s few buyers were serious Saabistas, especially since it had all of 65 hp. A Karman Ghia without the Italian styling. But this was no damensportwagen; it was a gnarly little troll, and its buyers were certainly not needing for public expressions of their virility.

By the mid sixties, Saab was now twenty years old, and ready to make its mark in the automotive world. It was an ambitious act, and the most defining one. As well as the last truly all-new all-Saab. The 99 arrived in 1967, ready to take up battle with the likes of the small BMW, Alfa Romeo Giulia, and of course Volvo’s also-new 140 Series.

Despite reflecting a more rectilinear world-view of the times, the 99 still cut through the air with a very respectable Cd of 0.37. It was roomy, handled well, had fine brakes, was comfortable, offered excellent traction, and was powered by…well, nobody’s perfect (except BMW, of course).

The engineering firm Ricardo had assisted Saab in developing its own four stroke engine, but it was going to be too expensive to finalize and put into production. So Ricardo put Saab in touch with another client, Triumph, that was just about to put its own new SOHC “Slant Four” engine in production. Saab once again did the (seemingly) expedient thing, and had engines shipped from England. It won’t come as a surprise to hear that this didn’t work out so well. By 1972, Saab started building its own improved version of the engine, now known as the B engine.

As is fairly obvious, Saab 99 and 900 engines were mounted “backwards”, with the output and clutch at the front, then feeding power to the transaxle mounted underneath the engine, although with its own oil supply. Mustn’t be too conventional.

In 1974, Saab added a sloping rear hatchback to both its two and four door 99s, creating the combi coupé, or Wagon Back, in Americanese. This became a defining aspect to most Saabs hence, or it least it seems that way. And it was remarkably roomy back there, thanks to the low floor height. It was the closest Saab got to building an actual wagon in a long time. Meanwhile,Volvo was churning out wagons by the boatload.

During the seventies, when American cars lost their mojo, Saab’s was very well intact, and growing. The 99 started out reasonably powered by European standards of the time, but that was just a starting point. Increases in displacement, fuel injection, and the sporty EMS model countered the trend convincingly. But the real kicker was the 99 Turbo, which blew a fresh and stiff new breeze upon the automotive landscape. And made indelible impressions on those who ever got behind its wheel.

At a time when Detroit V8s were making as little as 110 hp, the two-liter turbo four packed all of 145 hp. Sounds ridiculous now, but in 1978, it was a revelation. Especially compared to the BMW 320i, which had all of 105 hp. It’s all relative, and the Saab Turbo helped spark the whole turbo revolution. Soon Dodge Caravans would be proudly sporting turbo badges. The Saab 99 Turbo was a prophet of the eighties, as malaise gave way to yuppiedom.

The short-nosed Turbo 99 had a brief life, and is hard to find in the wild anymore. Replaced in 1979 by the 900 series, which featured a longer sloping hood to help meet US front impact standards. The (original) 900 probably defines the “Classic” Saab better than any other. Certainly more so than the Vectra-based neo-900.

Convertibles, and higher performance models, along with an ever-greater refinement in technology, 16 valve heads, electronic engine controls, and minor body tweaks kept the 900 going all the way to 1993. A remarkable 25 year run for the definitive Saab.

Well before the 900′s protracted demise, Saab knew it had to be replaced. But the complexities and costs of developing a brand new car was too much, so Saab joined hands with Fiat on the Type Four platform, that would constitute the Saab 9000 of 1984, as well as the very similar Fiat Croma, Lancia Thema, and the better disguised Alfa 164. A competent and roomy car, it was a bit more challenged in taking on the deeply entrenched and successful mid-sized premium cars like the Mercedes E-Series and BMW 5-Series. Buyers in this class were not so readily moved by the inherent advantages of fwd and a hatchback. A sedan version soon followed, but obviously the fwd was here to stay.

The usual progression of styling tweaks and performance updates tried to keep the 9000 relevant and attractive. The reality was that the 9000 was not a hit, and Saab was in a pickle. The 900 was aging quickly, and the 9000 was not producing the profits necessary to even contemplate successor cars for either of them. Saab’s ambitious push into the premium sector was stalled, and the nose was pointing earthward, precariously so. Time to bail out, or be bailed out. Where are the parachutes?

That GM would be the one to buy Saab was not a good omen. It was obviously a case of Jaguar envy, after Ford snapped up that equally desperate automaker. Undoubtedly, GM would have preferred BMW, but it kept saying nein danke! Everyone was getting into the Euro premium car game, and never being one to be left out, GM bit where it could. Who would have thought?

Thinking didn’t appear to be the primary factor; more like fear of getting left behind. That’s one of the most powerful decision drivers ever, usually for the worse. And how exactly was GM going to successfully manage another weak brand? At the end of the worst decade of its existence, when its own market share was imploding? In the usual way, by platform sharing.

Ok, but execution is the key, and Saab’s (unfortunately named) neo 900, riding on an Opel Vectra platform, was quickly seen for what it was: the future of Saab, for better and for worse. Saab now had access to capital, technology, and GM’s euro-V6 engine, but quality and genuine Saab-ness were sorely missing.

After five years of GM’s involvement and sanitizing, Saab finally showed an operating profit for 1995. It was not to be a regularly recurring feature. Not that it kept GM from buying the rest of the company in 2000; they were too committed by then not to. Welcome to the growing GM orphanage!

GM’s versatile 2900 platform was duly enlarged a bit to accommodate the long-overdue 9000 replacement, the awkwardly named 9-5. Like the 900, soon to be called 9-3, these cars had their virtues and vices, lovers and haters. You can duke that out yourselves, but what can’t be argued is that they failed to save the brand, in more ways than one. GM had the answer to that problem too: brand extension, the formula that also worked so well at Saturn.

Have we almost forgotten (or repressed) the Saaburu? Graft a Saab nose on the Subaru WRX, and it’s…just about the best Saab made in ages! Here was the true successor to the spirit of the real old Saab. Too bad Subaru had co-opted that decades earlier. Subaru probably mopped up more ex-Saab and Volvo drivers than any other brand.

And as appealing as the 9-2x might have been with GM’s crazy discount prices at the time, the ruse was seen for what it was: another pathetic joke in GM badge-engineering’s comedy club. Also known as the Improv.

That was just the warm-up act. The headliner was the 9-7. An Saab born from truck frames and V8s. Probably the best SUV of its kind GM ever built; what more can be said? Poor Saab, now a sex change operation in its old age. What next?

Nothing. Our Eulogy ends here, because if the true Saab was still alive to some extent then, the 9-7 was the final straw. Everything that happened since are the twitches and jerks of a zombie. And we’ve been well inundated with the antics surrounding it.

Many may well have enjoyed a genuinely positive experience with their 9-5s and 9-3s and such, but the level of Saab fanaticism in these recent months is remarkable. It seems to be a reflection of the times: I’m entitled to have Saab, because I’ve pinned my self-identification to it. I’m owed Saab.

I’d have been much happier to see Saab go to its inevitable grave twenty years ago, without the GM years and recent histrionics. Death is never a pretty thing, car companies included. We might have spent the past twenty years arm-chairing endless “what -ifs” and “could-have” scenarios. But its hard to imagine anyone coming up with a more bizarre outcome.

So will we spend the next twenty years debating alternative outcomes? Not me. Saab was an iffy proposition from the get-go, and there’s really no room left in the market for what Saab once embodied. Others have long plucked its remaining useful attributes and made them their own.

If there really was to be a true Saab born from airplanes today, it might look something more like this. And we all know how that turned out. Everything has a season, and Saab’s is well over.

 Thanks to Ingvar Hallstrom for the insights

 Paul Niedermeyer is the Editor of Curbside Classic, where every car has a story

The rise of the internet has had myriad effects on everyday life, not the least of which has been its profound impact on consumer behavior. With ever more data being made available online, and with the rise of independent alternative media outlets like TTAC, car buyers in particular are fundamentally changing their relationship to the car buying process. Dealers have been noting for some time that the internet has created better-informed buyers who, armed with more information, are demanding the car they want at the best possible price, wreaking havoc on traditional car dealer tactics like upselling and opaque pricing policies.

But as the eternal dance between supply and demand shifts in favor of consumers, some dealers and OEMs are having a tough time adjusting to the new reality. At the same time, the need to make money off of online consumer education has created some tension for the new breed of consumer-oriented websites. This conflict has now broken out into the open, as the auto transaction data firm TrueCar has found itself locked in a battle with American Honda over the downward pricing pressure created by more widely accessible transaction data. And the outcome of this conflict could have profound impacts on the ever-changing face of the new car market.

Early last week, TrueCar CEO Scott Painter took to the TrueCar blog with an “Open Letter To The Automotive Industry,” in which he argued

Our world is changing. Unprecedented access to information and a massive shift in consumer behavior has resulted in a challenging new automotive retail landscape. It has also enabled a consumer appetite for data transparency. To hide from evolving consumer behavior is to deny change. At TrueCar, we embrace this opportunity. We also believe that transparency is the centerpiece of trusting relationships. Some in the industry disagree.

And indeed, from personal experience I feel comfortable saying that TrueCar does provide consumers with some highly valuable information by tracking vehicle transactions from several data sources and publishing the range of transaction prices on a local level. This clearly helps consumers navigate the often opaque and confusing world of dealer-level pricing, and facilitates a more efficient interaction between supply and demand. And if that’s all TrueCar did, it would be impossible to argue with the valuable service it provides.

But in order to fund its business model, TrueCar cannot simply give away data and hope everything pans out for the best. In order to generate profits, TrueCar works with “dealer partners,” allowing them to present a lower “haggle-free” price for the model being researched at no upfront cost. If the consumer buys that car, TrueCar gets a $299 commission from the dealer; if not, the dealer pays nothing. Dealers can tailor these “guaranteed lowest prices” based on TrueCar’s data, and they seem to generally beat non-”guaranteed” prices in the TrueCar “price curve” display by only a few hundred dollars. But by offering this service to its dealer partners, TrueCar has opened itself to conflict with OEMs, as this fiscally-necessary service muddies TrueCar’s role as a pure consumer service. Which is where the conflict with Honda comes in.

In his “Open Letter,” Painter mentions no OEM by name, and TrueCar’s EVP for Dealer Development Stewart Easterby tells TTAC

 We’re not trying to pick a fight… we very much value Honda/Acura. We have strong OEM relationships through our recent acquisition of Automotive Lease Guide, and we have lots of people on staff who have work for OEMs, so we generally have strong relationships with the industry.

But in an Automotive News [sub] piece published on the same day as Painter’s “Open Letter,” the TrueCar CEO claimed that American Honda was warning dealers away from advertising below-invoice “guaranteed lowest” prices. After talking to American Honda, AN updated its piece, noting that it had

incorrectly reported that Honda singled out TrueCar.com when the automaker warned dealers that they would put their local marketing payments from Honda at risk if they offered prices below invoice on Internet shopping sites

In fact, what had happened was that American Honda had simply warned its dealers that any advertisement of below-invoice prices could jeopardize the marketing assistance money Honda sends dealerships. American Honda’s Chris Martin clarified the automaker’s position in an emailed statement to TTAC, noting

Dealers who wish to receive marketing funds are expected to adhere to certain guidelines that govern dealer participation in its Honda Dealer Marketing Allowance (DMA) Program and its Acura Carline Marketing Allowance (CMA) Program.  Among the many advertising guidelines to which dealers must adhere to in order to receive DMA/CMA Funds, Honda dealers are restricted from advertising new Honda vehicles at a price below dealer invoice plus destination and handling charges and Acura dealers are restricted from advertising new Acura vehicles at a price below MSRP plus destination and handling charges.  Such guidelines do not limit a dealer’s discretion to advertise a new vehicle at any price if the dealer is not seeking DMA/CMA Funds.  Furthermore, the dealer is free to charge customers any price it chooses, in its absolute discretion, for a vehicle.

Martin goes on to identify the central bone of contention:

The development of third party websites used for advertising is not any different than advertising pricing in a traditional newspaper or on TV.

And here, American Honda has something of a point. Whereas TrueCar’s price curve is a pure reporting tool, simply reflecting otherwise available data, it’s not entirely unfair for Honda to characterize TrueCar’s service to dealer partners as an advertising service. In practice, the only real difference between this service and any other form of advertising is that TrueCar only gets paid if a car gets sold at the “guaranteed lowest” price offered by one of its dealer partners. If you accept that reality, Honda has some very valid reasons for threatening to withhold dealer marketing assistance, as Martin’s statement explains

The function of these [DMA] guidelines is three-fold. First, it encourages dealers to use the advertising money provided by American Honda for interbrand advertising.  That is, rather than providing funds to dealers so that they can engage in discount advertising against other Honda and Acura dealers (which does American Honda and consumers no good), American Honda wants dealers to use the funds to promote the advantages of Honda and Acura vehicles when compared with competing brands. Second, discount advertising is detrimental to the Honda and Acura brand images.  American Honda has no wish to pay for ads that portray its products as “cheap” or “low-end” vehicles.  This may be appropriate for other manufacturers; it is not appropriate for the Honda and Acura brands.

