That's exactly why you don't see many of them because most of them are rubbish.
R!CH
for decades leading up to the early to mid 2000s, american car companies never really gave a damn about making good commuter cars because that was never really where the market was. the market demanded powerful trucks and quick-in-a-straight-line sports cars. even then the only thing the big 3 consistently got right were the trucks. and the corvette of course. the focus was never on longevity because most americans would get a new car every 3 years anyway. when the markets opened up in the 80s, competition picked up on the safety and comfort side of the equation, but the domestics never really suffered from their poor quality until the reputation took hold in the 90s. up until recently, the big 3 never understood the importance of toyota's just-in-time production, total quality management, or six sigma philosophy, and for that matter neither did the europeans. these were concepts pioneered by an american statistician named w edward deming, who was hired by toyota in the 1980s to develop methods of controlling their at the time piss poor manufacturing quality. toyota of the 70s were the laughing stock of the industy. through toyota deming applied his principles and refined it to the point where toyota through lexus became the highest quality auto manufacturer in the world. to this day deming is worshiped in japan like a prophet who showed them the light. when gm and ford began losing major market share in their home market to toyota as an obvious result of disparity between the companies' quality levels, they embarked on several joint venture projects, one of which is was the nummi plant here in sf bay area, a co-managed auto plant that developed toyota and gm branded vehicles under toyota manufacturing guidelines. gm and ford picked up on total quality management, six sigma, and just-in-time production quickly (abandoning their parts bin production process) from the early 2000s on and today you see ford leading the way in quality commuters, beginning with the ford focus. i haven't followed gm much, but i imagine they have gotten their together recently as well. to be fair vws, bmws and mercedes of the 90s and early 2000s were also pretty piss poor in quality after the 60-100k mark, but the europeans have also tightened their supply chains and every one of the major manufacturers seemed to have pulled it together.
edit: and now this post doesn't really make sense because the guy who posted before me deleted his post :o
Paradox Lost
Ahhh, I'll just put it here:
I think the unrelenting slew of disparaging remarks leveraged against American cars were far more relevant 10 or 15 years ago than they are today. The reality from the publications I regularly follow- and my own experiences- is that American cars have come an impressively long way in a relatively short amount of time (most likely in response to domestic consumers opting to select higher quality foreign alternatives).
The typical criticisms (many of which are echoed in Domestic's posts) run the usual gamut we've been hearing for decades now: American cars are unrefined, poorly produced, vulgar and mechanically deficient pieces of . If this were the mid 90's, I'd happily hop on board with these assessments (as I did for an extended period of time), but now, I've leveled off quite a bit in light of that which has been coming out by way of Ford and GM.
To respond to Domesticated's remarks concerning a valid reason to own an American car, the formula simply boils down to value for the money, at least in terms of the mid to high end American sportscars being produced. The Cadillac CTS-V is quite obviously intended to be an M5 competitor at a considerably reduced price, and yes, one way they accomplish this is to cut production costs by scaling back on certain materials and amenities you would find in their foreign counterparts. The same can be said of the Z06, the ZR1, and even the Cobalt SS (which, if memory serves me correctly, set a Nurburgring record for FWD vehicles).
It needs to be said, though, that the modern equivalent of American cars compromising on, say, interior quality is dramatically different than how it looked when they did it 20 years ago. In other words, a ty GM interior actually manages to look pretty damn nice, and if you can forgive certain production decisions in these and other areas, I'd say you have a pretty damn good reason to pick up an American car over the competition.
/Neo-Patriotic rant.
Sushipunk
quote:
Originally posted by Paradox Lost
I think the unrelenting slew of disparaging remarks leveraged against American cars were far more relevant 10 or 15 years ago than they are today. The reality from the publications I regularly follow- and my own experiences- is that American cars have come an impressively long way in a relatively short amount of time (most likely in response to domestic consumers opting to select higher quality foreign alternatives).
The typical criticisms (many of which are echoed in Domestic's posts) run the usual gamut we've been hearing for decades now: American cars are unrefined, poorly produced, vulgar and mechanically deficient pieces of . If this were the mid 90's, I'd happily hop on board with these assessments (as I did for an extended period of time), but now, I've leveled off quite a bit in light of that which has been coming out by way of Ford and GM.
To respond to Domesticated's remarks concerning a valid reason to own an American car, the formula simply boils down to value for the money, at least in terms of the mid to high end American sportscars being produced. The Cadillac CTS-V is quite obviously intended to be an M5 competitor at a considerably reduced price, and yes, one way they accomplish this is to cut production costs by scaling back on certain materials and amenities you would find in their foreign counterparts. The same can be said of the Z06, the ZR1, and even the Cobalt SS (which, if memory serves me correctly, set a Nuremberg record for FWD vehicles).
