When Driving a Cadillac Was a Sign of Success

I’m picturing that scene in the movie Poltergeist when the little girl mutters ominously, “They’re here.” In this case, it’s a legion of bankruptcy lawyers, representing car dealers, parts-makers, bond holders, banks, shareholders, unions and various arms of the federal and state governments, to name a few. The filing documents speak of numbers – $172.8 billion in debt, $82.3 billion in assets – but just looking at the plant closings, the massive layoffs and the ripple through the American… the global… economy, I feel a shudder creeping down my spine. It looks like a giant subprime borrower living beyond its means in a world of denial and the assumption of infinite growth.

I’m also picturing my distant youth – we actually couldn’t afford a car, and my mother was terrified of that gasoline-burning beast anyway – with splendiferous tail-fin-invested models from Detroit that cruised the streets in my home town, Washington, D.C. We used the busses and street cars, no magnificent subway system yet. “Woodies” actually had wood siding. No Mercedes or BMWs. No Ferraris. Cadillacs, T-bird and Corvettes were the stuff of dreams, and every kid knew every make and model. People bought cars every two to four years, if you had a car. And kids and hobbyists alike worked on the minimalist complexities under the hood; you didn’t need a computer diagnostic system to make your own repairs.

I remember former Ford President, Robert McNamara, that number crunching “Whiz Kid” from the 1960s, the first non-Ford family President, who grew that company like crazy. He was such a genius that he was eventually elevated to Secretary of Defense under President John Kennedy. McNamara figured out that since Americans bought cars with such frequency, cars really didn’t need to be built to last that long. A little thinner metal here, a little less machine tolerance there, and you could raise profits significantly. Wow! Brilliant! GM and Chrysler saw the light and joined into this “planned obsolescence” parade. To hell with “fit and finish.”

That was about the time that the idea of an import became more than buying a VW bug or van, or buying an exotic British car… The Japanese were coming. Toyota and “Datsun” (later reverting to the Nissan label). Even in the days of 20-30 cents-per-gallon of gasoline, these Asian carmakers focused on efficiency, on value and building something that might just outlast their American competitors. Once “made in Japan” was the “you know it’s crap” standard… That label shifted to the McNamara-inspired American automobile.

We never recovered that quality feeling, even as Buick recently topped the list of well-built automobiles, outpacing German superstars and Japanese engineering. When Lehman Bros. collapsed in September last year, the “joke” photographs showed hundreds of Ferraris pouring out of the building. Not a Corvette or Cadillac in sight. Cadillacs were for the post-boomers, a worn out image of years past… or pimped out rides of giant Escalades, their spinners gleaming in the noon-day sun.

The symbols of cool and success were Mercedes and BMWs, even among the well-heeled college kids whose parents were able to provide the excess of the “new era.” Or super-fast, super-expensive German, Italian or British sports cars. The notion of “buying American” was still not so cool in the modern era. Mustang regained some luster; Corvettes were somewhere in that mix, but Hummers were seriously déclassé in an “almost” environmentally conscious world. And for folks worried about gas mileage, Detroit was hardly a leader of the environmental movement. Toyota and Honda were way ahead of that curve. With Hummer division being spun off and the government oversight of the new configuration forcing even tighter mileage requirements, can GM reinvent itself as the “green” carmaker, launching that new image with the release of the Chevy Volt?

Is what we are witnessing the rubble of the stupid dog tricks of Detroit’s leadership, a decline that dates back to the decisions of the 1960s? How will the phoenix rise from the ashes of the Motor City… or will they? How will Detroit recapture the trust and confidence of the American car-buyers? What will they do to destroy the image of overpaid workers and executives trying to dictate outmoded cars to an unwilling public… not really caring about what the consumers really needed, would absolutely need in the future and actually wanted? If they don’t, the current bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler won’t be the last. In the end, consumers no longer just “buy American,” since a car is the second greatest purchase in their lives (after a house), they buy “smart.” Maybe the next generation of American carmakers will get the hint. Maybe not.

CNNMoney.com (June 2^nd) presented some numbers that suggest that the fall in car sales might be “bottoming out”: “From early tallies, it appears that the auto industry's May sales, as a whole, beat analyst forecasts.” Ford did best among the top car companies that market in the U.S., but believe it or not, now-bankrupt GM was a close second. Was it dealers shutting down and dumping inventory, or was it a real turnaround? Time most certainly will tell.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.