Your favorite "what if" about the auto industry crisis

There's a lot of talk about a government rescue and even some discussion on the nationalization of parts of the American auto industry lately, and as I was tossing the idea and implications around in my late-night noggin I came up with a couple of what ifs...

At the moment it appears that GM is particularly screwed. Their Volt concept shows a lot of promise, and is close to becoming a real production car whose importance should be recognized. It would be a horrible shame to lose that much development for any reason. If by some act of god, the market, or government intervention the Volt makes it to production, it will be the most important American car of this century. In other words-it had better be good. Not just good, but market-changing good, like the original Mini or VW Beetle. That's a lot of pressure on the engineering team, but we need a diamond on this one.

If it weren't for Cerberus, Chrysler would be already be gone. In the way-out scenario of a nationalized auto company, imagine Uncle Sam picking up the entire manufacturing and dealer/service operations of Chrysler to produce simple, cheap, efficient cars. They'd rename it AMC, and take their fat government check to retool the plants to make all-new Gremlins, Hornets, Pacers and Matadors.

What have you got?

all three major US auto manufacturers come to their senses and realize that the Millions they spend on NASCAR daily are massively wasted, and pull out, forcing the dissintegration of NASCAR, and thus Grand Am.

With Grand Am gone, or purchased by the ALMS, top drivers, teams and manufacturers convert to the ALMS. the ALMS becomes the World Le Mans Series with talent, tracks and cars from all over the planet. WLMS becomes more popular than F1, and Bernie Ecclestone capitalizes by purchasing the series and folding it into the FIA brand of motorsports. Through a series of Cost Cutting measures, "green initiatives", and Standardized this and that, the FIA ruin the series, and we are forced to deal with a pack of 20 vehicles going around Herman Tilke designed tracks in a conga line of sorts with no passing and little excitement.

(keep in mind, I love F1, so maybe they are doing something right...but I still complain)

God I would love to AMC come back! The "retro" market for small stuff is great (Beetle, MINI, 500) and a new Pacer and Gremlin would sell like hotcakes! Please please please!

Government owned Chrysler building Gremlins?? Is this the script for a Horror movie??

I'm thinking about $450 hammers.

With a little ingenuity, I think our government should be perfectly qualified to produce a completely incompetent vehicle that does 0-60 in about an hour and a half, gets 6 mpg on a specialty fuel costing upwards of $25 per gallon that can only be purchased on the black market from small non-descript pumping stations located in the desert of Nevada, probably incorporating styling cues from the bridge to nowhere for the modest and affordable sum of, say, $82,000.

Which will be fine, as long as it creates nice union jobs that can be paid for out of emergency bailout funds.

C'mon, flex your optimism muscle. I agree that a government-run AMC isn't a very attractive idea, and hardly a likely scenario.

No matter how you slice it the US auto industry is about to change completely. What's your best case scenario? I'd like to talk products, not politics.

Call me a realist, but I just don't see the AMC name coming back. I do agree, we're at a crossroads: Will the U.S. auto industry follow the example set by the British, or can it reinvent itself to produce more relevant cars? I'm hoping it's choice No. 2. As a group of people, we're pretty darn creative. Can't the same ingenuity that produced the iPod, Space Shuttle and Taco Bell give us cars that make sense for today's world?

If you want examples, look at the Honda Fit--even the first-gen car. It's roomy, fuel efficient, well crafted and priced right. I took it by a friend's shop, and he just freaked out at the excellent underhood packaging. No, it's not a race car (well, you know what I mean), but it's the right car for most people. Why can't something just like that be made here? I have often wondered if Honda would license out the design.

Mopar almost collapses. At the last minute, they realize the error of their ways and drop production of everything but the Viper, Challenger, Charger, and Ram pickup, and those Jeeps that are trail rated. Those people that complain about bad freeway manners from the Wrangler are publicly beaten with burlap sacks full of doorknobs. Mopar become a blazing success and in their hubris, restart production of the Sebring, Avenger, and Caliber. These fail miserably, and soon they come back to the brink of financial collapse. This cycle continues until the end of time.

GM manages to teeter on the brink, but manages to hold on after co-releasing the 5th-gen Camaro on the same day as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen comes out. Using this success, they release a Corvette ZR1 Gran Sport, which takes top time at the Nurburgring. Europeans and Japanese continue to ignore this fact and continue to claim that the other was using competition tires for their posted times, despite all being 30+ seconds slower than the corvette. Cheap interiors will still abound.

