Seriously though... why is Toyota beating ford??? Cause Toyota is such a better company, with such better cars... Come on.... Ford? Give me a break

 

I was interviewed by a book author about why I thought the Japanese car companies were doing so well against Detroit and I said the biggest reason is that the Detroit car companies don't respect the consumer, and believes they can get away with selling CRAP to the consumer and they'll buy with incentives if needed. Why do they behave this way? Because it's worked for a century! By cigar chomping management with egos and bonus checks big enough they didn't need to sweat the details. But their "strategy" is being beaten by giving consumers what they truly want - RELIABLE vehicles that are EASY to use.

Granted, we could point to other examples where the Detroit argument works... PC vs. Mac. The Macs are more reliable and easier to use yet businesses and consumers buy PC's with rebates and gimmicks. Maybe the difference there is that Apple didn't make the Mac useful enough to business for them not to buy PCs and that businesses don't want to be locked into one vendor. Once business was locked onto PCs then consumers went with it to be compatible with work (and mostly so they could use stolen software) and because PCs are usually cheaper.

 

Do you know the name of the book? I was just looking at a new release are borders this morning, forget the name but it was something to do with ford losing to the foreign auto makers....

 

I found the e-mail from the author with the book name. It's "The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market". Here's a link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...lance&n=507846

 

YEP! That was it, almost bought it but wanted to see the reviews on it. Funny you mentioned that today...

Every read "Taken for a Ride" ?

 

'03 Cobra...There is another thing that they got right as well

 

lol i gotta admit im a sucker for the cobra.....always have been but that svt with the whistle sound yuuuk. im sorry thats suppose to be true american muscle not a cheap honda under the hood. that ford concept that was at the ny auto show earlier this year thats a possible remake of the old shelby and other model mustangs from bak in the day should be really nice if they do definitly release it. i mean theres nothing wrong with superchargers and turbos but i beleive an american classic like that should be **** diesel!! lol

~ Stella

 

haha i hope your kidding. sounds like a honda? LOL I can respect a car company that makes at least one sports car more than a company that makes none. Lincoln and Lexus arent even in the same class though .

 

Both GM and Ford are in trouble. I read how the new Pontiac GTO does not have a sunroof because they rushed it to market in ONLY 18 months. Interesting that the new Solara was designed from scratch and brought to market in 19 months. To make it worse, the GTO was an existing car that only needed conversion! Not that it was a simple one, but still.

 

Exactly, and that's why, back in 1991, Chrysler sent a team to Honda to study how Honda builds cars, 2 years they studied their processes, and discovered a lot of better methods to build cars. Whether or not they really implemented them I don't know, but it was on a documentary I saw several years ago.

It was quite interesting