So far, so reasonable. TrueCar’s service may be more palatable than the local, low-rent “Check Out Our CRAAAAZY Prices!” ads you see on TV, but in practice there’s little meaningful difference. Besides, the choice belongs to dealers: either accept Honda’s money with the inevitable strings attached, or throw in your lot with the new lower-price, but potentially higher-volume TrueCar (or CRAAAAZY Prices!) strategies. But with its third rationale for its policies, Honda strays from this reasonable territory, and betrays a distinct bias against TrueCar, arguing

Third, American Honda believes that much discount advertising is bait-and-switch advertising, which is not beneficial to the consumer and reflects badly on the manufacturer that condones it.  Dealers that advertise vehicles for extremely low prices (as some do on the TrueCar site) may engage in either direct bait-and-switch tactics or using the automobile’s brand name to sell expensive accessories, service contracts and the like.

Memo to Honda: these practices are as old as the auto industry itself. Suggesting that these tactics will never be used at dealers who toe Honda’s DMA line is just as disingenuous as the implication that TrueCar’s dealer partners are more likely to use them. If anything, TrueCar’s major sin is that it makes below-invoice advertising easier for the OEM to monitor and therefore squelch than in the pre-internet days, when consistently maintaining these DMA standards would have required a survey of every local publication and TV/radio broadcaster (not to mention direct-mail marketing), a task that no automaker was or is equipped to do.

But Honda’s apparent antipathy towards TrueCar is just the tip of a growing resentment towards the site. In a speech cited in the AN piece published last Monday, AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson expressed the angst that appears to be spreading across the auto retailing industry, especially in light of its recent deal with Yahoo [sub].

The good deal that they’re pitching to the consumer is lower than average. So to the extent that everyone goes with the TrueCar price, it moves the average down. It’s a death spiral, and the question is whether they are powerful enough to unleash that dynamic in the U.S. marketplace.

But Jackson’s implication, that TrueCar can essentially manipulate the market in favor of consumers, simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. On an abstract level, you can’t repeal the law the law of supply and demand. As Painter puts it

They’re trying to say Hondas are worth more than invoice, but if everybody’s paying less than invoice, that’s not true

More practically, however, TrueCar’s own data seems to refute the industry’s fears. Specifically, Easterby tells TTAC

TrueCar represents two to three percent of new car sales… we’re flattered that people think we’re influencing the market, but at that share, we clearly aren’t. The 21st C consumer demands transparency in all products and services, that’s what the web has done. TrueCar reflects the market, just as Zillow reflects the market for real estate, rather than determines it.

Even more importantly, Painter insists

Our goal at TrueCar is to foster healthier relationships between manufacturers, dealers and consumers through data transparency. To deliver on this promise, we require a high standard from our 5,800 dealer partners – an upfront competitive price and a commitment to a great customer experience. A discoverable upfront price is the cost of getting noticed. Contrary to popular concerns this does not create a “race to the bottom.” The lowest price only secures the sale 19.2% of the time within the TrueCar network. The sale is still won by location, selection and good old-fashioned customer service. [Emphasis added]

So where does this all leave us? Clearly Honda has the right to withhold DMA money from dealers violating its reasonable conditions on that money. By the same token, dealers have the choice of pursuing higher volumes with less traditional advertising by choosing the TrueCar strategy, or continuing to follow the time-honored tradition of collaborating with the manufacturer. And here, TrueCar’s price curve, which it says is not populated by dealer partner data but from independent, anonymized sources, becomes the killer app: it’s so good (reflecting a claimed 90% of all new car transactions), it can’t help but draw ever more buyers, who will then be exposed to its dealer partner “advertisements.”

Ultimately, it’s difficult not to conclude that TrueCar (and sites like it) won’t continue to draw ever more dealers away from the old DMA agreements, especially as online research becomes more important to the car-buying process and as traditional advertising dollars flow from TV, radio and print towards the internet. And if dealers and brands are sufficiently hurt by downward pressure on pricing, the alternative is always there. This is how competition works, and because TrueCar has more fundamentally aligned itself with consumers and the power of the market, it’s tough seeing them not coming out ahead in this struggle. And if they do, car buying could be changed forever. Again.

Today was the day Toyota’s FT86 was officially revealed. Actually, it will be officially revealed at the Tokyo Motor Show, which will open its doors to the public on December 3. Today, the international media had a sneak preview of the car. Us, and maybe 20,000 people who lined the galleries of the Fuji Raceway where Toyota and Gazoo Racing held its TGRF (Toyota Gazoo Racing Festival).  The masses could witness from afar as Akio Toyoda climbed out of an orange sports car, removed his helmet and waved at the adoring crowds.

The press corps had a chance to drive the car. That opportunity that was immediately turned into hoonery by a rough and tumble contingent from Australia. One of them drove the car with so much enthusiasm that it spun out , did a few twirls and had a near-miss with an Australian cohort. We immediately had proof that the car provided only the barest necessities in computer control, and that one has to know how to drive, unless a rendition of Swan Lake is desired.

Before we get to that, the essentials. The name of the car had been the target of endless speculation. Until yesterday evening, Toyota steadfastly referred to the car as nothing else than a “compact real-wheel-drive sports car.”

Some at TTAC had recommended that the car should get a Japanese name. Toyota listens to its customers and complied.

The car will be called “Hachiroku.”

This is Japanese and means 86.

Yes, Toyota simply dropped the “FT”. It also wants to carry on the spirit of the AE86 of lore.

For me, the most interesting part of today was to sit in a quiet room with Tetsuya Tada, and a handpicked group of journalists. (The man on the right is Hans Greimel of Automotive News.) We could listen to Tada’s comments about the car. We had talked before, in August, but this time, the Chief Engineer of the 86 could be less circumspect and was able to talk openly. He sure did. For starters, I learn that Toyota’s test drivers had given him a very hard time:

“Mr. Toyoda almost continuously participated in the development of this car. Not as President, but as a test driver. Usually, when they say that the president of a company is test driving a prototype car, then it is mostly ceremonial. Mr. Toyoda’s participation was not simply ceremonial. He was a serious test driver and had some pretty tough comments. In some phases of the development. he said: “If that is the best you can do, why not quit now.” One by one, we overcame these problems.”

In the grand scheme of things, Akio Toyoda had been polite. Stronger words came from Hiromu Naruse, Toyota’s chief test driver who found an untimely death by crashing his LFA into a BMW 3series on a rural highway close to the Nürburgring. Tada remembers:

“When Naruse-san was still alive, he participated in the tests many time and gave us some quite harsh comments, like: ‘This is a miserable car. You are doing very poorly.’

We tested this car at the Nürburgring. Naruse-san died very close to the Nürburgring, and each time we testdrove the car later, we made sure to pass by the memorial of Naruse-san. We tried to keep Naruse-san’s spirit  alive.”

One by one, the challenges thrown up by the test drivers were met. But there were other people, Tada had to contend with.

“We visited with car enthusiasts in Japan, America and Europe. The feedback we received was almost always the same. They said there are a lot of sports cars with high horsepower that are very fast, but these are not the sports cars that they want to have. They want small compact cars that are controllable, that they can tune themselves. However, that kind of sports car is not on the market. Therefore, these sports car enthusiasts are forced to continue to use older cars from a long time ago, because there is no new alterative on the market.”

Their requirements clashed with another group: Toyota’s board. The board wanted a car that goes faster than other cars. Tada’s colleagues at other car companies had to contend with the same problem:

“We also went to competitors and asked them: “Why do you focus on fast cars?” The response almost always was: ‘Actually, we really don’t want to develop these kinds of cars. But once we bring a plan to develop that car to our board, the first question the directors of the company would ask is: How much faster is that car compared to what the competition has? How many seconds faster around the Nürburgring? What about the acceleration? These questions always come up because numerical performance is the easiest to understand.

Now how did we get the permission from our board? The only reason was that among the directors, there was a person called Akio Toyoda, who is a car enthusiast himself.”

Tada not only had to convince a board that was fixated on numbers. He also had to do something highly risqué: Ditch the Toyota Way of developing cars:

“There is a Toyota standard for designing new cars. This standard was to a large extent ignored. Why did we do this? There are cars that are accepted by a lot of people. Practical cars that are easy to drive and that do not break easily. These are standard Toyota cars. The 86 is not a car like that. We had to change our design approach for this car. We may have to do this again for other cars.

It is impossible to develop a sports car that appeals to everybody. If you try to please everybody, the car would be half-baked for everybody, and not particularly good for anybody.  This car is not developed by a committee, or by consensus.”

And would you believe that even Toyota’s advertising department did not like the car?

“When we first presented this idea to our advertising people, they were drastically opposed to this idea. They complained that the car doesn’t have a particularly fast time on the circuit, it does not use any new technology. They also could not think of a catchy headline for the catalogue.”

Someone should have a chat with that advertising department.

The word of mouth enthusiasm for this car is so strong, maybe it doesn’t need any advertising.  Thousands of grassroots racers around the world are looking forward to a car they can tinker with.  Tada built it for them:

“To make the car customizable, we did away with computers to the highest extent possible. A lot of the cars on the market today are controlled by computers. People have the feeling that they are driven by the car instead of them driving the car. That makes for a boring experience. That is why we decided to go back to the basics of car making. With the low center of gravity, the driver now is in personal touch with the road again.”

How much will this car cost? This remains a state secret. All Toyota says is that it will be “affordably priced.” Asked what that means, Tada launches into a dangerous discourse, with his press handlers getting visibly nervous:

“30 to 40 years ago, there was an AE86, and the price of this car was 1.5 million yen. At the time, that was the starting salary was for a university graduate. We kept that in mind when we priced the car. In the meantime, there has been a rise in prices, and the starting salaries rose also.”

The starting salary of a university graduate in Japan is around 2.5 million yen. In today’s undervalued dollars, this would be around $32,000. We will have to wait until early 2012 when the car is officially released. There will be no pricing announcement at the Auto Show.

All the specs that are available can be downloaded here.

Ah, the test-drive.

I drove the same 86 the Aussie hoons pirouetted through a sharp turn. All I did was make the tires chirp. At a test drive, I like to return the car as I found it. It drove very nicely. It does not press you into the bucket seat with jet fighter g-forces. I am told it will do 230 km/h (143 mph) and will go 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) in 6 seconds.

Would I buy it?

Yes.

Haiti: Workhorses get a boost after earthquake

Norway: Volkswagens tough enough for extreme conditions
In Norway, cars are required to do one thing: work. Start in the morning by -30 degrees and not fail in the middle of a lonely snow-covered road in some remote part of the country… And that, Volkswagens and Toyotas can do, which is why they have dominated the models ranking in Norway over the last 12 years…

India: It’s all about Bollywood and Maruti Suzukis The Indian market is fascinating because: 1. Market growth is sustained and therefore a lot of models beat their volume records month after month, 2. The car landscape is totally unique with models designed specifically for India (Tata Nano, Toyota Etios…) and 3. They mostly speak English, so we understand them (if they speak slowly).

Many new Automotive Histories as well as updated and expanded versions of many of these articles below are at the author’s new Curbside Classic site here]

Industry

Detroit Deathwatch – The Prequel (Part 1: 1950s-1960s)

Detroit Deatwatch – The Prequel (Part 2: 1970′s)

Detroit Deathwatch – The Prequel (Part 3: 1980′s)

GM

Those Amazing Psychedelic Pontiac Ads by Fitzpatrick and Kaufman

Wild and Garish Cadillac V16 Concepts From the Sixties

Those Deadly-Glamorous Seville Conversions

The Cars of Bob Lutz: A Gallery of Winners and Losers

The Story Behind The Best Bob Lutz Photo Ever

The Birth of the Camaro

GM’s Suburbans: Celebrating 75 Years of Myth and Reality

Chevrolet Veraneio: Brazil’s Own Suburban

Mid-Engined Corvette Concepts

In Praise of the ’55-’57 Chevy

In Defense of the Corvair

Stunning Corvair Concepts by Pininfarina, Bertone and GM

Cadillac’s OHC V12 Engine That Was Almost Built

Pontiac – Part 1: 1926 – 1970 (2010)

Pontiac RIP: An Obituary

GM’s Branding Fiasco: Buick (Updated 2010)

GM’ Branding Fiasco Part 1:  Sloan’s Vision Betrayed (2007)

GM’s Branding Fiasco Part 2:  Chevrolet’s ADD (2007)

GM’s Branding Fiasco Part 3:  Pontiac Only Lived Twice (2007)

GM’s Branding Fiasco Part 4: Oldsmobile Pegs Out (2007)

GM’s Branding Fiasco Part 5: Buick, Fading Fast (2007)

GM’s Branding Fiasco Part 6: Cadillac Falls Down (2007)

GM Deathwatch 2752: Mistakes from the 1940s-1950s

Ford

Lincoln: Up to 1961

1972 Ford Carousel Concept: The Minivan’s True Father?

Ford’s Déjà Vu Moment, Part 1 (re: Donald  Petersen/1981 crisis)

Ford’s Déjà Vu Moment, Part 2

Ford’s Fox Platform Cars

Chrysler

Chrysler History: 1929 – 1979

Chrysler History: 1980 – 2007

Chrysler RIP: An Obituary

The Truth About Why Chrysler Destroyed The Turbine Cars

Book Review: Chrysler’s Turbine Car – The Rise And Fall Of Detroit’s Coolest Creation

Hemi Love: A Personal Retrospective on the Hemi

Other US Makes

Checker Motors

Vintage Checker Ads

Germany

The Birth of the VW Bus

VW Kübelwagen and Schwimmwagen

VW’s Stillborn Big Wide Car: The AmiWagen (EA128)

The Amphicar

1949 DKW Schnellaster: The Mother of all Minivans?

Mercedes 207D and other Vintage MB Vans, Small Buses and Campers

Tempo Boy – Three Wheeled Trucks And World Speed Record Holder

England

Bristol Coupes: The Ultimate Living Dinosaurs

The Jenson-Built Austin A40 and other Austins of the Fifites

France

The Remarkable Panhard

1968 Quasar Unipower: The Rolling Glass Cube

Italy

Ferrari Pinin: The Four Door Ferrari That Was Almost Built

Czechoslovakia

Illustrated History of Tatra

Tatra T613 and T700: The Ultimate Rear-Engined Sedans

Japan

TTAC Celebrates Forty Years of the Corolla

Honda’s Wild 9000RPM Mid-Engine 1963  T360/T500 Pickup

Subaru: The Scrappiest Car Maker Ever?

