LOL. No one is giving up! I only own a tC (which I do love, don't get me wrong) cause I couldn't afford anything else... but look at what the US automakers came out/are coming out with:

Mustang - including new BOSS, BULLITT, GT500, and Cobra versions, with a new design slated for 2010

Challenger - have you seen this car? I mean... HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CAR? I want one so bad I can taste it. Why do all cars have to be wedge-shaped stilletos with 4 wheels? THEY DON'T.

GTO - granted, a boring looking muscle car that's been discontinued, but the cheapest piece of machinery with 400HP out the door

Charger - Other than having 4 doors, it's a mean looking vehicle. R/T and Daytona look great

300 - Granted, not a 'muscle' car, but look at how popular it is and what you can do with it

Pontiac G8 - coming soon... is basically a re-badged Holden, but it's going to be the best Pontiac that Pontiac has had in decades

Sky/Solstice/Demon - Probably the only roadsters other than the Honda s2000 that won't get you labeled as '___'... and for a lot lot less. (google Dodge Demon... it looks MEAN!!)

Camaro - I had a friend tell me 10 years ago that Chevy was going to discontinue the Camaro so they could re-design it and bring it back to being a head-turner and not the mass-market granny-mobile that it had become. Sure enough he was right. (I will admit though, I am not liking the grill on the new Camaro). And with a new Camaro, you know a Firebird is not far behind.

Not to mention you still have your Vettes/Z06 and Vipers out there.

If you're a tuner and import-only fan, then of course, you're just rolling your eyes at all the above, but that's ok. The tuner market is saturated and booming. But look at what the imports have to offer for muscle/sports... S2000, G35, 350Z, RX-8, MX-5, Skyline, Eclipse and... ??? Toyota doesn't even have anything at the moment (or are they still producing MR2s? I don't even know). Acura is moving towards becoming a luxury brand (thus discontinuing the RSX) like Lexus.

American muscle is coming back and if you're into that kind of vehicle, then there's nothing from overseas currently that compares. Except for the Skyline of course, which is going to be one hell of a car for sure.

 

there was an interview i read a few weeks ago with a union worker at a GM plant somewhere....he had a masters is Accounting but he spent the last 25yrs of his life installling gloveboxs....he was making $54/hr...who in there right mind would turn that job down.

the starting salary of an assembly line worker is more then the starting salary of an engineer at GM.

 

sucker punch...thats fine and dandy but gas is going to go back over $3/gal this summer and no one is going to buy V8s...the Big 2.5 lost because they didnt spread out there portfolio. they didnt develope a GOOD small car. they are to worried about SUVs and trucks.

 

"When a chain smoker develops lung cancer after thirty years of habitual self-annihilation, their ill-health should come as no surprise to either the smoker or a casual observer. Likewise, The Big 2.5’s current tailspin is the direct result of bad habits stretching back some fifty years. Like a pack-a-day puffer, the Detroit automakers “felt just fine” for several decades. Eventually, inevitably, their dirty little habits caught up with them."

 

I was watching an interview at the Tokyo auto salon show and they the tuner market is going down in japan slowly. They said the people in Japan is buying more family cars now. They the tuning culture is booming in the U.S. and they want to focus on us now. I guess they are going through some problems too over sea. I love the GTO. I will hate to see it go. I think american muscle is coming back also but the question is how long would it stay with high gas prices. The new Supra and the new Skyline should be coming to the U.S. soon and the american muscle cars will have to do battle them in the auto market. Time will tell what will happen in the near future.

 

I think it's an overbroad generalization to say that unions are destroying companies. Unions exist outside of car manufacturing plants. Some unions have gotten more powerful, but that's because the corporation failed to check their power. The reverse is true, like Wal-mart or Comcast.

That's besides the point. The reason why American companies are faltering is because they make crap cars, bottom line. When was the last time they made anything on par with their foreign counterparts? When gas prices were going up, who were the ones saying 'this is just a phase, people will still buy SUVs'? The american manufacturers, that's who.

I remember trying to buy a Ford and how outrageously priced it was for how little you get. It's still the same today.

The last homerun for Chrysler was the 300 series, and instead of building around that, they're abandoning it for a different design.

Companies that get fat on their greed and fail to have a long term plan go by the wayside, as Chrysler is doing now and other companies will do soon.

