Re: What percentage of 20 year old cars are on the road?

Everytime I go shopping, I see quite a few cars and pickup trucks and vans which date back to the 1970s, some of them are even older, on the roads and in store parking lots.They are all American brand name made in America vehicles too.You just can't beat good old Detroit Iron. cuhulin

Here is one that everybody drooled over in our homecoming parade a week ago.. It is near perfect.

It's hard to believe that in '57 Ford outsold Chevy.

It's really hard to believe that the '53-56 Studebakers didn't sell like hotcakes, based on styling alone. Even a '57 Hawk makes a '57 Chevy look stodgy and boring. (not knocking the Chevy, mind you - compared to the cars they were building just three years earlier they're freaking amazing.)

nate

No doubt about it...The Hawks of both Studebaker and Packer were pretty awesome creations.

Exactly, but when owners take care of their cars, the government doesn't get to spend like a drunken sailor and then claim "we're DOING something!!!"

I read an article the other day about the backlog of vehicles waiting to be destroyed under "cash for clunkers." The recyclers are working double shifts to try and get all the parts that are allowed to be recycled removed from the cars (the government STUPIDLY is requiring the engines to be needlessly destroyed). That includes everything from transmissions, to power steering pumps, to suspension, manifolds, accessories, servos, wheels, window glass, instruments, electronics, you name it. Countless pieces that could be used to keep other cars running better and cleaner- but the whole vehicle has to be shredded within a certain time window, and most of those parts are not going to be removed in time and will also be destroyed.

What a sad waste of time, resources, energy, and already-expended pollution from making those parts that won't get sucked back into smokestacks when the parts are destroyed. Quite the contrary, melting them down and re-using them at the lowest level will emit *still more*.

Pathetic.

Clunkers: Taxpayers paid $24,000 per car

Yep, what a waste! cuhulin

The original Raymond Loewy (sp?) design was clean and well ahead of its time. The later variants, where they grafted on the butt-ugly standup grille and even fins, not so much.

That argument is officially irrelevant now since the Feds gave Chrysler to Fiat, Hummer to China. Apparently sending the money across the border is now the new American way. Funny how the Italians & Chinese think they can make money selling that same stuff.

There isn't anything "new" about it. North America has been selling itself out to other countries for many years. Take a look at where your computer, TV, microwave, etc., were built. They were once built here, by American workers, but not any longer. The same is happening with the auto industry. Too many people like "SMS" think the Japanese are some type of God's, who can do anything better then the American's, and have no problem sleeping at night knowing our children will be forced to flip burgers at McDonald's for a living...providing there are enough people making enough money to *buy* the McDonald's...

you got it right but it was actually Bob Bourke

nate

Neither Hummer nor Chrysler were capable of competing profitably, I guess Chrysler has been in trouble for years, thinking back to the days when Lee Iacocca struggled to keep them from going totally under.

I agree with Knight, however, that our "government" has made it too easy for our American companies to send production to sweatshop countries and then reimport the product and make a killing.

I heard just the other day that iPhone by Apple is populated with parts from Japan and perhaps Korea, and then assembled in China. The hard parts manufacturers capture some $27 and a little more for the cost of the iPhone. China makes about $4.00 per unit for the assembly. In the end, Apple takes about 50% of the sales price of the phone in the USA as profit. Maybe a smart business decision but it humps the economy and the jobs here in the target market. The object of the study was the design, innovation, and planning make the money. It doesnt take any particular talent to put a screw in a hole.

One of the reasons our kids have to flip burgers or roll tacos is that many of them do not prepare themselves for design, innovative and planning jobs. There was a time when a high school graduate could get a job, rear a family, buy a home, and have a good life. That is getting much much harder to do.

My point was that the "new" part with Hummer & Chrysler was that the government forced it. I can't wait to see what happens the next time some still existing American company tries to get the govt. to impose anti-dumping levies against one of these companies that were forced off shore by that same govt.

I dont think American companies have been penalized nearly enough for dumping, tying, and other economic infractions. Neither have the foreign producers.

We have had a nutless government for a long time.