Vintage Subaru 360 TV Ads And Promo Film

Technology

Automotive Aerodynamics: Part 1

Automotive Aerodynamics: Part 2

Automotive Aerodynamics: Part 3

“If you’re going to do something wrong, do it big” (Jayne Mansfield)

Can you blame me for thinking of a certain larger than life blond bombshell of the era while looking at this big topless Buick? But then I said to myself, no, it’s wrong; been there, done that. But googling  to find the vital statistics of this Buick turned up the fact that Jayne Mansfield was killed in an Electra in 1967. Holy coincidence! Or did I subconsciously remember that? Whatever. So despite the risks, I’m forging ahead, hopefully for the best, because frankly it might be a stretch to write much about this overstuffed Buick. Like Jayne, it was meant to be looked at, not analyzed.

That was by Jayne’s own admission. She was acknowledged to be intelligent (she claimed her IQ was 163), spoke five languages, and was a classically trained pianist and violinist. Mansfield admitted her public didn’t care about her brains. “They’re more interested in 40-21-35″. And that first number eventually swelled to 46.

The Electra flaunted its size too, perhaps even more blatantly than Jayne. The Electra 225 first appeared in 1959, with the name a handy reminder to the public of how just long it was, in inches. That would be like Mansfield changing her name to Jayne 40-21-35. I never did find out just how long this ’67 model is, since Buick didn’t see fit to ever change its numbering, probably because the 1961 version was actually shorter than the ’59. Can’t have that; it would be like Jayne having breast reduction surgery. For what it’s worth though, the original ’59 Electra 225 would have been an even more fitting memorial to Jayne.

Vera Jayne Palmer was born in 1933, in Pennsylvania. Aged sixteen, she secretly married Paul Mansfield, and they moved to Austin, Texas where she studied dramatics at the University. She won several beauty contests there, with titles that included “Miss Photoflash,” “Miss Magnesium Lamp” and “Miss Fire Prevention Week.” The only title she ever turned down was “Miss Roquefort Cheese,” because she believed that it “just didn’t sound right.” A few years later, they moved to LA, of course.

I don’t know of any beauty titles the Buicks were winning, but they were mighty handsome in this period. Whereas the big Pontiacs were hard to beat up through 1966, by 1967 the Buicks were giving them a serious run for the beauty gold. In my book, this particular model year stands out as perhaps one of the best of the whole classic big car genre: huge and excessive, yes; but with just enough restraint to keep it from winning any “Cheesy Big Car” awards.

Jayne’s career was a mixed bag, kick-started by an endless stream of publicity stunts that all centered on exposing her mammaries to one degree or another. In a period of 18 months in ’56 and ’57, she appeared in 2500 newspaper photos and had some 122k lines of copy written about her breasts. There were numerous “accidents”, which made Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe failure” look like child’s play. She was smart enough to know which of her assets to leverage, given the times.

Unlike for Jayne, I do have SFW shots of the Buick’s ample rear. This would have made a perfect car for her to plant her tush on the rear deck for a parade: “Miss Magnesium Lamp”.

It wasn’t only men that checked out Jayne’s assets. These two pics are are the proof: Sophia Loren taking stock of the competition. Looks like she’s finally more than met her match. Nothing subtle here; neither Loren’s gaze nor Mansfield’s dress. This incident was actually another publicity stunt designed to upstage Loren at a dinner party in her honor.

But then some things never change.

Drop the top all the way on the Electra, and there’s two big cushy seats to run your hands over. Looks to me like these are vinyl though, not genuine mammal skins. And if you really feel like cozying up, just flip up that center arm rest, and snuggle away. There’s plenty of room for two to have fun, preferably if the car isn’t actually moving. Just the thing to park at the lake on a warm and starry summer night.What else is a big convertible good for?

I picked this picture for two reasons. It appears to prove that Jayne really did play the violin (right before her second marriage in 1958). But look at this simple fenced-in back yard pool and patio; it looks so middle class. It’s easy to forget how actually modestly paid the stars of the fifties were compared to today, and the impact a 90% top incremental tax bracket had. They almost seemed to live like mere ordinary people in 3,000 square foot ranch houses.

The Electra Convertible wasn’t exactly the most common middle class fare, but then it wouldn’t have been that much of a stretch either. Its list price of $4421 ($28k adjusted) was quite a chunk less than the next step up in GM’s convertible hierarchy, the De Ville, which went for $5600 ($36k adjusted). For that extra $8k in today’s money. you got the same basic car under the skin, but the Caddy name, prestige and a bit nicer interior. Performance wise, there was probably no real difference; Buck’s new 430 CID V8 was a 360 hp gem, and every bit as smooth and silent as the Caddy. Money well saved.

The times they were a changing, for both Jayne and big convertibles like the Buick. Their heyday was the the fifties; by the mid sixties they were both anachronisms. The platinum bombshell days were over in Hollywood, and Mansfield’s career steadily declined, until she was doing cheap magazine covers and playing nightclubs, and getting to them in a Buick Electra.

On June 28th, 1967, late at night near Biloxi, Mississippi, she met her grisly fate riding in an Electra sedan driven by a twenty year old. He plowed into the back and of a chemical tanker, shearing off the top of the Buick and Mansfield’s upper head. The since-mandated low bars attached to the back of all trailer trucks designed to prevent such an accident are commonly called Mansfield bars.

The big Buick convertibles, like the rest of GM’s big rag tops, were nearing the end of the line too. Less than 6k of these ’67s were made and within a few more years exposing their large private spaces in public became passé. Air conditioning and changing social values made folks want to ride inside, not outside; sitting out on front porches after supper went the same way too. But the joy of floating along in a big open-top deuce and a quarter is still as timeless as certain female attributes, as this owner will tell you. And if I’ve made a mistake co-mingling Jayne with this Buick, at least it was a big one.

More New Curbside Classics Here

]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/04/curbside-classic-1967-buick-electra-225-the-jayne-mansfield-of-convertibles/feed/ 42 http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/04/curbside-classic-the-best-european-car-ever-made-in-american-car-1965-corvair-monza/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/04/curbside-classic-the-best-european-car-ever-made-in-american-car-1965-corvair-monza/#comments Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:26:51 +0000 Paul Niedermeyer http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=353698

You wake despite the hope that you would never awake, in fear that the wildest night of your life with Corvair was all just a dream…ooops; never mind. But if a car ever inspired one to emote and wax poetically, it was the Corvair, especially the 1965. So I’ll try hard to restrain myself: the 1965 Corvair was the best European car ever ever made in America. And if that alone doesn’t explain the Corvair’s inevitable failure, lets just say that in 1965 Americans were eating a lot more Wonder Bread than baguettes.

I’ve been sitting on this gem of a Monza coupe Stephanie found parked in front of a small wood products mill in the industrial part of Eugene. Shooting it sure brightened a rainy day. It’s a brilliantly clean and timeless gem. I hadn’t planned on using it today, but then I realized how critical it was in telling not only the story of the Camaro’s existence, but also so much about why Detroit lost the war against the imports and eventually crashed.

I can’t do the Corvair’s birth and development full justice here, but it started out to be something quite different from how it ended up. Or did it? What arrived in the fall of 1959 was a terribly stripped little car, with a drab monotone gray taxi-cab interior, rubber floor, and totally devoid of chrome trim. Born in the depths of the 1957-1958 recession, the original 1960 Corvair lost its $4 sway bar and any pizazz to GM’s bean counters who wanted a cheap car to fight the VW Beetle and the Ford Falcon, and still make a profit. Given the Corvair’s complex alloy engine, that was already seeming unlikely.

But a rear-engined small car intrinsically offered great enthusiast potential, as Porsche had shown so convincingly. In fact a Porsche 356 was used as a test mule for the Corvair engine. The Corvair had great potential, but its intended mission in life was as confused as its buyers. The Falcon made a much better compact for most Americans’ needs in schlepping the kids and the groceries, and GM realized it instantly. The highly pragmatic Chevy II was rushed into production, and the Corvair was quickly dressed up with bucket seats, a higher output engine, and an available four speed: the Monza. Out of desperation and necessity, GM invented a new genre: the small sporty car; for American cars, that is. The Europeans had been chasing that for quite some time.

The fact that GM bean counters didn’t give the early Monzas that sway bar and other suspension upgrades that the Corvair’s father Ed Cole bitterly wanted every Corvair to have from day one is very telling, and perhaps the most significant aspect of the Corvair story and its failure to compete against the imports: GM perpetually elevated style and flash over substance. With just a few more bucks and a costless change to a faster steering ratio, the early Corvairs could have been as brilliant as they inevitably had to make the 1965.

Instead, the Corvair Monza’s real role in life was to inspire the Mustang, which elevated style over substance to a whole other level, resulting in a colossal commercial success. America’s brief fling with chasing the sporty imports ended before it even properly started. By the time Chevrolet sorted out the Corvair’s suspension and added some zest to its engine via turbocharging, the game was already essentially over, although Chevy didn’t quite realize it yet.

It assumed (hoped?) that Americans were much more in love with the Corvair’s inner beauty than its bucket seats and cute looks. Not so, as the Mustang made so perfectly clear. Who cared if the Mustang had a flaccid Falcon suspension, dull steering, mediocre brakes and a large percentage of them came with a feeble little six? Never underestimate the power of a long hood to create a fad, especially in America. A cheap V8 didn’t hurt either.

The Corvair, and the idea of what the Corvair could be, died on March 9, 1964. Within a few months of the Mustang’s introduction, Chevrolet rushed the Camaro into production, and halted any further development and marketing of the Corvair. And so the brilliantly styled and refined 1965 appeared that fall as an unloved orphan, or even worse, as an abortion.

I’ve always been torn about my feelings for the gen1 and gen2 Corvair. Let’s just say that my first car was a white ’63 Monza with the optional higher output engine and with a four speed stick. And I’ve always regretted not finding a barn to keep it for my old age. So I’ve got a bit of a built in bias, to Corvairs in general, and the gen1 in particular. It’s hard to be objective about  the first real car love of your life.

Of course the ’65 and up was the better car, with its new Corvette-sourced non-swing axle IRS and faster steering ratio. Styling wise is where it gets hard. The ’65 is certainly a brilliant design, so light and airy and almost timeless. But for reasons that go beyond having one, I’m also deeply emotionally involved with the original 1960 design. It was the more radical of the two, for its time anyway; the 1960 Corvair was a an utter bombshell when it was shown in Europe, and created a styling revolution there whose influence was all too obvious well into the nineties.

Ironically, the gen1 Corvair’s styling is not as highly praised in its home country as the 1965, which in turn had very little effect on Europe. Among other things, that may well be because four doors are much more common in Europe than coupes, and the 1960 four door was so superb and worked even better than the coupe, whereas with the 1965 was the opposite: the four door didn’t work well at all. To each their own: they’re both some of the best to ever come from the Bill Mitchell era at GM, and will go down in history as classics.

The 1965 Corvair handled unlike anything ever made in the US up to that time. I had the pleasure to whip a friend’s 1965 Monza coupe just like this one through the back roads of northern Baltimore County on more than one occasion, and I’ll relive them, curve by curve, forever. And  his had the wretched two-speed automatic. Whatever; Corvairs, except the higher output Spyders and Corsas, were pretty much a stand-on it proposition anyway. Ok, I’m rationalizing; the Powerglide sucked big time. But even it couldn’t diminish the pure joy of setting up the Monza in each curve, harder and deeper each time. In those days of flabby power steering, there was nothing finer than the unassisted steering on a rear-engined car, especially with the ’65′s faster ratio.

I had flung my old ’63 through several hundred miles and several thousand curves of a deserted Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway in the late fall of 1973, and it never once tried to bite me. Having the right tire pressure was the key, as well as understanding how a swing-axle rear engine car will react if you hit the brakes in a curve. While the ’63 would dance if you knew how to lead properly, the ’65 was a trained pro. It made anyone with a half-way decent touch feel like they were Dancing With The Stars. And unlike the earlier ones, it was never going to give you a push for stepping on its toes.

It’s easy to forget one of the Corvair’s finest but most overlooked virtues: braking. In that era of pathetic little drum brakes on front-heavy conventional cars, the overworked fronts always overheated and faded, and the rears locked, as what little weight was on them shifted forward. The Corvair, like any rear engined car, almost perfectly weighted its brakes evenly, as its rear weight shifted forwards. That alone was worthy of an Eureka! moment the first time one fully experienced and appreciated it.

