Originally Posted by
fastforward
You can't argue with some of those picks. Obviously, the Big 3 made lots of poor choices over 20 to 25 years ago. They tried to dictate to the market what they think it needed and not what the market was really looking for.
But when trucks and SUVs were selling like crazy, of course they are going to funnel more R&D cash into those segments and not passenger cars. The big 3 wanted to keep shareholders happy and sell vehicles. That's the idea.
So you can blame the American public for buying them. Meanwhile Japan and Europe not only built small cars for the states but for a broader yet smaller world market. So when the bottom began to fall out of the truck market the Japanese were on top and ready to sell good small cars. Easy economics.
But the truth is, today the Big 3 build some of the best cars in the world. Sure there are some swing and misses. The Japanese have a few of them as well.
All car makers do. Ford can take the blame for Jaguar being less luxurious, but don't forget Jag suffered from reliability issues and was on the verge of bankruptcy. Months after Ford sold Jag, the brand (with cars designed by Ford) is at the top of reliability studies.
Hell, Ford/Mercury/Lincoln continue to rake in awards. But no one seems to notice. They often beat Toyota and Honda for top reliability rankings.
The Astro, while not popular with families, was intended to be a work van which it excelled at. How many 15-20 year old Explorers are still out there? TONS of them. They are rock solid. My dad sold one with 375,000 miles on it, without any significant issues. In 1983 the Ford Thunderbird revolutionized car design, again in '85 the Taurus changed the way cars were designed even more. Sure they lost step along the way. A car model that had been around that long is bound to do that.
So basically, do the big 3 deserve another chance? Yes, and you deserve not to be so close minded and see what the big 3 offer before plopping your hard earned cash on a foreign car. I would argue that the big 3 not only build some of the most competitive cars and trucks, but they also build some of the best cars and trucks in the world, yes in many cases even better than Honda or Toyota.
your correct in your argument some what here is the problem I see. you mention Ford allot which is the only one of the big 3 that is nowhere near bankruptcy hell they didn't even take any bail out money why ... because they were doing some thing right. The other 2 were not and they built shit vehicle (especially Chrysler) name me one innovative product from Chrysler in the last 20 years (and the prowler doesn't count it was a limited production vehicle ) and none of the technology from the viper ever trickled down to the rest of the line up. And the astro was not a work van it was a family van that was also made with out windows for a small segment of the market...