 

free market people, free market..

nothing is more effiecient. Let supply and demand rule sales. You can't feel bad when American automotive workers cant feed their familes. Put out better cars...

Unions are not part of free market, so they can never be as efficient as a company who runs without one.

 

and as for the above list of car, while most of them are improvements on the crap that has been put out lately, you will notice that none of them sell for under $20,000, which is arguably the biggest market of all..

 

the only way for GM and Ford to survive is to file chapter 11. then restart with out the HUGE legacy costs, health care and union BS. sure ppl will be angry...but offer the old workers jobs back, just at more realistic rates. THEN they need to drop brands, and then close about 75% of there dealer network. then they have a chance.

GM should be structured as follows
Chevy – Average cars
Corvette (new brand) performance cars
GMC – Trucks & SUVs
Cadillac – Luxury

sell/Kill everything else, its just fluff

Ford should jsut be Ford - Volvo - Mazda
sell/kill everything else...and for gods sakes get us the damn Euro focus!

 

Well here is a viewpoint from Detroit. I work in the auto industry for a supplier. Some of my family worked for the big 3.

Some will say that I am covering for Detroit but I can tell you about both sides of the fence. I have owned all american cars until the xB. I have had some real crap cars over the years and yes they were all american. But I really feel that the past 10 years has been much different. Quality is way up for American built cars.

I bought the box because of the style and I truely do love it. It is a lot of fun but I have had some problems with it. A new clutch (Warrenty 20k miles, weak pressure plate), RR power window switch quit working, Paint problems and the trans fluid was changed due to hard shifting in cold weather. I have a little rust around the edges of the door step where the plastic rubbed through the paint.

I also have a Chevy pickup for pulling a boat. The 98 truck or this new 06 truck never went to the dealer for service. I also had a Dodge caravan with I think one trip back to the dealer.

Don't get me wrong here, I love the box and the engineering behind it but I don't think it is any better than most American cars. It is a model by model thing when it comes to quality.

Now Design has been different. I bought the box because of the design. Now toyota brought the box over here as kind of a filler (to have something to sell with the xA). the xA was the shinning star made for the american market. The xB is what sold the most (before the tC) so they were a little lucky there. Now the xB is designed for the american market and I think it looks like it is. The style is growing on me a little but I like the old one much more.

Maybe this is payback for all the years of bad cars but I think manufactureing in this country is going to be a thing of the past at least for good wages. Someone here stated that a auto worker made $54 an hour. That ia about 120k a year. I find that hard to believe. That figure with benifits would make more sense.

I don't know what is going to happen. I do know that many jobs are being shipped to cheap labor areas of the world, mostly China. Michigan is losing about 60K jobs a year but Walmart is hiring.

 

the guy that made the $54/hr bought a Ford GT after he took his buyout plan. its all true. ill see if i can find the article

 

Exactly... although I won't put 100% of the blame on the unions, they have essentially killed their own companies. At some where along the line, the Big 3 (when they were the big 3...) became really complacent and didn't even try to improve the quality, efficiency, value, utility, etc of their vehicles.

Now, what are they suffering with? Trying to sell cars while taking thousands of dollars of losses JUST to pay for all the myriad services the union forces them to offer and pay for. Combine that with poor management (really, who thinks of some of the cars these companies come out with?), and you have a recipe for disaster.

Of course, this has been going on a long time, but no one seemed to pay attention until Toyota showed up on their front lawn and employees started driving Camrys to work (ok, I don't know if that really happens but it sounds cool ).

And the view that without unions, wages would remain at minimum wage and management would pocket all income is ridiculous. Economics doesn't work like that... no offense, but I suggest to the person(s) who said that to take some type of intro to economics course. Labor is scare, as are resources... the foundation of economics.

 