So what happened to the Corvair faithful, the true lovers of the fine art of Dancing With a Car? They discovered the BMW 1600/2002. Or maybe the Datsun 510, if they couldn’t afford the baby Bimmer. Or something else; but whatever it was, it wasn’t very likely to come from Detroit in any case. The 1965 Corvair might have been the last chance for GM to keep a critical and influential segment of the market. I say might, because it probably wasn’t in the wind anyway. The breezes blowing from Europe and Japan were becoming stiff gales, and it would have taken a hell of an effort to head them off. The Corvair was left to wither on the vine, and the Vega sure as hell wasn’t it; pissing into the wind never was a particularly smart thing to do.

The Corvair was just the innocent canary in the mine, and it’s croaking was inevitable. Americans wanted a Camaro, even if it was the antithesis of the Corvair: lousy brakes, heavy or over-assisted steering, terminal understeer, rear axle hop under acceleration and braking, etc.. But it had that long hood and big, cheap V8s. The Big Gulp trumps a Perrier. Good times too, once you do some work on that mono-leaf rear end, put on some proper brakes, and some shocks, and…well the Camaro eventually got there, more or less. But certainly not to start with.

Its an irrelevant issue now; old history. The Corvair lived in an era when cars were still all imperfect, unlike today. And it had its shares of imperfections too. But the few things it did well made it stand out head and shoulders from the (American) pack. And those very qualities that it excelled in are ones we take for granted now. The Corvair was way ahead of its times, calling out from the wasteland; but then prophets are rarely appreciated in their time.

More New Curbside Classics Here

Welcome to Havana, Oregon. Back in the eighties, living in tony Los Gatos, I used to gaze longingly at photos of old American cars and trucks still hard at work in Cuba. But within days of moving to Eugene in 1993, I came across this very truck, hauling its daily cargo of recycled cardboard. And it planted a seed in me, to document the old vehicles still earning their keep, which finally came to fruition with Curbside Classics. Although we’ve strayed from the strict interpretation of that mission a few times along the way, no other vehicle more perfectly embodies the original ethos than this 1956 F-350.

I’ve seen this rolling relic coming and going all these years, and tried to catch it since starting CC, even searching futilely in the Yellow Pages for “B&L Recycling”.  But on our daily walk yesterday, there it was, with its owner loading up a week’s worth of cartons from Cafe Zenon. After a hard first twenty-five years as a farm truck, since 1979, “Gus” has been earning a living for owner Mike McCool, hauling cardboard to be recycled at the local pulp mill five and six days a week, year in and year out.

Let’s get the preliminaries out of the way first: either you “get” Gus and his owner, or you don’t. If you do, you can skip this paragraph. If not, I’m not sure I can change your perspective, but at least give Mike the credit that every aspect of his truck and his life’s work is deliberate. That goes for his precarious-looking load in the back: he’s been at it so long, he knows exactly what it’s doing; hasn’t lost one yet in thirty years. Mike’s hardly some marginal or pathetic character to either pity or wish the hell he’d get his battered eyesore off the road. He’s a successful independent small businessman who’s found a niche that allows him to make a reasonable living while living his passion for recycling. And keeping old things running forever.

It’s a way of life that I can relate to, even if I chose not to live it quite to Mike’s level by a long shot. Although my similarly battered ’66 F-100 isn’t getting worked as much anymore as it was during my old-house moving and rebuilding days. Let’s just say Mike and I share at least an old Ford truck in common, and we hit it off. He was happy to show me the various tricks employed to keep a fifty-five year old truck running happily, like the original oil-bath air cleaner that never needs replacing. He did just mount an alternator to the old 223 cubic inch six, and recently splurged for some new custom-made 16″ front wheels to replace the 17″ split rims that are such a pain. After he’s amortized that rare and pricey investment, he’ll buy some for the rears too. Finally having radials on the front were like suddenly getting power steering. I know the feeling.

Lest I forget, Mike did rebuild the engine after he first bought it in 1979. Burning a quart of oil every hundred miles was a strong incentive. He used high quality parts, and it’s still running strong. The 223 six started life in 1952 as the 215, Ford’s first modern OHV engine. It developed a rep as a rugged work horse; but then that pretty much applied to all of Detroit’s sixes back then. It’s definitely the way to go if maximum reliability and minimum upkeep are high on the priority list and V8 power isn’t. Gus sticks to the surface streets, and the six purrs contentedly.

These old American trucks used a healthy grade of steel throughout. They come from a time when American trucks were still exported throughout the world, as paragons of durability, power and utility. And it really isn’t hard to keep them on the road pretty much forever. Except for some rust on the lip over the windshield, Gus is good to go for…as long as Mike wants him to.

Although it may seem that Mike lives in a world a bit different from ours, he’s actually as or more intimately connected to world affairs and the global economy than most of us. The global price of cardboard fluctuates dramatically, based obviously on the demand for cartons to ship the world’s products, especially from China. Having weathered a crash in the price down to $5/ton in the worst months of the recent recession (living debt free and cheaply made it possible), its recently jumped dramatically to $70. Not exactly back to the all-time highs of $110 a few years back, but that’s probably a good thing. According to Mike’s cardboard price index, the recession is quite truly over. But he’s not running out to buy a new truck. Enough chatting; Mike and Gus have work to do.

More new Curbside Classics here

]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/04/the-ultimate-curbside-classic-1955-ford-f-350-still-hard-at-work-six-days-a-week/feed/ 48 http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/04/an-illustrated-history-of-checker-motors/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/04/an-illustrated-history-of-checker-motors/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 17:33:28 +0000 Paul Niedermeyer http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=352626

[Note: Three related Checker posts: 1967 Marathon Curbside Classic; Vintage Checker Ads; and Tomorrow's Checker? Also note that these pictures were found at a variety of sites, but it appears that the original source for most of them were posted on this Flickr account by Drivermatic. Thanks for the superb photographic resource!]

For sixty years, Checker Motors had a record unbroken run of profits building a few thousand cars per year in a small little factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In 1981, it posted its first loss, $488,326, and its owner made good on his threat to stop production of the iconic Marathon if his workers didn’t accept wage concessions. But Checker continued to stamp out body parts for GM into 2009, including for the Buick LaCrosse. The Carpacolypse of 2009 finally shuttered the ancient plant, but no need to shed a tear for the original owner’s son, David Markin: his wealth is estimated at over $100 million. And it was all due to a shrewd investment of $15,000 that his father made in 1920, which put him in the driver’s seat of Checker Motors. Let’s take a ride through Checker’s history. Taxi!

To understand the origins of Checker, one has to know that the taxi business was once very different than now: two or more companies competed fiercely in each city for the growing and lucrative business in those days. If you want the remarkable details of shady deals, graft and stock manipulation that created the two largest cab companies, Yellow and Checker, head over to coachbuilt.com‘s very detailed history. A slightly less detailed but also excellent Checker history is also at checkertaxistand.com. Lets just say the upshot was that Checker Cabs wanted a custom built taxi, and somehow the son of a poor Russian tailor, Morris Markin, cleverly managed to manipulate himself (and some stock holdings he managed to get revalued) in the position to provide it, the first Checker Model C of 1922.

It’s important to remember that in the twenties, there were dozens of small car manufacturers, so in its early days, Checker’s scale wasn’t at all unusual. And the factory instantly became a profitable enterprise. And Markin expanded his holdings with Checker stock and profits including some large taxi operating companies and in later years truck trailer building (Great Dane) and other businesses.

During this period, taxis competed on prestige, size and comfort, as most working folks stuck to taking the streetcar or bus. The Checkers from the late twenties were large handsome cars, and as in the old coach-built tradition, often had a rear roof section that could be lowered in nice weather, as much as to be seen as to see.

Checker styling started becoming a bit adventurous in the thirties, but the the full degree of that was still a few years off.

As always, Checkers were designed specifically for the job, both in their layout and rugged construction.

The all-new 1939 Model A feature a highly bizarre front end whose only redeeming feature was that it was recognizable from half a mile away. The debate who designed it is still unresolved, but actually, from the front end back, it was a quite a conservatively styled sedan with a highly unusual feature.

It had a remarkably advanced (and patented) optional steel rear laundalet roof section that could be lowered as seen here.

Rather unusual for such a small company, Checker ambitiously explored advanced designs during the forties, including this one-off rear-engined prototype. Looking all the world like a giant Fiat 600 Multipla, it was probably for the best that it was not developed further.

But a FWD prototype, with the straight six in a transverse arrangement was built and seriously considered. This is the first I’ve seen or heard about this, and its quite a remarkably advanced design for the times, looking much more French than Kalamazoo. Technical difficulties with the FWD transaxle killed it, probably for the best in terms of preserving the Checker reliability reputation.

The conventional new A6 of 1946 had traditional styling, and with minor retouches, was the iconic cab of the post war era.

Like the legendary later Aerobus, Checker was building extended wheelbase vehicles in the forties, like this six door, twelve passenger wagon. These were the shuttle buses of their day.

In 1955, an all new Checker was developed in their advanced styling sudios (a corner of the factory partitioned off with drapes). The new A8 was designed to meet Manhattan’s new taxi regulations, and featured independent suspension on the front for the first time. Not that it made the Checker famous for its ride, however. The suspension engineering department lived in the janitor’s closet.

Interior space was always the highlight of the Checkers, and the Marathon’s tall roof, totally flat floor and two folding jump seats meant that up to five patrons could be accommodated in the rear compartment alone. Guess who got the jump seats? The pretty young lady. Beats sitting in the guys’ laps, anyway.

There’s a treasure trove (143) of vintage Checker photos that have been posted at this Flickr account, the source of many of the pictures here, including an extensive tour of the Checker factory led by this charming and knowledgeable woman, who here is pointing out the finer details of Checker’s legendary frame, the source of its ruggedness and flat floor.

The six and eight-door Aerobuses were the stuff of legends in their day. Unlike today’s stretch limos with their cut and welded frame extensions, these long boys sat on a completely unique and specially designed frame, and enjoyed a high degree of structural integrity.

Not surprisingly, the rugged Checker frame lent itself well to custom coachbuilding, like this Swiss ambulance. It was the Checker’s taxi cab image that probably kept it from more success in the US as a limo and hearse source. If folks couldn’t afford a Cadillac while they were still alive, they at least wanted to ride to their graves in one.

Checker also made an extended body sedan, and pushed it as a limo alternative, including versions with padded roofs and even an opera window. But time was moving on, and the garish seventies made the Checkers look like stale bread.

Checker Motors operated most profitably with an annual production of 6-8k cars, but after 1970 that became increasingly difficult, due to major markets like NYC loosening their taxi regulations to allow conventional sedans to operate. They were obviously cheaper for the Big Three to build, and the fleet dumping practices of the seventies was Checker’s coffin nail as a producer of cars. In 1981, Checker had its only posted loss after some sixty years, having survived the Depression profitably, if on a smaller scale.

Former GM President Ed Cole bought 50% of Checker for $6 million and began plans to build a completely new car for a new era. His first prototypes were based on lengthened VW Rabbits, but his death at the controls of his personal airplane ended that. But some work continued based on his ideas, and utilizing GM’s X-Body (Citation) FWD drivetrain and a solid rubber rear suspension spring. Checker founder’s son David Markin was more interested in tennis than new adventures, and it all came to naught.

But Checker continued to build parts until 2009, when the downturn finally swamped them too. The little factory that hummed away for almost ninety years has been razed, leaving just the footings to mark where one of the more unusual automotive stories played out.

[Note: This piece first ran in May 2007. It seems particularly relevant again in light of the current Toyota unintended acceleration (UA) situation. But please note that the circumstance that caused the Audi UA may, or may not be very different, depending on the circumstances. In the early eighties, electronic gas pedals and complex engine controls and other interfaces such as with ABS/brakes were still on the horizon. Nevertheless, the rules of physics have not been repealed. And an unknown percentage of Toyota UA events undoubtedly are the result of pedal misapplication. Audi's near collapse in the American market after this incident remains a painful lesson in the power of the media, the slowness of the NHTSA, and the critical PR choices manufacturers make in the wake of a crisis like this. PN]

When I first heard about the Audi “sudden unintended acceleration” segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes in 1986, I knew instantly that they were blowing smoke. Literally.

Some years earlier, I was part of a TV crew shooting an educational program. Legendary race-car driver Parnelli Jones was the guest celebrity one day. The producer offered to take us to lunch in his 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. Three or four of us hopped into the giant back seat. Parnelli took the wheel, and the Caddy owner/producer rode shotgun.

Parnelli fired up the Caddy’s giant V8, dropped it in gear and floored it – with his left foot on the brake. One of the rear wheels lit up in a screeching howl, and the car was soon engulfed in a cloud of acrid smoke. The Caddy didn’t move an inch; obviously. And neither did Parnelli, glancing at the wincing producer with his wicked grin. he probably burned off half the rubber of that tortured tire before he stopped grinning and gunning. I had assumed (wrongly) that race-car drivers grew up eventually.

The experience seared in a lesson in basic automobile physics: brakes are always more powerful than engines, even when they have 500 cubic inches (8.2 liters). Too bad we didn’t have our cameras running; we could have made a graphic rebuttal to 60 Minutes’ fraudulent destruction of Audi.

