Once there were three mighty automotive giants in North America... and then these little companies from across the two great oceans eyed us and said, "hmm, maybe we could do something with that market over there."
The Italians, the French, the Brits, the Germans, the Russians and the Swedes; they all say this huge market and expressed a thought: "we can sell some cars over there." And so it was with the arrival of Alfa Romeo; Ferrari; Fiat; Citroen, Renault, Peugeot; Jaguar, Morgan, Triumph, Aston Martin; Land Rover; Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen; Skoda, Lada; Volvo, Saab, etc.
And they came at the right time. Back then, (in the 50s/60s), North American cars were built well but they were huge and gas guzzlers and no attention to the environment or the passengers' safety. Volvo was the first to change that by adding this unheard-of device called the seat belt. Then crumple-zones, allowing the car to absorb the energies of the impact, instead of conveying it directly to the passengers.
And these new 'immigrant vehicles' did everything so differently. In the 50s, who would want to buy a tiny little Triumph when your neighbor had a 25-foot-long Buick Roadmaster that weighed in at about three tons and took a week to come to a stop. But prevail they did. Hindsight is 20/20 but isn't it always those who choose to do the one thing differently than others who usually trump the norm?!
Here we are, 60 years later give-or-take a few, and some of those foreign cars are gone from North American shores. Some of the American brands are gone too. Packard; Dusenberg, AMC (American Motors Corp.); Plymouth. And now, Pontiac and Oldsmobile are gone. Mercury is dying a slow but assured death.
Was it that the North American cars weren't as good as the foreign ones? Was it that the foreign ones were less costly to run? Maybe a yes to all of the above and more. But here we are and now some of these companies have asked and received money from the respective governments to stay in business. (Must be like Christmas in Detroit).
But now, the 'foreign is better' belief has taken a down turn too. When you look at statistics, really look at them, you see the truth. Honda and Toyota, not as good as they once were. NOT BAD, but NOT as good! Nissan and Suzuki are the quirky Japanese brands that still manage to stay alive despite having some oddball products out there.
And then someone had a thought in a boardroom somewhere in Yokohama or Tokyo and it went something like this: "let's take our existing products, make them larger, more efficient, swimming in leather, better than the regularly-branded products, re-name them and target the upper-middle-class." And there you have the emergence of Lexus, cars that were FAR better than the Toyotas they were based on. Acura and Infiniti belonging to Honda and Nissan. Mazda, Suzuki and Subaru just didn't have the capital to start their own luxury brands.
So here's a question: why didn't you just make your Camry AS good as you made the Lexus LS400?! 17 years on and these original Lexus' are still on the road in very good shape! Acura never succeeded in establishing their luxury marquees as well as Toyota and Nissan did. They're not bad products but they weren't successful in establishing Acuras as not being reworked Accords and Civics.
So where am I going with all this? I don't really know. I can say this: since I was a teen, I often wondered, is there the perfect car? It would be foolish to say yes. There is no perfect car. There are as many cars to choose from in what they deliver to the customer as there are customers who buy them. Let's look at it this way: take a two-million dollar Bugatti Veyron as a starting example. 1001 horsepower, Quad-turbocharged V16, fastest production car in the world and it's an automatic. Anyone could drive it. It also has All-wheel-drive, so it's good for traction. But it IS $2,000,000 and it does have 1001 horsepower which means you could kill yourself just backing out of your own driveway.
Porsche's Cayenne Turbo S is another example. Extremely expensive, incredible power from that engine and fantastic traction with the advantage of it being an AWD SUV. But it's considered to be one of the ugliest vehicles on the road. And that engine is incredibly expensive to repair. Take ANY Ferrari and it has three main things going against them: They're expensive to buy; most of their owners don't know how to drive them; and EVERY speed-bump on the planet is their enemy.
Without going way overboard on naming every products' downfall, the truth is that EVERY CAR IN THE WORLD has a shortcoming. I like the BMW M5. The current model has amazing statistics working in its favor but the body's styling has proven itself to be its negative point. Someone else might like a Ferrari F430... but it only seats 2 and again, watch out for speed bumps! Another person likes a Hummer but the current models aren't even actually Hummers, they're a Chevy Tahoe and the S10 pickup trucks in disguise.
But IS THERE A PERFECT CAR?? Ask 100 people and you'll get 100 different answers. What matters is what it brings to YOU! I currently drive a 2002 BMW M 540i. It looks fantastic, it bloody well moves like nobody's business and there are so many well thought-out features aboard. But it has a few niggles too: the back seat won't fold flat, so that restricts the cargo capacity of the car. The engine only takes Premium fuel. And when something goes wrong with the engine, it's costly. Would I trade it for something else? Maybe. But whatever I'd choose, it too would have shortcomings.
So it's like this: Do you like American cars? Do you like sports-sedans? Do you like only Italian cars? Trucks? SUVs? So on and so forth. Do you like only European vehicles? Classic from the 50s and the 60s? Would I drive one of those 1960s Volvos, tiny and tin-like? YUP! And I know it'd be a hoot!
Today's posting wasn't a rant. I was just trying to put into words some of the thoughts that have been with me for years. Conclusion: there is no perfect car, there is only the perfect car FOR YOU!
Now, get out there and go for a ride, summer's almost over!