All of the Ford-America executives die in a horrible freak accident, and are replaced by a selection from Ford Europe and Ford Australia. Most America-only Fords are recalled and crushed, and the next-generation Mustang design is scrapped in favor of a 2800 lb design, using a 3.0L version of the Falcon DOHC I6 as a base motor, and having an optional all-aluminum DOHC 5.4L V8. Only one special edition is allowed to be produced per year, starting with a re-release of the SVO using a modified version of the Mazdaspeed3 Turbo 2.3L.

Toyota cries as Americans remember what it's like to drive cars with some excitement, and Camrys and Corollas languish on lots.

If GM goes belly up, it will mean that my 96 Impala SS will go from slightly collectible to being a gold mine.

Let 'em hang.

My dream scenario would be for the govt. to tell the UAW to take a hike, but we know that will never happen...

Tom Heath wrote: Their Volt concept shows a lot of promise, and is close to becoming a real production car whose importance should be recognized. It would be a horrible shame to lose that much development for any reason.

The Volt is a reinvention of the wheel. It's nothing more than a hybrid, which Toyota and Honda have been building by the thousands. OK, so it's battery first. Big deal, with a 40 mile range, that's nothing. GM is trying desperately to invent what has already been invented.

GM had a huge lead not too many years ago, and threw it away. The EV-1. Probably the best modern electric car ever made. Their R&D people are proud of the fact they are using nothing from it or the research that went into it.

So on the one hand GM is ignoring all the information already out there, trying to invent a car that already exists, while steadfastly ignoring the knowledge they already had.

And that, in a nutshell, is why GM is in the trouble they are in, and why I really don't think they are worth saving. Rewarding stupidity does nothing to discourage it.

"...the same ingenuity that produced...Taco Bell"

I remember the first time I ate at a Taco Bell. It was 1972 or '73 and they still put tomato chunks in the cheapest tacos. Now, you are lucky if that same taco has lettuce in it, the tomato chunks were discarded many YEARS ago.

If the car industry, at least in the U.S. followed T-B's model, there would be a small selection of economy cars, available in a handful of colors, with NO options (you either add them at home or buy them separately). Then, there would be progressively more expensive models, again with a few options, tho customer "tailoring" would still be advisable. And while not the tops of their respective field, at least they are palateable.

Crap, I just realized, I AM describing the current state of the U.S. auto industry. Never mind.

The best scenario I can see: the Big 3 convince the safety Nazis that you can't have it both ways, either you can have small light fuel efficient cars or an airbag in every crevice, nook and cranny.

They E36 M3can the all but useless airbag and adapt proven cage technology like the smart's exoskeleton but on a larger scale (think a 1.75 x .095 DOM cage inside the roof pillars etc as the basis for each chassis) and power these with the proven DOHC 4 bangers currently available, with clean technology diesels for those who prefer them. The CAFE standards go up, the cost of the airbags disappears, and the US auto industry joins the rest of the world.

Along with that, they develop hybrid drivetrains for these same chassis.

Phone rings... "Hi, WalterJ... Bob from GM here.... we have had it, done for, kaput. I wanted to see these remaining piles of LS-7s and T-56s go to a good home and so I'm calling you...."

walterj wrote: Phone rings... "Hi, WalterJ... Bob from GM here.... we have had it, done for, kaput. I wanted to see these remaining piles of LS-7s and T-56s go to a good home and so I'm calling you...."

I think we all wouldn't mind getting that call. but after that we would have to count on the aftermarket for new LS peices

Nah, they aren't going away, they'll file for bankrupcy protection after getting 200 Trillion from Congress, 90% of which goes for CEO bonuses.

After the big 3 CEO's move to Brazil to enjoy their massive sums in unison and drive Camrys, the left over engineers decide to build a 25,000 pound SUV with 700 airbags, and a foam filled inteior to protect the children. It only gets .007 miles per gallon running on a special blend of methanol to calm the greenies, 105 octane for the Nascar fan, and another ingredient that only the feds know about and can charge $62 a gallon for, all of which is redistributed to a Congressional Fund for retired Senators to buy prostitutes. The "special" ingredient turns out to be Seafoam as the government made a hostile take over and has tons of the stuff laying around. The corresponding white cloud they say is to restore the ozone layer which everyone believes.