Let’s set the scene: it’s 1984, and Audi sales had shot up 48 percent on the strength of their new aerodynamic 5000, the latest hot weapon in the perpetually-escalating suburban driveway status war. It was a stunning slick piece, and Audi was on a roll.

Suddenly, the war turned bloody. Moms in runaway Audi 5000′s were mowing down their little kids in the driveway and pinning granny against the far garage wall with the four-ringed front of the Audi.

This had never happened with the Olds Cutlass Supreme Brougham Coupe, the previous “hot” suburban car Mom traded in for her Audi. The German car certainly felt different. Unlike the Olds’ wide push-bar brake pedal – that some Americans still operated with their left feet – the Audi had that weird, small brake pedal, set kinda’ close to the gas pedal.

And these Audis had a mind of their own. No matter how hard Mom pushed on the brake pedal, the Audi kept on charging, right through the garage door with granny on the prow. This despite the fact that the little five-cylinder mill only cranked out 130 horsepower. And the top-notch four-wheel disc brake system probably could generate well over 600 equivalent horsepower.

Apparently, the brakes were failing at exactly the same moment that the gas pedal decided it had a mind of its own. Perfectly plausible, at least to the 60 Minutes crew, the Audi (non)drivers, and much of the media and public.

About as plausible as ignoring the police report of the most dramatic victim on the show, Kristi Bradosky, who ran over her six year old son. That report said “Bradosky’s foot slipped off the brake pedal onto the gas pedal accelerating the auto.” Denial isn’t just a river.

Ed Bradley’s 17 minute “investigative report” aired on November 23, 1986. Between interviews of the teary-eyed “victims” (drivers) of unintended acceleration swearing their feet were on the brake pedal, CBS showed a clip of a driverless Audi lurching forward on its own.

Viewers didn’t get to see the canister of compressed air on the passenger-side floor with a hose running to a hole drilled in the transmission. An “expert” had rigged the Rube Goldberg device to shift the big Audi into drive and, like any automatic-equipped car, move forward (unless the brakes are depressed).

The clip was blatantly deceptive AND totally irrelevant. Nobody claimed driverless Audis were taking off and killing kids and grannies. Mom was always at the wheel, pushing the 5000′s “brake” pedal with all her might.

In 1989, after three years of studying the blatantly obvious, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued their report on Audi’s “sudden unintended acceleration problem.” NHTA’s findings fully exonerated Audi and some other implicated foreign makes”.

The report concluded that the Audi’s pedal placement was different enough from American cars’ normal set-up (closer to each other) to cause some drivers to mistakenly press the gas instead of the brake. 60 Minutes did not retract their piece; they called the NHTSA report “an opinion.”

(Update: Audi and many manufacturers quickly added an automatic transmission interlock, making it impossible to shift into drive or reverse without a foot on the (real) brake.)

A flood of lawsuits was already washing over Audi, not to mention a tsunami of bad publicity. Audi took a questionable stance: they didn’t blame the drivers for the problem, even after the NHTSA report came out. Hey, the customer’s always right, and we sure wouldn’t want to make our American customers look stupid. Anything but that.

So the German automaker took it on the chin. Audi sales collapsed, from 74k units in 1984 to 12k by 1991. The timing added insult to injury; sales fell exactly during the same years when Lexus arrived to battle for the hearts and wallets of America’s up-scale consumers. Lexus quickly became the latest suburban driveway prestige symbol.

As a final kick to the near-corpse, Audi’s suddenly wanna-be-Lexus drivers launched a class action suit charging lost resale value. No wonder the brand almost abandoned the U.S. in 1993. It’s a killer market.

Here’s TTAC’s and the web’s only complete guide to Toyota’s gas pedals (so far), with tear downs, pictures, analysis, explanation, the shim fix, and commentary, all consolidated into one portal:

Part 1: Exclusive: TTAC Takes Apart Both Toyota Gas Pedals: Tear down of both the recalled CTS pedal assembly and the non-recalled Denso pedal assembly. Note: Assumptions and conclusions in this initial tear down lack the more complete understanding of the importance of the friction arm aspect of the CTS unit.

Part 2: Toyota Gas Pedal Fix Explained – With Exclusive Photos: Describes Toyota’s proposed fix for the recalled CTS gas pedal assembly, with detailed photos and graphics. Explains the significance of the friction arm assembly and its limitations.

Part 3: Toyota Gas Pedal Fix Simulated – Friction Reduced, By Too Much?: TTAC simulates the fix prescribed by Toyota for the recalled CTS pedal assembly, and notes how the fix changes the degree of friction, and the possible unintended result. With detailed pictures

Part 4: Why Toyota Must Replace Flawed CTS Gas Pedal With Superior Denso Pedal: Detailed analysis with pictures of the two pedal assemblies, an explanation as to why the Denso design is superior, and a call for having all CTS pedals replaced with the Denso pedal.

Part 5: TTAC Does The Toyota Pedal Shim Fix:  Stop Gap Solution At Best: Toyota’s solution is carried out here with detailed pictures, the whole Toyota document detailing the fix, and our commentary.

Part 6: Toyota Floor Mat/Gas pedal Recall Includes Computer Reflash And Trimming Of Gas Pedals: Info on the details of the floor mat/gas pedal interference recall.

Part 7: Toyota Recall  Creates Unintended Accelerator Consequences: As predicted in Part 4 (above), the CTS shim fix reduces the carefully designed amount of friction required for comfortable and smooth pedal action to the point where pedal action may now be jerky and potentially unsafe.

(Thanks to you-know-who-you-are for access to these parts and info)

At the Wednesday press conference in Tokyo, Toyota slipped in the remark that they “will more actively use on-board event data recorders, which can, in the event of a malfunction, provide information necessary for conducting such activities as technological investigations and repairs.”

This remark was widely overlooked. It should not have been.

Five days before, the Wall Street Journal had written:

“The safety problems that have engulfed Toyota Motor Corp. are focusing renewed attention on one of the most controversial components in an automobile: the black box. The box, officially called an “event data recorder,” is a small, square, virtually indestructible container akin to those found on commercial airplanes. Tucked inside the dash or under the front seats of most newer vehicles, it records vehicle and engine speeds as well as brake, accelerator and throttle positions and other data that can help determine the causes of accidents.”

If there would have been such a black box in the Toyotas that had crashed, it would have been easy to read out whether the foot was on the gas or on the brake. Guess what: Toyota has this box. It had been in many of the crashed vehicles, says the Wall Street Journal:

“Toyota, like Japanese peers Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., has a proprietary black-box system, and it says the data it collects isn’t intended or capable of accident reconstruction because it is only recorded for a short duration—about one second. The system mainly monitors the performance of a vehicle’s safety devices, such as air bags, seat belts and, in some cases, throttle application. Toyota says there is no rule or legislation that requires otherwise until a new NHTSA rule comes into effect later in the decade.”

One would think that Toyota is pouring over the contents of its data recorders to prove that nothing more serious than a loose carpet or a missing metal shim creates mayhem in their cars. Instead, Toyota seems to have strange troubles with its proprietary system, as chronicled by the Wall Street Journal:

- On Nov. 27, 2009, 55-year-old Barbara A. Kraushaar drove through three Auburn, NY, downtown stoplights at high speed and crashed into another vehicle, killing its driver, Colleen Trousdale. Says the WSJ: “According to the Auburn police, an investigator from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration arrived in town and took the Camry’s data recorder, saying he planned to take it to California, where Toyota has its U.S. headquarters, so their expert could download the data.” Auburn Police never heard from Toyota, says the WSJ. Also “NHTSA didn’t reply to requests for comment on the Auburn incident.”

- “In 2007, Bulent Ezal was pulling into the parking lot of a cliffside restaurant in Pismo Beach, Calif., when his 2005 Camry surged, went over the bluff and crashed on rocks 70 feet below. Mr. Ezal, 75, survived, but his wife, who was in the passenger seat, was killed.” Police could find no mechanical fault, and concluded that Ezal was at fault. Ezal’s Lawyer, Donald Slavik, has been trying to get data from the car’s black box for nearly three years. He was told by Toyota that the data would only be provided if Mr. Slavik got a court to order the company to do so. Later, Toyota told the lawyer “the data in the black box was unusable.”

- “On Dec. 26, Monty Hardy, 56, was driving three passengers in his 2008 Toyota Avalon on Lonesome Dove Drive in Southlake, Texas, when the car ran through a stop sign at about 45 mile per hour, crashed through a fence, struck a tree and landed upside down in a pond, according to a police report. All four occupants were killed… After the crash, investigators from NHTSA and Toyota’s black-box expert flew to Texas to join police in searching for the cause of the accident. They found the black box in the car covered in muck from the pond. According to police reports, the Toyota investigator tapped into the box and said the only data it contained was the difference in the speed of the car immediately before and after hitting the fence and the tree.”

- A black box was in the 2009 Lexus ES350, driven by Mark Saylor, a 45-year-old California Highway Patrol officer. He and three members of his family were killed when their vehicle hit speeds exceeding 120 mph and crashed. The 911 call made by one of the family members was on all the airwaves. In an answer to the questions of the LA Times, Toyota said :“Toyota agreed to perform a readout of the EDR in the Saylor vehicle. In the presence of representatives of all interested parties and the Sheriff’s department, Toyota attempted to perform the readout as agreed. However, due to the extensive damage to the EDR unit from the crash, it was impossible to perform a readout.”

Is the black box technology in such an early stage of development that there is only one prototype readout tool, as Toyota said to the LA Times, and that it is so hard to retrieve conclusive data? Thetruthaboutcars.com asked an interested reader with 20 years experience in automotive safety components and recall investigation to give us an update on the state of the black box art. Here is his report:

Event Data Recorder Access: What Is Toyota Hiding Behind Its Black Box?

For almost a decade, the increasing sophistication and interconnectedness of the electronically-controlled devices and systems in passenger vehicles has offered the opportunity to collect and store ample data for post-crash accident investigation.

Since the late 1990′s, individuals have participated in DOT-sponsored workgroups with the aim of developing industry guidelines (e.g. IEEE & SAE) for and advising government rule-makers on EDR-related topics. Represented were the US and Canadian governments, EDR suppliers, universities, the insurance industry, and certain OEM’s, among them GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, VW, Honda and Toyota.

According to an August 2001 report from the workgroup, “The results of a NHTSA-sponsored engineering analysis show that EDR data can objectively report real-world crash data and therefore be a powerful investigative and research tool, by providing very useful information to crash reconstructionists and vehicle safety researchers. Due to significant limitations however, EDR data should always be used in conjunction with other data sources.”

The types of data that can be captured and stored are limited only by the available sensors, integration into a vehicle-communication protocol (i.e. CAN-BUS or Flex-Ray), software-design, computing power, and available memory. At the time of the NHTSA report (2001), GM’s EDRs were already capable of the following:

Capture: State of the driver’ belt, vehicle speed, engine RPM, “brake odoff,” and throttle position;

Transmit and Input: The driver seat belt switch signal is typically input into the SDM, while the remaining sensors are monitored by one or more other electronic modules that broadcast data according to a ”send on change” based design (e.g. a change in engine speed of more than 32 RPM, broadcasts the new RPM value on the serial bus).

Store, archive, update and recover: In airbag deployment or a near-deployment crashes, the last 5-seconds of data are stored in an EEPROM (recoverable with appropriate PC-based equipment.) This means, every second, the SDM takes the most recent sensor data values and stores them in a recirculating buffer (RAM), one storage location for each parameter for a total of 5-seconds. When the airbag sensing system “enables” on impact, buffer refreshing is suspended;

Certain 1999 models had this capability, and almost all GM vehicles were expected to add that capability over the next few years.

Compare where GM was in 1999, with the claims found by the L.A. Times on the Toyota website. Toyota’s EDR’s are capable of recording data including, among other things, brake pedal application and degree of application of the accelerator pedal.

On the side of reading data out of EDR’s, in 2000, the Robert Bosch Corporation developed their CDR (Crash Data Retrieval) unit. Many models by GM (1994), Ford (2001), Chrysler (2005) and Nissan (2007) have the capability for crash-event data to be stored in their proprietary EDR’s, and to be freely retrieved by licensed 3^rd parties via a Bosch CDR unit.

While the Bosch CDR units can be freely purchased and used, and training and support is widely available through Bosch, in North America, Toyota takes a totally opposite posture. Toyota appears to engage in practices intended to limit access to the data recorded by Toyota’s EDRs.

Contrast the situation surrounding the OEM’s above with Toyota’s own answers to questions from the L.A. Times (edited for brevity). Given Toyota’s apparent lack of confidence in the software or electronics in its prototype crash analysis tool, one can not help but wonder if this is really due to the tool, or the production systems it was designed to analyze:

“Toyota does not yet have a commercially available EDR readout tool and currently has only one prototype readout tool in the U.S. Toyota performs EDR readouts for law enforcement under certain circumstances. We are also occasionally ordered by various courts to perform EDR readouts. A readout for law enforcement is a community service that Toyota performs. Toyota does not have the capacity to perform readouts using its one prototype tool in all cases.”

“Toyota’s EDR is capable of recording only the previous several seconds of activity before and/or a fraction of a second after a crash or near-crash situation.”

“Given the fact that the readout tool is a prototype and has not been validated, it is Toyota’s policy not to use EDR data in its investigations. However, Toyota has used the readout tool under certain circumstances.”

