“Cadillac Ranch” When I still was on the road, I used to pick up a coffee in Amarillo and stop here to drink it on the way home from West Texas. Yes, at the time I was driving an Acura RS.
In 1979 the Big Three sold nearly nine out of every 10 new vehicles on US roads. By 2004, as European and Asian firms ate away at their market, only about 50 per cent of the nation’s new cars were sold by US producers. By October 2005, cars made by the Big Three accounted for about 40 per cent of the US market, according to Forbes. Toyota, Honda and Korean Hyundai had all made inroads. Even that US archetype the truck saw 30 per cent of its market go to foreigners.
American cars were about freedom, sexual liberation and sheer confident patriotism. For young Americans a driving licence and their first Chevy or Ford was the most important rite of passage into adulthood. The car gave birth to other American icons: the motel, the advertising billboard and the diner. They were all children of the road.
Of course, the car still defines a lifestyle. Americans still buy cars by the millions, whether they are in gridlocked LA or in the middle of Kansas miles from the nearest town. But what does it mean when a country’s cultural heart is now made in Japan? Or Korea? Or Germany?
America’s tempestuous affair with the car has become a passionless marriage. Americans still need their cars, but the world has changed and they no longer really love them. Chrysler was taken over by Germany’s Daimler. Japanese firms, such as Toyota and Honda, are opening plants as Ford shuts down. Cars are not big business. Ford as a company is worth about $15bn – Google is worth $129bn.
[Rob] Latham says his students no longer see their cars as an essential expression; their Toyotas and Hondas are just vehicles. They boast of iPods or computer games, not their ‘wheels’.
‘They are like walking cyborgs with all these things attached to them. Cars have become functional. They are not statements anymore. Electronics are,’ he said.
[Chip] Lord [Cadillac Ranch sculptor] agrees: ‘Young people do not have that same set of cultural signs. Their cultural landscape is about technology and the internet, not about convertibles and driving across America.’
Possibly it’s the old VW bug mentallity thats still underlying the American
psychic. There’s a lot of old fuddy-duddies out there hoping Jane Fonda
runs for president.
Today more U.S. sold Toyotas, are made in the U.S. than are imported from other countries.
I’ve just been tired of dealing with cars, the same old problems. When I moved to a big city, I tried living without a car for a year — I’m going on 4 years now. There’s obviously some annoyance, but I’ve centered my life around walking and taking public transportation on occassion. I find I have much less stress and feel more healthy — no more traffic jobs, repairs, maintenance, fuel, oil, insurance… you name it. One disappointment after another. Unless some radically designed car comes out, or an electric car, I’m not interested in investing again. It always seemed more of a burden; and every new one I bought always felt like an expensive let down over time.
When I was in high school, I rebuilt a 67′ Mustang with my dad, and loved that car — it made driving fun. But new american cars don’t have that beauty or simplicity. Foreign cars are always more innovative now adays, so it seems. This is always the plight of heavy, big corporations (save Apple lately) — run by middle management, their bloat weighs down their decisions, and we get safe bets rather than innovative changes. I don’t want to drop 20+k for the same old thing.
Much less, buying a car has to change. When I think of consumer electronics, even huge purchases, I think online research and usually one or two helpful people who love to talk about it. Cars I think of dealerships, paperwork, and sales people I wouldn’t normally want to talk too in the first place.
As an under 30 Creative Director, I may or may not be in their demographic anymore.
Why attach emotion to the debate? American car companies are not well run, period. Would any American company even try what Toyota is doing with Scion? No, because they can’t get outside of a 50 year old business process.
Besides, I drive an ’05 Ford Mustang, my wife drives an ’04 Volvo S60. Since Ford and Volvo are owned by the same company, do we own two domestic cars or two imports? Think about it…
Sometimes when you fall behind, there’s no catching up. It’s not really about steel and design, it’s about culture. For decades the unions and management was so busy waring, they never saw the real threat. They fought the wrong battles and lost. Maybe it doesn’t really matter. If things continue to slide downhill in the middle east, all of use will be riding bicycles or Vespas. I wonder what the weight limit on those scooter are?
Would any American company even try what Toyota is doing with Scion?
Um, how about GM and Saturn? Worked for a while.
My local mechanic told me that the first letter of a Toyota’s VIN tells you where it was made. “J” for Japan”, and something else for the US (H?).
It seems that after a delivery from Japan, in California all the Camry’s made in Japan sell out quickly, and all you have left in dealer inventory are US made cars. The Japanese made cars have demonstrably fewer defects. This is not a well known fact, and yet somehow people seek them out first.
The problems of US manufacturing are present at every level. While we certainly are capable of making stuff with as few defects as Japan and Asia, we don’t do it for long. I think it’s cultural and psychological. We should leave complex manufacturing to the Confucians.
What’s an “American” car company anyway? “Half” the parts come from elsewhere. “Half” the operations are financed with foreign capital. It’s a WORLD market. Businesses of this scale are global companies, not national ones, for better or worse.
Yes, the market is global… And there lies the test that proves US companies are not doing well… How many US made cars are sold in Japan? Why? How many US made cars are sold in Europe? Why?…
I think that I have read article that in 2004 Cadillac have literaly sold some DOZENS of cars in Europe… There is the answer. Only reason even 50 percent of the market is held here is gullable captive audience easy to be sold “bigger and more powerful” whatever.
Cadillac Ranch was an art project funded by Stanley Marsh 3 (not III, 3) was heir to a depleted gas field that is used to store helium. Stan had a picture window in his Amarillo office that used ping pong balls as a shade, complete with a vacuum hose to suck them out and thereby open the shade. Stan was quite a character.
We make a lot of toyotas here in indiana and kentuky. They are usually the best paying jobs around. I myself drive a cadillac. Gave up the rice burners in the eightys.
Rice burners? Reminds me of the 1st time I heard that all-American term from a buddy of mine with a Harley.
Take all the Asian parts off that Harley and he would have a very, very heavy foot-powered scooter. I’ll bet your caddy wouldn’t run either — non.
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Most of the US cars are simply too bloated for the roads and parking lots here. The new Mustang and the Chrysler C300 may be exceptions, although on the fat side, too. But the Mustang is not exported to Europe and the Chrysler costs almost twice as much here than in the US.