If anyone has ever owned and worked on an american car made withing the past 3 decades then you know why they're all hurting. I'm also sick of hearing in the news that the americans are going "bankrupt".... BS!!! First of all their profits have gone down alot which means all of these corporate ahole running these companies have smaller paychecks then in prvious years, so they cut back american workers jobs so that they can keep their pockets fat. http://www.autoblog.com/2006/09/07/a...-year-at-ford/ Who the F*** does he think he is! Gee I thought they were hurting yet they have enough money to give this ahole $10 mill a year, yet they can't give their employees jobs, good pensions, or even medical converage.
Another thing that your not being told is the fact that american name brand cars are kicking a$$ everywhere else in the world. They make great products for all of these other countries yet they they don't bring any of it here, instead we get a vehicle that is rebadged for 5 different brands using the same chassis from 20 year ago. I have no pitty for american autocompanies. They deserve it, especially from all the years of using politics and what not to destroy other fine american car companies. Like Desoto AMC Plymouth all names chrysler bought up and killed off, GM killed off Oldsmobile, and not to mention using political power to kill of the Tucker Automobile. No, the american companies deserve to burn.
The real victims are the american workers. They're losing their jobs not because american cars aren't selling but because the american car companies keep building cars in Mexico and Canada, plus the selfish aholes running the companies "need" to keep there salaries so high because they "work" really hard. Plz. What american workers need to do is all take a sick day at the same time, or work really slow to really hurt these corporate pigs. Toyota and Hyundai are building new plants here in america (toyota plans to build 5 new plants) and I hope these workers can get jobs with these companies.

 

I may be missing something here, but it sounds like your arguing that it's better for autoworkers to be paid somewhere between $5-$22 an hour...? Better for who? If you really beieve that autoworkers being paid less by any of the 'big3' would result in lower priced cars, or an improvement in the quality of product...Then I want to come live in your world of magical gingerbread houses and gumdrop candy mountains.

Ford is losing it's butt, yes. But they have openly stated that their losses were a planned part of their 'restructuring'. This 'restructuring' involves the largest auto parts manufacturing plant in the world- which opened 2 years ago in India. This 'restructuring' also involves massive auto assembly plants in China that have been tooling up and have had training from Ford for over 2 years now. Ford expects to have these things fully in production by the end of 2008. They have also openly stated that they fully expect to be profitable again by early 2009, and even claim that they will recover their losses by 2010! How will they recover billions and billions in 'planned' losses by 2010?
...By manufacturing cars at costs that are amazingly low, in other parts of the world- and then shipping them back and selling them at their normal price ranges. It's easy to imagine and project huge profits from a $23,000 car that cost you 1/4 of what it did to manufacture 3 years earlier.
The only problem I see for them is their market.... I wonder if anyone has questioned how to sell a car to a market that can no longer afford it? After all, the guy who used to make $50 an hour now makes between $5 and $22.

 

bill ford hasnt taken a paycheck in a few months and wont do so until the company is profitable again...thats some good motivation.

 

Yeah...and he's really hurting for money, right?

 

Just like the tens of thousands of other auto-workers in the Detroit area, right?
...ooops, no!! They couldn't make their mortgage payments and had their houses foreclosed on.

Not everyone connected to the 'big3' works directly for them. Half of the auto industry in the Detroit area was contracted work thru parts manufacturers and such. When it's cheaper to "outsource", or "offshore", or whatever title is given to slave labor nowadays- These huge companies jump at the chance, and it doesn't just affect a company like Ford itself. It's screws alot of other people and companies.
Their purpose is to maximize profits, so they can get back to business as usual--which consists of sitting around the boardrooms, patting eachother on the backs, and giving themselves mega-million dollar bonuses for 'productivity'.

 

http://www.leftlanenews.com/blue-col...0-ford-gt.html

still looking for the glovebox guy

 

Someone mentioned that unions are not only present in the auto industry. 100% correct, and they ruin companies in other industries as well. I have worked as a union worker, lived and dealt with union issues and have worked in many types of industry and have see 1st hand the complete BS that goes along with them. All the union does is shoot itself in the foot. Hmmm company is going broke.. lets strike!!! Boy that is a smart choice. Lets make them lose more money until we force them to pay us more for the same job we have been doing, and a job that people do for less money anywhere else. It is mindless thinking. It just forces already corrupt companies to become even more corrupt and outsource to places that do not force them to pay ridiculous wages.

No one is "entitled" to a job, you get it and earn your keep. No one is "entitled" to a raise, you earn it through performance. And no one deserves anything due to seniority, period. The better performer and harder worker deserves the high pay. Then everyone has incentive to be more productive, thus the company is more successful. Too many union folks seem to think that getting paid way too much for a short time is better than getting paid decent for a lifetime at a stable company.

Again, the union is not all of the issue, there are many more, but it amazes me in todays world that people still think the unions are such a great thing. The only people I personally have met that think so are lazy workers who brag that they sit around half thier shift and still make $25/hour.

 

^^^ DIGN DING DING we have a winner