“EDR data ownership varies state by state. The prototype software used by Toyota to perform EDR readouts is proprietary, as is the case with all auto manufacturers. Toyota does not contend that the EDR readout data is proprietary. When a data retrieval tool is commercially available, any data retrieved will then as now be subject to applicable state law.”

“Federal regulators require Toyota and all other OEMs w/EDR equipped vehicles to make a data retrieval tool commercially available by 9/1/12. Toyota will, of course, comply with this requirement.”

Given the mature nature of EDR technology and the degree to which its competitors have made their EDR data available for 3rd-party download; the limited circumstances (e.g. court order) under which Toyota makes its single “prototype” device available, the way in which Toyota characterizes the software within as “unvalidated” and unreliable, and Toyota’s persistence in these actions despite the obvious conflict of interest (as the sole party that can release EDR data), one has to wonder what Toyota is hiding behind their black box.

And the hits, they keep on coming. Now, brakes of the Prius flake out.

Japan’s transport ministry has received 14 complaints about problems with brakes on Toyota’s latest. The ministry has asked Toyota to investigate the complaints, says the Nikkei [sub.] “Those are purely reported cases, so we still need to investigate to find out where problems really exist,” said a ministry spokesman, who said that the number of complaint over such a short time-span “more than usual.” There is more in the U.S.A.

As of Tuesday evening, the NHTSA had received 102 complaints about the brakes of the new Prius hybrid, says the Nikkei [sub.] The complaints center around the brakes cutting out for about one second when driving on slippery roads. Toyota is “looking into the technical aspects,” said a spokesperson.

In the pedal-gate dept., Toyota will recall a combined 180,000 vehicles in the Middle East, Latin America and Africa due to faulty gas pedals, says the Nikkei [sub]. According to a Toyota spokesperson, the total number of vehicles to be recalled in all regions stands at 4.45m vehicles. That’s not including the ones that were carpet-bagged.

We overlooked a key point in our write-up on Tesla’s IPO plans: the profits Elon Musk has been touting are a mirage. As this balance sheet from Tesla’s IPO prospectus [read the whole thing at the SEC here, it's a giggle] proves, Tesla might have fudged a one-month profit, but the company is hardly on a sustainable footing. Unless you consider seven million bucks in “gross profit” (including Zero Emissions Vehicle credits) enough to offset a nearly $29m operating loss, in which case, I’d like to talk to you about underwriting TTAC’s budget. This also puts into Tesla’s disclosure that it faces declining revenue into some scary perspective. Notch another one up for Farragoian skepticism…

Welcome to hell.

The Parker Waichman Alonso law firm , of Great Neck, NY, teamed up with the Becnel Law Firm, in New Orleans, LA and put on Businesswire that they “filed suit on behalf of several consumers who purchased Toyota vehicles subject to various recalls issued in January 2010 for defects in the vehicles’ gas pedals. The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, seeks class action status.”

So what does the Esqs. from Long Island and New Orleans want? That Toyota is ordered to recall all affected vehicles? Isn’t Toyota already doing that? To the tune of some 8m (and mounting) cars worldwide?

Au contraire!

Their complaint “asks the Court to enjoin Toyota from implementing any fixes in the accelerator pedals of the subject vehicles without approval from the NHTSA.” To those who are not familiar with a strange language called Legalese, “enjoin” means “issue an injunction,” or, in even plainer English, “order someone to stop doing something.”

The lawyers ask the court to stop Toyota from fixing the recalled cars without approval from NHTSA. If the court grants this request, the cars will never get fixed.

The NHTSA never grants an approval. Toyota issued a press release that says “Regarding reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has “approved” a plan for our pedal recall; it is Toyota’s understanding that NHTSA does not officially approve recall remedies.”

The NHTSA can disapprove a recall plan. Approving one would mean taking responsibility. The NHTSA would never do that.

In case the judge wags his or her finger at the attorneys about that frivolous detail, they allege some more:

“The class action lawsuit filed by Parker Waichman Alonso LLP and the Becnel Law Firm, LLC alleges that, as a result of these recalls, Toyota owners lost the use of their vehicles, and sustained, among things, economic losses and severe emotional distress.”

TTAC is discussing with its legal team whether we should join the class action suit, and allege the loss of untold man-hours while covering the saga, along with losses incurred due to spikes in bandwidth and the cost of purchasing two accelerator pedals.

I wasn’t going to do this car today. But venting my spleen on yesterday’s 1971 Ford Galaxie 500 and all the discussion it prompted forces the issue: what was the best of the big popular-priced big cars of the era? Having handily eliminated the Ford from the running leaves a tough choice: The Plymouth Fury/Dodge Polara, or the Chevy Impala. Now I have a pretty major soft spot for the big Mopars of the era, and I wrote quite the paean to a ’69 Fury here. But that memorable ride was colored by the circumstances of the day. Truth be told, both the big GM and Mopars had it all over the Fords, but there were a few crucial differences between the two; one in particular.

I had three driving experiences with 1970 Chevys, each quite different, yet they were all in four-door sedans. Well, those were the driving ones. There was another, as a worshiper and passenger, and we might as well get that out of the way first. In the fall of 1969 at Towson Senior High, a brand new dark green ’70 Impala convertible with a white top and interior, sporting Rally wheels and the numbers 454 on the front fender appeared on the parking lot, daily. Who the hell would buy their kid that; I thought to myself as I walked to school each morning. Life is truly cruel.

Even more so, when I saw who the driver was: an Italian-American…well, I can’t quite summon up the word “girl” to describe her, because she looked/seemed at least twice as old as my pathetic late-blooming self. Very much a Linda Vaughn “Miss Hurst” type, but her bee-hive was (still) black. Not my cup of tea, and I wouldn’t have had the guts to get within ten feet of her. Daddy bought the Impala for her; he was probably in the sanitation business.

But one day a couple of us juniors were hooking classes at mid-day and walking out the parking lot, and there she comes, off to her afternoon job (she was in some marketing program that let her do that). We stuck out our thumbs, and against all hope and odds she stopped. Of course we goaded her to floor it, and sure enough, she obliged us with a fairly short but highly memorable blast. She might as well have been opening her most intimate orifices to us as the giant secondary venturies on the Quadrajet  carb kicked in and sucked the fresh spring air. It was probably the lo-po 365 hp version, but who cared? I should never have told this impressionable preamble, because now you’re convinced I’m lacking any impartiality (or taste).

In that summer of 1970, I finally became a legal driver after almost three years of illicit preparation. I made up some BS story to the driver’s ed teacher that I had lived in Iowa and had legally driven there. So he skipped the parking lot preliminaries with me, and told me to just get in and drive out to Loch Raven Reservoir and back. A brand-new 1970 Impala sedan beckoned, and off we went. And almost immediately, I discovered the main reason why this is a better car than the Chrysler products: the steering.

I had never driven a big American car with power steering like this. The Saginaw unit had a variable ratio, was surprisingly accurate, with a modicum of actual feedback. Who knew that existed? Not this seventeen-year old. And GM’s suspension guys were a little less sleepy than the competition too. Yes, the Mopars might have been a tad more buttoned down, which in some circumstance gave it an edge, perhaps, in cornering. But lets not forget, the mission of these cars was maximum comfort, quiet and refinement. And in that equation, the Chevy had them beat.

It didn’t end with a leisurely but impressionable cruise around Loch Raven, though. That very summer I started hanging out with a girl in my neighborhood whose parents had just bought the same spec Impala sedan, with the standard 350 V8 and Turbo-Hydramatic. We drove it out to go skinny-dipping in the Gunpowder many a hot night. And I was driving big Fords during the day at work. I was conducting the most prolonged comparison test in history.

Lets start with the basic structure: the 1970 was the last year of the perimeter-framed generation that started in 1965. By 1970, it benefited from what any car (usually) does after having been made for six years: build quality was the best. The Ford was a distant third, and the new fuselage Mopars felt a little short on development time, at least the first year ’69 I drove. The Chevy was impeccably quiet, refined and smooth. It’s engine started and ran smoother than the other two too. Chryslers, like our own ’65 Coronet, were notorious stallers and ran rough in rainy weather until electronic ignition came along. The Fords didn’t start as effortlessly. GM’s Rochester carbs seemed to be better sorted out.

Chevy small blocks were always velvety runners, the 327 being a real gem. The 350, with its longer stroke, couldn’t quite equal it, but its extra torque was welcome. The level of standard V8 power, with 250 hp, was a substantial improvement over the 283 that had to huff and puff through the Powerslide just a few years earlier. The Turbo-Hydramatic was undoubtedly the best autobox in the world at the time terms of smoothness. Here’s the deal: in 1970, the standard engine/automatic combo of this plain-Jane pedestrian sedan was a good as any in the world in terms of its mission.  You’d have to go to a Mercedes 6.3 for competition, and its transmission was a lot harsher. Never mind its price.

And by 1970, the Chevy finally had decent sized 15″ wheels and tires, compared the absurd little 14″ donuts they were putting on these cars a few years earlier. And disc brakes! The improvement from 1964 to 1970 was pretty remarkable, and made 1970 was a high water mark for the big American sedan, for at least another seven years anyway. The 1971 big GM cars had a shocking drop in quality of build and materials, and were drastically bigger and less efficient. A giant step backwards from the comfortable but fairly-reasonable sized 1970s.

Yes, the 1970 Chevy was the pinnacle of its genre. It was supremely refined, quiet, reasonably well built, comfortable, and if ordered with the available HD suspension, was a decent handling and steering car considering its size. Mopar steering was utterly devoid of any feel or sensation, and the Torque-Flite was rugged and efficient, but didn’t shift as smoothly. And as hard-charging as the 383 and 440 were, they still couldn’t hold a candle to the Chevy rat motors.

I almost forgot; my third and very much final ’70 Chevy sedan experience. It was mostly the polar opposite of the others so far, but it still earned my grudging respect. In 1976, I got a job with Yellow Cab of San Diego driving a taxi (obviously). As the newest driver, I got the oldest car: a totally clapped out ’70 Chevy with probably well over a half-million miles on it. And it was the beneficiary of GM’s willingness to accommodate any wish of its fleet buyers: it had a tired 250 CI six backed up by the ancient two-speed Powerglide, manual (!) steering, and un-assisted drum brakes. 1950 technology was just an RPO away.

I drove this poor thing mercilessly, tearing up and down I-5 at eighty-five, and ripping through San Diego’s endless canyons with the tires howling. Speaking of which, these were tires unlike any I’d ever seen before or again: special taxi-cab rubber that was unusually wide, like a wide-oval, but the tread was totally smooth except a series of straight cuts, that would be re-cut when the “tread” got low. It looked exactly like the F1 tires now in use. Bizarre.

One day, after weeks of the most extreme abuse, I was leaving the garage and stopped a tad harder than average for a light, at about 25 mph. The left front wheel sheared off, thanks to a ball joint that gave out then instead of the un-guard-railed  canyon curve I had been screeching down the day before. It was like a racehorse stumbling out of the gate, and it had to be put down. They gave me a 1971 fat-boy, still with a six and Powerglide, but Chevy finally put a stop to the manual steering for 1971. But I hated it compared to the ’70; the body was a bucket of clattering junk, and the rear seat bottom cushion wasn’t even attached anymore. The ’70 felt lithe and lively compared to this heap of jello, even with a six and biceps-building steering.

What a beginning and end to my ’70 Chevy rides, from that lust-object 454 convertible to that tired smoking taxi. They’re not exactly what I day-dream about these days, but if I could have a time warp shopping spree of  any big sedan from that era, it would be a black ’70 Impala four door, with the 454, HD suspension, Rally wheels…a lot like the one in the picture here. Sorry, Mopar fans, but those wide hips don’t quite cut it compared to a mean, lean, clean-steering Chevy.

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The ongoing kerfluffle over Toyota’s recall of over 2m vehicles for a gas pedal defect which (allegedly) caused unintended acceleration has caught much of the automotive media flat-footed. How could it be, many have wondered, that the automaker most associated in the US market with the concept of quality has slipped so badly? As TTAC’s Steve Lang recently discussed, Toyota has been on a decontenting binge since the mid-to-late-1990s, putting profit above the quality obsession that had defined its operations up to that point. As a result, the current generation of decontented Toyotas and accompanying quality issues and recalls can be seen as the culmination of a long-term trend. But why did that transition take place? Though it’s easy to blame greed and mismanagement for the decline in Toyota’s quality, the decline in standards was actually a natural progression of Toyota’s constantly-evolving, efficiency-obsessed production system.

Since the 50s, Toyota had been introducing management techniques such as kanban (just-in-time inventory management), shusa (heavyweight product managers), and kaizen (continuous improvement at all levels of production, including assembly-line problem solving). In the 1960s, what is now known as the “Toyota Production System” came into its own, as Toyota integrated suppliers into its product development and established Total Quality Control over every area of its operation. These developments led to huge efficiency gains, allowing Toyota to launch its full-scale assault on the US market in the 1970s.

By the 1980s, the principles of the Toyota Production System were well-established, and the global auto industry began to take notice of Toyota as the automaker made increasing gains in the US market and elsewhere. The first half of the 80s saw the introduction of export limits in the US, which limited production expansion but kept Toyota’s profitability high thanks to artificially inflated prices. In 1985 however, a sharp jump in the value of the yen put major pressure on the Toyota system and reduced its competitive advantage relative to US manufacturers.

