“The hubris of its executives related to consumer needs, an obsession with big cars, garish designs coming from its studios, the neglect of safety and air pollution matters, and rising prices all played into the hands of critics. . . . In his ‘The Automobile Industry Since 1945,’ economist Lawrence J. White demonstrated that the industry was largely complacent, fattened by high rates of return of investment. With little incentive to develop new technologies, automobile executives turned a deaf ear during the 1960s to matters related to both safety and air pollution. It was only after the government intervened as a countervailing force that the automobile industry responded at all to pressing issues, and initially it did so halfheartedly. A new vision concerning individual mass transportation was clearly called for, but was not forthcoming from Detroit. In time it would come from our former World War II enemies, the Germans and Japanese.”
— John Heitmann, The Automobile and American Life (2018, pp. 174-175)
RE:SOURCES
- Heitmann, John; 2018. The Automobile and American Life. 2nd Edition. McFarland & Co., Inc.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Pontiac Grand Prix (1967)
Also see ‘Langworth and Norbye made excuses for General Motors’ big-car fixation’
Halfhearted response to matters related to safety and air pollution was, IMO, merely a symptom, a product of a problem – not the problem itself. The problem was that during the critical transitional period of 1960s the US car industry failed to properly develop and/or put into mass production a number of crucial pieces of technology, such as fuel injection, independent rear suspension (with very few exceptions), rack-and-pinion steering and front-wheel drive (again – with one exception). Not because it lacked the ability, but mostly because it lacked the incentive. Wasted time in 1960s led to sub-optimal decisions in 1970s, when a crash program was called for.
E.g., despite mechanical and even electronically controlled fuel injection being available since late 1950s, all American car makers chose to stick with good ol’ carburetors for mass-produced cars, because that was the cheapest, least troublesome way (Corvette’s 1957-65 mechanical fuel injection was an evolutionary dead end – unlike most systems developed simultaneously by Bosch in West Germany).
Had the US car makers offered EFI at least on some high-end cars in 1960s – as did Mercedes-Benz and many other top European makes – making it available across the entire model lineup in mid-1970s would not have been unfeasible. Bendix could be the American Bosch (in fact, rumors state that the Bosch D-Jetronic was developed from the Bendix Electrojector of the late 1950s).
Instead, for a decade or more they had to rely on various supplementary devices attached to the carburetor (the only readily available technology !) to reduce emissions, thus starting the Malaise era. Which AFAIK for the most part didn’t exist in Europe and Japan, because most performance and luxury cars just switched to the already available and well-developed fuel injection technology (probably the emission standards were also not as strict as in the US, though).
I have been wondering how many different factors all contributed to the what came home to roost in the 1970s.
1. The American manufacturers had become highly integrated with their in-house component manufacturing. To what extent did this drive a need to keep the captive facility filled with work that utilized the existing systems instead of (a) making the capital expenditures to implement alternative technologies, (b) go to outside vendors.
2. Depending upon the time period one may be looking at, especially in the 1960s, Detroit had massive volumes far beyond others. One may wish to consider not only production capacity but also the ability to maintain tolerances at such high volume.
3. Compare the maintenance schedule for an MB versus the Detroit car in the 1960s and 1970s. MB expected a lot of expensive maintenance while the Detroit attitude was that their buyer might not even do much of what was required. A different attitude that would be baked into the engineering approach.
4. When looking at the Germans up to the start of the 1970s, they were still under the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rates of 4 DM to $1.00. This was a huge financial advantage.
5. Something I was reading yesterday in a Hagerty story on the Miata brought up a point on Mazda’s flexible production system versus the Detroit production plants. The Miata was approved because they could be profitable at 40,000 annual units since it was produced with multiple different models on the same line. This was not the Detroit system where a plant was dedicated to single platforms.
Was the Detroit system ultimately more efficient/profitable when running at capacity? I would speculate that is likely true. The downside is that it locks in a solution that may be the wrong call for the marketplace at any given point in time. I do believe that this has contributed to inflated production projections to justify new program approvals.
6. The stories of the 1976 Seville development tells us that the Detroit production systems required more tolerance allowances and larger flanges. This is the reason that an early on idea to based the Seville off the Opel Diplomat could not happen. GM in Germany could do it but GM Detroit could not and one can surmise from the continued development of the Seville that it was not viewed as something that needed to be addressed.
A couple of nascar series still use carburetors. Good grief!
Although from a technical standpoint I agree BUT one should probably view this from a NASCAR competition viewpoint to have a fuller viewpoint. A carburetor is going to be easier to police for cheating; no electronics that can be creatively programmed.
Also, NASCAR is not about technical innovation but the show of the race.
With a few deft updates, John Heitmann’s quote could easily be referencing Detroit’s recent abandonment of cars in favour of their preferred profit-making, big, bulky, and not very efficient ICE trucks and full-size SUVs.