The Last American Car

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<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>Breaking Automotive News
Final Big Three-built car rolls off the line

DETROIT AM November 13, 2009 - In what was a day many thought would never come, the final car to be built by an American manufacturer, a General Motors-built Sable Black 2010 Cadillac DTS, rolled off the assembly line at 2:15 pm this afternoon. A crowd of assembly line workers waited for it at the end of the line, but the look on their faces revealed that this wasn’t a happy gathering. It was a sad one. In decades past, Cadillac employees have greeted previous finished Cadillacs at the end of the line, which normally signified an achievement, such as the one millionth car built.

While today’s event has been preceded by similar mileposts at Ford Motor Company in 2008, and DaimlerChrysler earlier this year, the gravity of today’s happenings is not lost on many. It represents the end of the American automobile. From tomorrow forward, no American automobile manufacturers will be building cars. Henceforth, all new cars will be built by overseas companies, although many of the actual cars will still be assembled in the United States. What little remains of the former automotive giants is being sold off, often to overseas investors.

When the likes of Packard, Nash, Studebaker, and DeSoto began to disappear 50 years ago, no one could have predicted the impact this might have further down the road. The first hint that there might be a big problem was the demise of Plymouth, followed a few years later by Oldsmobile, which was largely ignored by Americans, as they continued to buy foreign automobiles in record numbers. Few predicted even as little as 2 or 3 years ago that over the next couple of years, once popular names like Mercury, Buick, Pontiac, and Lincoln would cease to exist.

Foreign brands such as Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and Mitsubishi have become so popular around the world that demand has exceeded capacity in recent months. Officials from those companies have said that despite the poor economy in the U.S., which is mostly due to the elimination of American jobs in the automotive, or automotive-related industries, other countries are doing quite well economically, and sales of new cars remain strong in those countries.

With supplies far exceeding demand in the United States, foreign manufacturers are looking to ship some cars overseas from North America, despite the additional cost, to keep up with orders. Few new cars have been sold in the United States in recent years, due mostly to the skyrocketing unemployment figures, which are now approaching 35 percent.

The impact this has had on the American economy has been devastating; hundreds of thousands are out of work, bankruptcies are at an all-time high, and more homes are in foreclosure now than at any other like period in American history.

And the fall out isn’t limited to just the automakers. Thousands of other businesses that catered to the automobile industry have also gone under. 2009 marks the first full year of America’s economic depression, one which might end in 2011 or 2012, according to economists, and ranks as the most devastating economic time in U.S. history. “The Great Depression of 1929 was nothing compared to this,” stated a top ranked economist who asked to remain anonymous. “Americans have been selfish, always looking for the best deal, always looking to save money, without any thought to what those actions might lead to in the future. And now that the future is here, it’s too late to do anything about it. Americans literally shopped themselves out of jobs beginning in the 1990’s and continuing into the mid-2000’s. There was no such thing as American pride, and this is the end result.”

Normally, Cadillac Division might have been expected to retain the last car built, as they did with the final Eldorado Convertible in 1976, but bankruptcy liquidators have ordered everything sold. The final Cadillac was purchased by a private investor in Japan, and will be shipped overseas.

Honda put out a press release calling today “a dark day in automotive history in America,” and promised to build as many cars as necessary to fulfill demand, which has been minimal given the economic devastation in America.

Toyota said “America will recover from its financial problems,” and committed $250 million to the task of updating its remaining factories in the United States.

All of the major overseas auto manufacturers have posted price increases to their new vehicles in recent days, causing many to speculate that more layoffs of American workers are on the horizon.”It’s just too expensive to build cars in America,” stated an industry insider. “It’s more affordable to build overseas and ship to America, especially given today’s climate.” In the past 2 years, assembly plants in North America building foreign cars have experienced a work force reduction of close to 45%, and wage and benefit concessions from workers of almost 50%. Many workers have reluctantly accepted these terms, since there are no other jobs available.

