The Bail Out

THE CENTURION CHRONICLE
Vol. III – Issue #37 – Dec. 200

TO BAIL….OR NOT TO BAIL….THAT IS THE QUESTION
(and just exactly what are we bailing out?)

The current hullabaloo about bailing out our three major automakers has reached crunch time.

Let’s face facts. Our automotive industry has been having a near-death experience for the past thirty years. Instead of focusing on being the best that it could be (as it once was), in terms of quality of product, quality in performance, and quality in terms of cost, it has squandered its capital on producing and mounting massive marketing ploys to fob off mass vehicles unable to compete in the real world.

Is it any wonder foreign imports have bitten large chunks out of its market share?

My late youngest son had a tough little Toyota pickup. He bought it for something less than $5,000. One of his sons now has it. It’s odometer has turned past 100,000 miles, at least once. It is well over twenty years old, grungy looking, dinged, with a paint color so faded the undercoating seems to be its primary color….but…. it runs, gives decent mileage, and rarely has a hiccup, while hauling whatever it is asked to haul.

How many of our vaunted GM, Ford, or Chrysler products might claim that same kind of record?

So, the question is really this: How expensive would it be for us to let the lights of MoTown go out, compared to bailing it out? Which option might produce better results? Burying the corpse of a dead-man-walking industry, which might then clear the field for a rebirth of that industry, producing second to none products again. Or, bailing it out with financial band-aids and bailing wire, which may only prolong the process of its continuing decay, leaving us with an even more difficult corpse to bury later on. Not happy choices either way.

I previously wrote about producing the ultimate in personal transportation …. a 365 day recyclable car. Perhaps now might be a good time for Detroit to revisit that concept. A concept which, while giving it only modest profits per unit, because of demand, would assure it of long and never ending production to meet that demand. If that wouldn’t return them into profitable enterprises, they should all just become distributors for the Hindu “TATA” vehicle. A true people’s wagon!

Meanwhile, does anyone know where I can find a 1930-32 Packard Town Car Phaeton? THAT, was a car….everything since….has just been transportation.

CENTURION