It needs to be said, though, that the modern equivalent of American cars compromising on, say, interior quality is dramatically different than how it looked when they did it 20 years ago. In other words, a ty GM interior actually manages to look pretty damn nice, and if you can forgive certain production decisions in these and other areas, I'd say you have a pretty damn good reason to pick up an American car over the competition.
/Neo-Patriotic rant.
It was a pretty cool rant, admittedly.
All of that said though, if America's cars were really good, you'd see a lot more of them in other [non-north American] countries. But you don't. What you DO SEE is a whole lot of people in north America driving imported cars though.
R!CH
quote:
Originally posted by Sushipunk
It was a pretty cool rant, admittedly.
All of that said though, if America's cars were really good, you'd see a lot more of them in other [non-north American] countries. But you don't. What you DO SEE is a whole lot of people in north America driving imported cars though.
eh it's more complicated than that. you can't really sell a car that flies by america's fuel economy standards in europe and expect to be competitive like the europeans can do with their cars here. gm and ford actually do have decent market share in asia and europe, have a strong presence in australia and they dominate mexico and central america, but like i said they don't specialize in tiny cars with tiny motors, so for decades they've been focusing on their highly profitable star and cash cow products in their primary markets, which were up until recently big-engine suvs, trucks and sports cars in north america. no point in dumping huge money into europe anyway when the growth market is in asia's four tigers economies.
Moongoose
quote:
Originally posted by Paradox Lost
Blah blah blah...
The same can be said of the Z06, the ZR1, and even the Cobalt SS (which, if memory serves me correctly, set a Nuremberg record for FWD vehicles).
It needs to be said, though, that the modern equivalent of American cars compromising on, say, interior quality is dramatically different than how it looked when they did it 20 years ago. In other words, a ty GM interior actually manages to look pretty damn nice, and if you can forgive certain production decisions in these and other areas, I'd say you have a pretty damn good reason to pick up an American car over the competition.
/Neo-Patriotic rant.
1. Nuremberg, seriously :eek:
2. Ive done some wor for the local Cadillac dealership (he sells vettes and hummers as well) so ive had the "pleasure" of testing out some of the new vehicles...talking about cutting costs, some of the materials on ym old fiat felt like they were better quality that in the CTS. Also the one thing that ive heard everybody complaining that owns one is something thats very important to us europeans. Brakes. On a CTS they are rubbish and on the Chrysler 300C for example they are downright dangerous.
Oh and the owner did get a Z06 for himself...he used it for about a month i think, then he put it in the shop up for sale (the car hasnt been sold yet) and instead he bought himself a new Lmborghini Gallardo :D
Paradox Lost
Oh man, my mistake! Fixed, immediately.
Anyway, I worked at a Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep dealership for a while, and yes, I can vouch for the absolute and utter mechanical ridiculousness that is the 300 lineup. I once took an SRT-8 out, and a block away from the dealership, the power steering went out. Apparently, that was a recurring problem with the 300's, so much so that the service technicians were used to it by now. Oh, and the interior felt like I was riding in a glorified bicycle.
Still, though, compared to the 'luxury interiors' of American cars from the mid to late 90's, I will gleefully roll around in one of their 2009 offerings.
As for the Cadillac you drove, did you drive the base model CTS or CTS-V? I can't verify this at the moment, but I'm fairly confident that the CTS doesn't have the 6 and 4 piston Brembo's that the CTS-V comes equipped with, which will most certainly produce a difference in stopping power between the two cars. There are also some blatant differences in interior materials.
R!CH
the corvette zr1 set a new lap record on the nurburgring: 7:26.4--1 second over the ferrari enzo, which costs more than six times as much
oh and it comes with the enzo ferrari brakes :D
the top 10 cars it did beat cost anywhere from 60k more to 11 times more than the zr1
what a piece of , huh domesticated?
msz
domesticated is a piece of dont mind him.
R!CH
ya i'll give it a rest i guess. i doubt he'll ever say a damn thing to me about the vette. he probably did some google research and realized he was full of .
Sushipunk
quote:
Originally posted by R!CH
the corvette zr1 set a new lap record on the nurburgring: 7:26.4--1 second over the ferrari enzo, which costs more than six times as much
oh and it comes with the enzo ferrari brakes :D
the top 10 cars it did beat cost anywhere from 60k more to 11 times more than the zr1
what a piece of , huh domesticated?
Were both cars stock, or tweaked for circuit racing?
R!CH
" Except for some communications and safety gear the ZR1 was totally stock and setup exactly like the ones that will be going on sale. "