Friday, November 13, 2009 will certainly go down in history as an unlucky day: the day the final car built by an American car maker rolled off the assembly line. Many attribute this to mistakes made in the past. “If I’d known back in 2006 that buying an American car versus a foreign car would make the difference, I would have done it,” said John Smith, who was finishing loading up his family’s belongings so they could move in with his In-Laws. “I had no idea that this could really happen. I wanted a dependable car, and that’s what I got. Of course, with no job and no money for car payments or fuel, that dependable car doesn’t look like such a good deal right now.” Joe’s 2006 Mitsubishi SUV was repossessed last year, shortly after he lost his job.


This fictional story hopefully will never happen, but it certainly could if Americans don't recover the pride they once had in this country, and support American companies, American-made goods, and American jobs. Outsourcing is not in keeping with the American way of life.

Copyright © 2005 Automotive Mileposts, Inc.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE>
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Don't blame the American People[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_bicker.gif[/img][img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_bicker.gif[/img]

The American Politions should be blamed for allowing all of the good jobs to go abroad. Check the decline of mining, manufactoring, and other good paying jobs in the last twenty five years.

A country can not survive with only service providing jobs. We don't even produce most of the food that we eat. What we do produce is controlled by food purveyors that are foriegn companies like Cargill, Archer Daniel Midland, and other's.

Before you dispute this just check, and see what percentage was produced, by American workers for American Owned Companies.

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Ray



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: rayell on 12/21/05 1:00am ]</font>

It is only a perdiction ain't it?? as the date is 2009 thats 3 years away??
But the U.S. needs to work on making a GOOD AFORDABLE ECONO CAR and STOP sending job out of the country for Cheaper cost.. Cheaper Cost = cheap cars.. What I would call Disaposable
throw-a-way cars.
Tim
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I've seen this article go south on many forums now. Guys, it's not about the cars, it's about the American spirit being broken by our greed.
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Everytime we hear some tree hugger that complains about gas milage ... try asking him how much fuel costs to bring these ship loads of imports to these shores. How much pollution does a super tanker or Super container ship produce, per mile...just because its over the ocean doesn't lessen the effect. Matter of fact, there is a lot of proof that the oceans are less able to absorb much more. All this move of goods to and from to save on production cost...how will that compute as energy cost go up...or possibly fossil fuels become prohibitive to acquire?

Energy costs do not exist in a vacuum. It costs fuel to ship in textiles from indonsia, Cars from Japan, Korea, EU, fruit from S. America...the list goes on. The whole idea of a global market, factories, cheap shipping, internet purchases depends on cheap energy (in this case "cheap fuel&quot[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img] costs.

We are paying more and more, percentage wise, to save money on production cost. At some point, as we just had a taste of this year, Cheap energy is going to affect the price of low cost good and services that have been outsouced. Much like the monopoly cartels of early 1900's...once you put your competitors out of business, you can raise your prices to what ever you want...what are they going to do, you are the only source?

I hope we don't start another political thread on this or other points...we all know where that got us. Don't we?
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Well who else is going to leave? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img] Anyone who was going to already did so.


Stepping lightly on the politics, its true, Made in the USA means nothing anymore. Its all about the $$.

And you just thought the saying green with envy came from some weird old people that made it up. Nope. Money is envy, and whoever has the most (in this country) is "the best."

Relating things together that dont seemingly have much connection - many of my friends were talking about how they need to get a masters, or a PhD, or whatever, to make money. They strive for A's not because they even care about learning, but because it looks good on a resume.

They've sometimes criticized me because my GPA isn't going to make me enough money. But what they don't, and can't, for some reason, understand, is that I don't even care about the money.

I'm in college for an education, and I don't care if I'm making 60,000 dollars a year instead of 100K. I'm going to college for an education, and to learn, regardless of my GPA. Many of the people in my school with the highest GPA's don't know anything.