Soccer moms love the new beast, but most languish on lots due to their $300,000 price tag, forcing the newly restructured companies to once again come close to the brink. At which point on his 3rd term since he declared himself Unifed People's President of All Time with a sweeping congressional approval, Obama declared them to be the official car of the US, and everyone would now be ordered to buy one, which of course would be paid for by the governement on money borrowed from China.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world was taken over soley by Toyota since they control all the money from developed nations. All other car companies are long since gone under their crushing control of all things monetary, and the new flag and money of Toyotaland (as the Earth has been renamed) all contain a special imprint of a Camry which is now the universal people's car. It now runs soley on a mixture of methane gas and air and gets 9,876 mpg.

All old cars are crushed in the name of progress, and the only cars you can now buy are the Camry and in the US, the Chevord Humalade, which of course comes with a 17 liter Hemi to move it's massive weight.

Of course Toyotaland wants nothing to do with the United States since it is covered in a white cloud of unknown origin and is assumed to be toxic, and they build a giant plastic bubble around us to enjoy our hazy Humalades in peace.

If only we could get rid of the people with the save the seals signs....

rd600... you are completely wrong. The MethAir Camry gets 9,786 miles per LITRE.

Big difference there.

So we get a giant plastic bubble out of the deal? That part would be pretty cool.

will toyota land offer an MR2?

Tim Baxter wrote: So we get a giant plastic bubble out of the deal? That part would be pretty cool.

but then the mystery fog will be trapped in and kill... us?

Thereby completing the nefarious plans of the Chinese. If they can't buy us they'll kill us.

Jensenman wrote: Thereby completing the nefarious plans of the Chinese. If they can't buy us they'll kill us.

Actually the Chinese are building inexpensive new Us'es. These replacements will be available and sold thru existing outlets... Oriental Trader, Harbor Freight, Walmart... its all very dangerous and sad but the good news is that everyone of these children will be useful as a hammer when they prematurely fail.

I think GM's current plan is just hilarious. Since no one is buying new cars they've decided to cancel or delay all the new models. That'll get the car buying public out in force. The Camaro will continue to be advertised and promoted to all hell but won't come out for another 10 years or so.

Ford will continue down the path of making awesome cars for Europe and not bringing them here. The reasoning? Who would buy a Taurus if you can get a Mondeo for the same price? Whatever would they do with all the extra Tauruses? Also, Ford will infuse lots of it's free gubment moneys into making more special edition mustangs.

Chrysler, having still not figured out how to make an automatic transmission, dies a horrible, horrible death. All the powertrain engineers and anyone who had anything to do with the current Sebring are loaded on a rocket and fired into the sun. At taxpayer expense. GM will buy all the excess manufacturing capacity to have more factories to idle.

i almost want to buy a year end close-out deal on some random domestic car just to do my part to help. But nothing is worth my trouble or money

racerdave600 wrote: Nah, they aren't going away, they'll file for bankrupcy protection after getting 200 Trillion from Congress, 90% of which goes for CEO bonuses. After the big 3 CEO's move to Brazil to enjoy their massive sums in unison and drive Camrys, the left over engineers decide to build a 25,000 pound SUV with 700 airbags, and a foam filled inteior to protect the children. It only gets .007 miles per gallon running on a special blend of methanol to calm the greenies, 105 octane for the Nascar fan, and another ingredient that only the feds know about and can charge $62 a gallon for, all of which is redistributed to a Congressional Fund for retired Senators to buy prostitutes. The "special" ingredient turns out to be Seafoam as the government made a hostile take over and has tons of the stuff laying around. The corresponding white cloud they say is to restore the ozone layer which everyone believes. Soccer moms love the new beast, but most languish on lots due to their $300,000 price tag, forcing the newly restructured companies to once again come close to the brink. At which point on his 3rd term since he declared himself Unifed People's President of All Time with a sweeping congressional approval, Obama declared them to be the official car of the US, and everyone would now be ordered to buy one, which of course would be paid for by the governement on money borrowed from China. Meanwhile, the rest of the world was taken over soley by Toyota since they control all the money from developed nations. All other car companies are long since gone under their crushing control of all things monetary, and the new flag and money of Toyotaland (as the Earth has been renamed) all contain a special imprint of a Camry which is now the universal people's car. It now runs soley on a mixture of methane gas and air and gets 9,876 mpg. All old cars are crushed in the name of progress, and the only cars you can now buy are the Camry and in the US, the Chevord Humalade, which of course comes with a 17 liter Hemi to move it's massive weight. Of course Toyotaland wants nothing to do with the United States since it is covered in a white cloud of unknown origin and is assumed to be toxic, and they build a giant plastic bubble around us to enjoy our hazy Humalades in peace. If only we could get rid of the people with the save the seals signs....

Am I the only one who thought of Dr. Doofenshmirtz while reading that?