In the short term, this challenge was masked by bubble-driven Japanese economy, which added another 2m units of annual demand in the late 80s, but as Takahiro Fujimoto writes in The Evolution Of A Manufacturing System At Toyota,

as appreciation of the yen eroded their cost competitiveness, Japanese firms had to increasingly rely on the quality side of their strength. Real-term productivity growth had been slowing since the early 1980s, but total quality continued to increase.

The Japanese market took back its volume gains in the early 1990s as it entered recession, and the yen rose again in 1993-94, putting even more pressure on Toyota’s Japanese production. Though the rise of transplant production is the best-known result of these challenges, it’s no coincidence that Toyota made major changes to its product development philosophy in this turbulent period.

These changes were a response to the emerging concept of “fat product design,” a term that consciously clashes with the “lean” ideals of the Toyota system. The “fat product” critique held that Toyota’s increasing reliance on quality advantages resulted in product “overquality” in terms of design “overquality,” relatively lower component sharing, frequent model changes and product variety run amok. In short, a weakening Japanese market and upward pressure on the yen created conditions in which Toyotas strengths with its customers were systematically turned into a concept that was anathema to the Toyota system: the “problem” of “fat product.”

Fujimoto explains the subtle rise of the “fat product problem” thusly:

…these problems didn’t emerge because the Japanese makers built a wrong set of capabilities in the first place. To the contrary… “overbuilding” of the same capability that created new competitive advantages in the 1980s has been the source of new problems in the 1990s. Overall, the dilemma of fat product designs provides us with new insights about the subtle nature of the capability-building dynamics: effective manufacturing routines are difficult for a firm to acquire, but once it gains momentum to build them, it is also difficult to avoid overrun.

Fujimoto illustrates this dynamic in a number of areas. First, he argues that high product development efficiency aided by supplier integration into the design process (heretofore a competitive advantage) resulted in too much product variety. This efficiency was also measured in terms of shortened development lead times as facilitated by standardized development processes, a phenomenon that Fujimoto maintains was a contributing factor in fat product design as it prevented improvements in design efficiency by emphasizing routine practice. “Heavyweight product managers,” another Toyota innovation that allowed high levels of product integrity (and therefore success in the market) also became overemphasized, creating more unique components and requiring an accompanying increase in prices that could not be sustained when the Yen’s value took off in the mid-80s and early-90s.

Another area of product development “fatness” that is especially resonant in light of recent developments, is Toyota’s emphasis on the consumer satisfaction index (CSI) as a measure of customer satisfaction. The use of CSI results in product development was problematic in the sense that it emphasized the elimination of points of customer dissatisfaction. Fujimoto writes:

elimination of customer dissatisfaction does not automatically mean higher customer satisfaction, as the two are often different dimensions. As a result, the pursuit of the CS technique based on the dissatisfaction list may create high-cost [i.e. "fat"] products that have no problems– but no fun built in, either.

What did “fat product” mean in real terms? Around 1990 Toyota’s global output was about 300k units per month, comprised of no fewer than 60k product variations, 25k of which were assembled only once per month. The worst-selling half of these variations made up only five percent of total sales. This variation proliferation was caused by Toyota’s ability to respond to the market’s demand for product differentiation, but in the cutthroat global car business, this was not a sustainable state of affairs.

In addition to overbuilding variety in response to consumer demand, there is evidence that Japanese firms also overbuilt for quality in this period as well (although this is often difficult to objectively quantify). Fujimoto notes:

When I interviewed a product engineer at a German car maker in the late 1980s, he commented that one of the leading Japanese models was about $500 more expensive that the equivalent German model owing to overquality and excessive designs, other things being equal.

Whether this phenomenon existed across Toyota’s product range is nearly impossible to prove, but one thing is certain: in the early to mid 1990s, Toyota’s managers clearly believed that it suffered from “fat product” and moved aggressively to limit its effects.

In 1993-94, Toyota lost about 100b yen due to currency fluctuation alone, making lean product design a jarring necessity. Over those two years, Toyota saved about the same amount in cost-cutting alone, preventing the need for right-sizing capacity or cutting jobs. Instead, Toyota reduced product varieties, increased component-sharing and generally introduced more “value engineering” into its designs. Again, this was not obviously a product of  cynicism on the part of Toyota’s management, but a realization that reforming Toyota’s super-lean manufacturing system would not yield the kind of savings the firm needed. In Fujimoto’s words, the focus of competition had changed, and Toyota’s response was to de-emphasize individual, product-focused development in favor of multiple project development which would allow greater component-sharing across models, and fewer variations of each individual model.

In theory, this sea change in Toyota’s culture could have been effectively managed to prevent the steady decontenting of products and declining quality. And, in the interest of fairness, it could also have led to even more dramatic drops in quality and content. Fujimoto’s analysis of Toyota was published in 1999, when Toyota was still (if only by reputation) the king of quality in the automotive world, a fact that at the time was still attributed to its manufacturing, rather than its product-development system. However, Fujimoto does leave the reader with a warning that should probably have been posted on every bulletin board in Toyota City:

Achieving product integrity and product simplicity at the same time is not an easy job. As of the mid-1990s, there have been some cases in which excessive simplification of the Japanese new models, which apparently resulted in loss of product integrity, lack of product differentiation and perceived deterioration of design quality, have created customer dissatisfaction and loss in market share, despite their competitive prices. This seems to indicate that lean designs actually involve a subtle balancing and that there is always a risk of overshooting– or oversimplifying product design.

Obviously, we need to know a lot more about the specifics of Toyota’s recent quality woes before we can establish causal links between the rise of lean product design in the 1990s and the current rash of bad news. The fact that Denso-built pedals do not appear to suffer from the same problem as CTS-supplied pedals indicates that this might be a supplier-specific problem, rather than the result of a systemic de-emphasis on quality at Toyota. Still, the Toyota practice of working closely with suppliers in the development process indicates that there’s more than enough blame to go around.

The real extent of this cost-cutting, decontenting and “design leaning” won’t be easy to quantify, but the fact that it’s been taking place since the early nineties and is only now yielding negative effects suggests that it’s been relatively well-managed. But Toyota’s reputation was built on those “fat” products of the mid-80s to early-90s, and it won’t be returning to the old practices that created them anytime soon due to their competitive disadvantages. This seems to suggest that, once damaged, Toyota is unlikely to ever recover its former quality halo.

The Datsun 240 was as a true revolutionary, smashing the long-stagnant sports car market of the sixties into smithereens. It was long overdue too; folks were getting cranky for the messiah: a truly modern sporty two seater with four-wheel independent suspension, a zippy OHC six engine, dazzling styling, all served up at a reasonable price; say $3500 (about $20k adjusted). The hole in the market for such a car was begging to be filled. And Datsun stepped up and delivered, with a grand-slam home run. But like most revolutionaries, the Z was anything but truly original. But then neither was Che nor Lenin; they studied Marx. And Datsun? They took their studies seriously too.

Prior to 1970, the sporty two-seater segment was over-ripe for change. The creaky and outdated British roadsters were rolling relics begging to be put out of their misery; the superb Porsche always was pricey and quickly getting more so; the attractive but none too cheap nor reliable Italians were barely hanging on by virtue of their pretty faces; and the Corvette wasn’t exactly budget-priced and was entering the long dark decade of the seventies.  Nissan took note and sent its Z right at the bulls eye of that target market. And where did their inspiration come from? How about another famous Z?

GM’s John Z. DeLorean saw the same market hole: something below the ‘Vette in price and yet smashingly more attractive than the MG or Triumphs. And he saw it years earlier. The 1964 Pontiac Banshee concept had the formula nailed: Pontiac’s new OHC six wrapped in a delicious and highly advanced bod. It’s styling foreshadowed the ’68 Vette, but without the exaggerations. The nearly production-ready Banshee was nixed by the timid GM brass, fearing the market wasn’t big enough for it and the Corvette both.

An iffy speculation? Perhaps, but the story of the 240Z’s origins and paternity is endlessly intriguing and rife with rumor, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to throw another ingredient into it. In the early sixties, Nissan wanted an image-mobile to spicy up its stodgy rep. Albrecht Goertz, a protege of renowned stylist Raymond Loewy, went to Japan around that time to help Nissan develop their clay modeling expertise. Nissan and Yamaha entered into a development project for a sporty coupe using a Yamaha engine, and Goertz did the design. To be called the Nissan 2000GT, the project was still-born, and a restless and eager Yamaha took it to Toyota.

In need of some image polishing themselves, Toyota bit and the result is the stunning and legendary Toyota 2000GT. Toyota claims their own designer Satoru Nozaki did the final work, and that may well be. But Goertz’ influence on both the Toyota and the 240Z is undeniable. But the expensive production GT was much more of an image-mobile in the mold of today’s Lexus LFA than what the Banshee promised and the 240Z finally delivered.

The Z may have numerous claims on its parentage, but a few are too obvious to discount, in lieu of DNA tests. The Datsun 510, a revolutionary car in its own right, and the subject of a recent CC, was a key genetic donor, in that its new OHC four sprouted two more cylinders to make the Z’s six. And given that Yatuka Katayama (Mr. K) had helped shepherd that into its final form, and that he fought successfully for a renaming of the Z’s Japanese Fairlady moniker, he certainly can take a bow.

The Datsun 1800 donated its front suspension, and other pieces from the corporate bin were used wherever possible. The rear suspension was new, but so similar to the Lotus’ that it is rightfully called a Chapman strut. And then there is that body that wrapped it all. John DeLorean would have been proud; it’s decidedly un-GM-esque in detail, but the long flowing hood, the clear lines, the well set-back cockpit, the bulging  hood, the delightfully resolved tail; there’s just not a bad angle, line or detail on this Z.

I mean that generally and specifically; this particular car was a nice find, because it’s hard to find one of the early Zs that is as clean, untampered with, and shows off its designer’s intent as well as this one. They tend to look too fussy, burdened with too much trim and emblems. But this one, having lost its hood ornament, looks as good as as any Z I’ve ever seen. It has almost a concept car’s purity, and every angle is a joy to behold. I’d forgotten just how terrific and timeless a design this car was until I stumbled unto this one.It was hard to stop shooting and walk on.

Of course, things went only down hill after the first few years of Zdom. It’s a depressing tale; I know there are fans of the later cars and its successors, but for me there will only ever be the early 240Z  to speak its brilliant intent and execution. Light, lithe, with a motor that still had some genuine Zing in those last days of pre-smog choked dullness and crankiness. Yes, the 240Z was far from perfect, its handling exhibiting some of the same twitchiness at the limit like its 510 little brother. Nissan would soon take care of that all too well; it slowly morphed the Z from a poor-mans XK-E into a bloated Camaro wanna-be.

But the Z’s decline into plushly upholstered boulevard cruiserdom was soon exploited by Mazda with their gem, the RX-7. Taking the original Z formula (minus the IRS but with a rotary), and keeping it tight and light, the RX-7 carved out as nice a chunk of the market as it carved canyon curves. Of course, the RX-7 lost the way too eventually, until the Miata reclaimed it for good. It’s taken a while, but it was inevitable that someone would eventually find the sweet spot and stick to it as religiously as a warm tire on a hot back-road curve. Just imagine if the 240Z had been available as a roadster too, and stuck to its mission: revolution would have become orthodoxZy.

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Enough with these pathetic little Briggs and Stratton powered sidewalk toys like the Rabbit and Starlet! We need us a real car to counterbalance that axis of Cozy Coupes. Hell, this Imperial weighs a half a ton more than both of them together. Its 7.2 liter engine is almost three times as big as their egg beaters combined. And its got enough torque to twist those little tin cans into shreds. This baby rocks, even if it is to a song that abruptly played out the year of its birth. Yes, this Imperial was born under a bad sign: the crescent moon. And it marks the end of the road for Chrysler’s pride and joy, save some pathetic efforts to revive it. But Chrysler’s loss is our gain today, because it isn’t every day we stumble onto one of these bitchin’ waterfall-grilled monstrosities with big twin exhausts to rumble our memories and fantasies far away to another time and place…

I’m going to call this the coolest big sled since finding the hot-rod ’50 Caddy coupe. They have a lot in common too; they’re the beginning and end of the whole crazy and uniquely-American idea: the biggest, meanest luxury coupe with the biggest, baddest motor in the house. I know; Caddy and Lincoln were still at the game with big rigs in ’74, but which of the three would you pick to put mag wheels on and hang a couple of big exhaust pipes out the ass end? I thought so. For whatever reason, and wherever your loyalties to the Big Three lay, the big Chryslers were the only ones that still could pull this sort of stunt off in 1974.

Was it the styling, or what was under the skin? The return of the waterfall grille was a bold and distinctive step, even if it was a reprise of that divine sales flop, the Airflow.  The rest of Chrysler’s new look wasn’t exactly original either; it looks like a slightly warmed over ’69 Buick Electra except for that outrageous front end. The stunning and original fuselage styling of ’69-’73 was worn out, as were Chrysler’s creative juices. The crap that came out of Highland Park from here on out was nothing but the result of death rattles moving the hands of the designers. That is, until Lido showed up and taught them to fold, spindle and mutilate a simple box in more ways than had ever been…; well “imagined” is too flattering a word. That resulted in zombie Imperials that still haunt our nightmares.