Many see college as simply a way to make money later on in life. I'm going because I want to learn. I can live on 20,000 a year. I don't need 100K.

Oh, and I'm a Junior in college now with one semester under my belt. I'm going to try and make my Masters degree in 4 years, if I can.

I guess my point is, since the Great Depression, the American Dream has been to make a life for yourself, to become somebody, and to rise above your hardships. Well, the hardships are mostly gone now.

The drive to succeed and to build and to construct (whether its a company or something smaller scale) has been turned into a drive to get a business degree and make money making some business decisions. The hard work of our elders in the Depression, working for their lives, allowed us to be so successful later on.

I also think that our generations (and some before me) have no defining moment, no event that is great enough to change our mindset. Most of the guys on the forum are younger now than was the case a few months ago.

Yes, we've had some "small" things, the War, September 11th, but we haven't had a clear situation where our very freedoms were at stake, no World War, no Vietnam, no Cold War, nothing even to fear, other than maybe losing some of our precious money.

Instead were slowly losing it, in a way nobody sees as a threat to the US. Economic outsourcing, yes, but also the concept of a global economy doesn't mesh with the "American Dream" at all.

I think that it needs to be revised a bit. Instead of being "buy cheat or steal anything you can so you can be a multi-millionaire," it should be "Work to enrich yourself mentally, physically, and culturally" However, that isn't going to happen until we get slapped in the face and lose our status as a superpower.

Yes, yes, I've done it again. Rambled on and and on. but I'm not finished yet. Got a little more relating to do.

Lets say you have a bone stock engine. A 302 for the sake of argument. Now, you want to build for performance. You know a few facts. Big flow numbers are good, right? RIGHT! So you purchase yourself a new set of heads. Some AFR 205's. Everyone knows they flow great numbers!

So you bolt them on, along with the rest of your old parts. Cam, intake, carb, the works. You fire it up, and get the worst running engine you've ever seen. But why? You've got flow numbers! Everyone knows that engines that flow more air make more power.

These flow numbers are equal to money. You can have lots and lots of money. You can have lots and lots of flow. But either without a purpose and the proper inlets and outlets are not going to perform like they should. You can throw all the money, and all the flow numbers you want at life and at an engine, but it will not make it perform any better.

Properly sized amounts of air, and money, effectively serve to increase power and quality of life, respectively. Don't get so greedy that you're blinded by other important factors. Focusing on a single factor has always and will always blind people to more important things that can accomplish a goal.
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If someone would build something I want at the price I'm willing to pay I'm in. The new Mustangs are the closest they've gotten (I love the old Mustangs but I'm no fan of "throttle by wire&quot[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]. The Fourty Nine I would have had a hard time walking away from.

I just don't need all the thngs they dump in these cars to inflate the prices. I'm not big on power windows in a coupe. I can do without power/heated seats, power mirrors, computer guided moisture sensitive wipers, variable assisted power steering (come to think of it manual brakes and steering are fine).

The only thing that comes close to anything I'm looking for option wise is about the size of the spare tire in my Torino. And the styling of those econo boxes is frankly butt ugly.

In reality I'm an unlikely new vehicle owner anyway I guess. I've owned newer vehicles and figuring enjoyment to money I'd rather own older cars. I did like the 92 Vic we used to own but I didn't necessarily need the all the options in it.

Just my opinon, and you know what they say about opinions.

Chuck
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Hey Wes:

I like the way you think. Wish I had the education to be more fluent. Maybe learning to type with two fingers would help. LOL
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Just takes practice. And I like to talk alot, so I've got possibly what some would say too much practice. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img]

As for the typing, heck I was just born at the right time. You've probably got me beat hands down on wrench turning.

If I remember right, the last time the US economy went south, it took a lot of other companies in the same direction. The US is a huge market and when we stop buying, other parts of the world suffer. Its also hard to compete with people who get paid penuts to work in unhealthy dangerous conditions and are throw away workers to our pensioned, health care benefit packages.
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