Yes, the Arabs put a kibosh on this barge that Cleopatra would have been proud to float down the Nile on. And her tush would have been sitting pretty on all those acres of gen-u-ine Corinthian leather. The 440′s blubbering dual exhausts didn’t even need to be submerged under water to sound like an old Chris Craft speed boat. They don’t call these barges for nothing.

No, it wasn’t the styling alone. Chrysler’s big unibodies were always the eating-disordered unpopular sister of the big luxury three. A ’74 Lincoln had a good 600 pounds on this Le Baron (oh God, was that name ever dragged through the mud by Lido’s Kars). Does anyone still know what Le Baron once was? The builders of the finest coach-built custom bodies in the land, like this Duesenberg. All things must pass. Well, this Le Baron isn’t exactly a Duesey, but it’s a lot closer to it in spirit than what followed all to soon. Just for good measure, here’s the tracks this ’74 was following.

But the tracks ended here; well, technically the following year in ’75. If you can tell the difference between the two, you should be writing this. Less than 4k of these coupes were made in ’74; even fewer the year after. Then it was over, for Chrysler’s perpetual wild goose chase for Cadillac gold. Since breaking away from the Chrysler brand in ’55, it managed to beat Lincoln just twice, in ’59 and ’60. But the brilliant ’61 Lincoln showed its trim little taillights to the Imperial, and never looked back. Twenty-one years of true Imperials, and every single one a memorable one. That’s more than I can say for its competition. Nothing like going out in style at the top, big time.

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]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/01/curbside-classic-the-last-cool-and-real-imperial-1974-imperial-lebaron-coupe/feed/ 71 http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/01/dealer-arbitration-168/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/01/dealer-arbitration-168/#comments Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:25:28 +0000 Edward Niedermeyer http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=342487

Almost exactly a year ago, we heard that Ford wouldn’t be developing a global RWD platform in Australia.  That came as sad, but obvious news back then… but check it out: Motor Trend just got a hot “scoop”!

Under the global rear-drive platform plan, the 2014 Mustang was to have shared its basic architecture with the next generation Australian Ford Falcon, and possibly a new flagship sedan for Lincoln. The Mustang would have been on the short wheelbase version of the platform, the Falcon on the mid-wheelbase, and the Lincoln on the long wheelbase. But that strategy has changed…

…By the time a new rear-drive Lincoln could appear, the Town Car will have been out of production for three to four years, and with high gas prices in Australia, no-one expects major growth in Falcon sales. These factors taken together seem to have conspired to torpedo the global rear-drive platform. “The [next generation rear-drive] Falcon is dead,” said one Ford insider bluntly, in apparent confirmation.

Shocker! The problem is that Ford’s just released a new Mustang, meaning the current model will be a bit long of tooth when the nameplate’s 50th anniversary rolls around in 2014. The good news? Motor Trend’s “scoop” isn’t that Ford will be slapping together a “very special edition” consisting of paint, wheels, badges and certificate of authenticity.

The bad news?

They have no freaking clue what they’re doing!

Ford planners are reportedly looking at three possible directions for the 2014 Mustang. The first — and perhaps the easiest — is an evolution of the current car, with styling cues that would appeal to the traditionalist, and a continued focus on the 5.0-liter V-8 as the halo engine. The second is more of an M3-style car, probably with turbocharged V-6 power for markets like Europe. The third – and probably the least likely, says our source – is to transform the Mustang into an ultra-high tech, ultra-high performance coupe along the lines of Nissan’s giant-killing GT-R.

Well that sure narrows it down!But hey, at least the 50th Anniversary cars will be… uh… something.

MT’s source does anonymously insist that the 2014 ‘stang will be lighter and smaller than the current generation, and will finally offer all-independent suspension. That sound like a start in right direction, but let’s not fool ourselves: the next Mustang will almost certainly be another evolution of the current chassis. Ford would be crazy to develop any all-new RWD platform until the Mustang starts its second 50 years. And Ford pays off the ruinous debt that Motor Trend is kind enough to never mention.

In case you were wondering, Ed Whitacre’s assessment that the Volt will “make a margin” at a price point “in the low 30s” is the GM Chairman/CEO’s second big lie in as many weeks. Well, lie might be a bit harsh. Gross and willful misrepresentation is probably more accurate. GreenCarReports‘ John Voelcker got in touch with a GM spokesman who confirms what we all pretty much knew from the get go: GM “has not officially announced final Volt pricing, a price in the low 30′s after a $7,500 tax credit is in the range of possibilities.” In other words, we’re back to the same old $40k-ish number that GM execs have been throwing around for ages. Unless GM is talking about the electric-only (non-range-extended) Volt that Bob Lutz recently confirmed. But what about the margin thing?

The only real explanation for any reduction in Volt build costs would probably come on the battery side, and sure enough GM has already bragged that it will get Li-ion packs down to $500 per kw/h within the next year or so. Of course Toyota has basically laughed off this possibility, saying they’d buy up any of these mythical battery packs if they were actually available.

But mass production is a wonderful thing. Maybe, just maybe, GM could order enough battery packs from its Volt Li-ion supplier LG Chem to bring the price down, right? Wait, what’s that? GM has just signed a deal with an all-new batter supplier called  SB LiMotive (a JV between Bosch and Samsung)? “We have been conducting joint research into automotive batteries with SB LiMotive and there is a strong possibility that the company will be chosen,” a GM source tells the Chosun Ilbo. “However, that does not mean we will change our supply orders from LG Chem.” Huh? Unless these (relative) newcomers have come up with something that A123, BYD, LG Chem, Panasonic and the other big battery firms aren’t aware/capable of, how does it makes sense for GM to not stick with LG Chem and work out the costs of the already-chosen battery pack? Color us confused.

Despite everything we tell our kids, sometimes procrastinating and prevaricating actually pays off. Like this photograph, for instance. I’ve been wanting to do a Rabbit/Golf CC focusing on its role in succeeding the Beetle ever since I started this series, but the cars I kept finding weren’t genuine early (’75-’76) versions. So I just kept pushing it off. Then one day on our daily walk: bingo! A superb red specimen, exactly like the first Golf I ever drove. I shot its profile first, than moved  to shoot it from the front quarter (above), and just as I was about to push the trigger, I realized there was a red Beetle in the background. Kazaam! It doesn’t get better than this if you want to tell the story of how VW replaced the Beetle with the Golf, especially considering how much dithering and just plain luck played into its birth and existence. It also perfectly captures the day I stepped out of my ’64 Bug and drove a new ’75 Rabbit; I couldn’t have staged it better. Children: there are times when dithering and dumb luck trumps all the (business) plans in the world.

From a modern perspective of short model cycles, it’s difficult to fully grasp VW’s situation in the sixties and early seventies. They had been building essentially the same car for some thirty five years. The Beetle and its offshoots were a global phenomena and success story of remarkable scope and dimension. But VW knew it would some day have to replace its cash cow, but it was terrified of the prospect and possible failure. What could possibly replace the most widely built and iconic car in the world?

The Type III (1500/1600/Squareback/Notchback/Fastback) was a tentative step to reduce its dependence on one model. But it was really just a boxier body on the VW chassis with a slightly bigger engine. And despite some decent success, it still had most of the Beetle’s limitations. The traditional RWD competition from Opel, Ford and many others were getting consistently better, and a whole new generation of advanced space-efficient FWD cars inspired by the Mini were increasingly showing the way forward. VW’s rear engine format was looking more ass-backwards by the day.

VW’s development department cranked out numerous prototype projects all through this period; there’s a great photo I can’t find right now of a whole parking lot full of prototypes from this era. The most promising one that was almost put into production was designed and built by Porsche, with its water-cooled engine flat under the rear seat. But VW was profoundly concerned about the profitability of complex new designs, given how cheaply they had learned to build the Beetle and its offspring.

The VW 411/412 of 1968 is the most extreme example of VW’s inability to break the over-ripe mold. Essentially a giant Super Beetle, it failed to gain traction in the mid-sized market that was dominated by RWD and FWD sedans that had better performance, economy, handling and trunk room. The 411/412 was the wake-up call, and VW entered its final performance-anxiety stage, knowing the long-procrastinated Beetle successor had to come, and come quick. In Europe, Beetle sales had started dropping off much sooner than in the US, where VW was still selling half a million per year and making enormous profits.

In the end, and just like in my serendipitous picture, the answer was right under their nose, and where it had been since 1964: Audi. VW bought Audi from Mercedes in that year (imagine if that hadn’t happened), and Audi had been building FWD cars since the twenties. In the early seventies, Audi had just finished developing their superb Audi 80 (US Fox), including a very advanced and compact OHC four to power it, the EA827. And Audi was already at work on an even smaller, highly space-efficient transverse-engine FWD hatch, the Audi 50. Bingo! Everything VW needed was at hand, if they could just get their arrogant head out of their rear (engine stubbornness).

Out of desperation and the failure of the 411/412 and even the advanced but flawed NSU-sourced K70, VW finally sucked it up and got on with it. The Audi 80 was co-opted, hatch-backed and re-badged into the highly successful Passat (US Dasher). And the development work on the Audi 50 was highly useful: by blowing it up one size, kazaam! The Golf was born.

That’s probably understating things a bit, and perhaps the Audi 50 and Golf were in development more simultaneously. TTAC’s Bertel Schmidt, who was there at the time, may (will likely) weigh in with his perspective. But lets just say that the Golf owes a huge amount of its existence, and its engines, transmissions, suspensions, basic form and all kinds of other technical and conceptual aspects to the very advanced and competent work being done at Audi while VW was busy gazing at its navel for fifteen years.

But in the end it was worth all the anxiety. Despite VW’s great concern that the Golf wouldn’t really catch on and truly replace the Beetle (that’s why they kept building it for years still), the Golf is in every way as iconic and influential as the Beetle. Just like the Beetle’s design had borrowed heavily from Tatra, the Golf was hardly original. But that’s how it often is in the car world: the true engineering pioneers often don’t succeed technically, because of a lack of pragmatism. The Golf was highly pragmatic; an assemblage of the best that Audi, Simca, Fiat, Austin, Renault and others had pioneered, and refined into a practical, palatable and handsome box, thanks to its styling by Giorgetto Giugiaro.

The Golf went on to define the whole class it dominates; well, outside of the US that is. In reality and with the benefit of hindsight, one can rightly say that VW’s anxieties were not all that misplaced. Because just like Toyota and Honda have in recent decades generated a lion’s share of their profits from the US, the same was true for VW in the sixties. And in truth, the Golf/Rabbit really never lived up to the Beetle’s huge success here. VW’s long decline from domination of the US import/small car market began in earnest just before the Rabbit appeared, and the Rabbit never properly stopped it, despite massive efforts such as building it in the US (we’ll cover that ugly chapter another time).

But to those who could appreciate the Golf then, and like those that still do, as this featured car’s obviously enthusiastic owner, the Rabbit was a revelation. Count me as one of them. The picture above is so particularly meaningful to me, because it perfectly captures my first Golf drive. I was driving a ’64 Beetle at the time, exactly like in the photo. And a friend had bought one of the first Rabbits in Baltimore in the fall of 1974. He picked up one of the ultra-stripper models like this one, that was especially made for the US only, in order to be able to meet a sub $3k price ($2,999). It had textured hard-board for the partial door-panels (covered with some cloth on this car), and was utterly stripped of all excess and then some more. Ironically, VW wouldn’t have dared to sell this version in Europe! The closest thing to it was the Chevette Scooter some years later (coming to CC soon!).

But who gave a damn when you were twenty-one and lived a spartan existence? I parked my 34 (net) hp Beetle and walked over to his Rabbit, and he handed me the keys. Its 70 hp 1.5 L OHC engine might have been a Golf R32 compared  to the poky little slug-bug. Weighing barely 2,000 lbs, the Mk I Golf was a driver’s nirvana. The engine pulled and revved; the un-assisted steering was light and direct, with just a hint of torque steer; and the handling was just superb: I zinged, zigged and zagged it on the winding back roads of Baltimore County, and it was as much fun as I’ve ever had driving a car. Getting back into my Beetle was like taking off the latest Nike running gear and putting on a cave-man’s dirty old fur. That’s me below in 1974 taking a smoke break to absorb and ponder my rite of initiation into the cult of the Golf.

The European Golfs came with either the little 50 hp (EA111) 1.1 liter  from the Audi 50, or the 70 hp (827) 1.5. In the US, VW showed an bizarre restlessness about the Rabbit’s engines. In ’76, it went to a 1.6 with 71 hp. The best year for early Rabbits is 1977, when it got fuel injection and pumped out 78 horses. I so lusted after one that year, especially after my boss bought one, a properly trimmed LS version. It was a somewhat-poorer-man’s BMW 2002 at the time. Very German, nice quality interior, tight;  just all-round perfect. But they were getting pricey. The dollar’s slide in the early seventies was a terrible problem for VW, and was the reason they built the first modern import brand factory in the US in 1979.

In 1978, VW did a strange thing and reduced the Rabbit’s engine size to 1.45 liters and down to 70 hp. And from then on, they dicked around with engine size and output on an almost yearly basis. What was in the beer they were drinking?

I need to wrap this up for now. The Golf/Rabbit story is a huge one, especially outside of the US. And I’m going to do CC installments on all the key stages: the Malibuized Rabbit, the Diesel, the Caddy pickup, the GTI, the Cabrio, and of course the Jetta Mk I offshoot. They’re all in the can waiting to tell their story. Stay tuned!