I was born & raised in a beautiful booming Detroit. I feel for the folks who are there doing the best they know how. I cried like a baby when I went back to downtown & looked around.
Pj Lewis You cried downtown? Seriously? When were you there? I have lived in or near downtown for fifty years. I saw it up close at its worse. The 48 square mile city core is booming. I just bought a condo in Brush Park. Ten years ago it was an abandoned wasteland. Today? 5000 housing units are being built within three miles of my front door. There are three 20+ office towers being built, three newer stadiums, Michigan Central Station is being renovated and Ford Motor is moving in, old Southwest Hospital is being rebuilt and Bosch is moving in. The River Walk is reclaiming a long dormant water front. Dequindre Cut is transforming the Near East Side and Eastern Market is booming. Cork Town is booming and The Woodward Corridor has 18 construction projects underway as I type this. I don’t know where you were downtown but I don’t see it. There are still some crappy areas near downtown. Is that where you were?
And the future? GM have the mindset that the only vehicles customers want are SUV's and trucks at $60,000 a clip leaving the field wide open to Honda and Toyota in the supply of four door sedans. Autonomous vehicles? Good luck with that!
here in the uk toyota is all we buy.there are other brands but tbh there junk break down and not as well built. my first car when i was young was a shit Peugeot french car that was pure junk broke down all the time needed something. my next one was vw group cars .great car never any bother drove and drove and drove with no problems.never gave much bother and always started lol.tbh coming to a end i got bored of driving it so next one is a toyota . great big car with no problems what so ever but tbh i do kina miss the vw group tdi cars compared with the toyota common rail system
It's the only vehicles they can sell and be profitable. See the profit margin on fuel efficient vehicles is lower and with the high union wages (50/hour including benefits), the Detroit 3 can't succeed selling those. But companies like Honda can sell all kinds of vehicles so when gas prices go high, they aren't upended.
Nearly 30 years ago GM built an electric vehicle called the EV1... it was absolutely fantastic... 200 were built before GM decided electric cars needed to be killed so all 200 were crushed... except 1, which is in a museum.... GM killed itself....
It's insane that Camrys and Accords etc were selling so well 30 years ago, gaining exponentially, and GM/Ford?Chrysler did nothing except make some thin competition in the class rather than storming the class. Big American egos scoffing at the middle/lower class, thinking that Camaros/Mustangs etc are the showcase. You still don't get it today.
Arrogance is part of it probably but camrys and accords have lower profit margins. The Detroit 3 can't afford to make those as easily with their expensive union wages and benefits. So even if they were complacent, they had an economic incentive to not make fuel efficient vehicles even when gas prices went up in the 2000's.
Detroit is an example of a city that didn't adapt quickly enough and faced the consequences. They're also so focused on making it building cars, that they blind themselves from trying other routes that don't have as fierce competition.
I feel I need to point out the thumbnail for this video shows Corvettes which are built in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Not Detroit. A nitpick yeah, but it made me chuckle.
also the clip of the People Mover has the automated recording announcing Millender Center as the next stop when the footage clearly shows the train leaving Cobo en route to Fort/Cass.
The same has happened in the UK jobs started being lost in the seventies n eighties when factories, coal mines and steel works closed. In Stoke on Trent where I live there are a lot of homeless people poor wages and Stoke is the "money dust capital" of the UK
Well fast forward to now in 2022 and downtown is completely different. Just got back from Detroit a few weeks ago and was shocked at all of the downtown development going on and all of the people running around. Downtown is not quiet anymore and it is pretty nice now.
Japan may have lost WW2, but won the Automobile war. Government got out of the way, workforce knew not to bleed the companies dry, the companies knew how to build better cars people would buy for cheaper. Also helps that Japan's society is more cohesive and stable compared to US's dysfunction, debt, and unrest.
Recently the problem has kind of been the opposite for the big three American car companies, they have been focused on building BIG SVUs and lots of Pick up truck that are expensive but generate more profit per vehicle when what is really needed is smaller less expensive cars that more people can afford. Also greedy CEOs that make hundreds of times more than the average worker and are pretty much only concerned with the stock prices to which their compensation is tied.
I’m born and raised there. Sadly so many are wishing on a star and mentally stuck. They often times can’t do better because they’ve never seen better. The industrial times are done and over and unfortunately many places like detroit, are praying that it comes back because they feel it’s going to give what it once did and it’s not. It will be Decades before you see major turn around then. Too much crime, blight and uneducated in the state of Michigan but significantly in Detroit. Smh! They doomed that city YEARS ago!
The fall of Detroit happened the day they foolishly told the Great Every 100 Year Genius Dr. W.E. Deming to go EFF off! And so Dr. Deming did, right over to Japan where they adopted his lessons, becoming the largest and best auto makers in the world. He even predicted the fall of Detroit because his laws are as certain as gravity. Pay attention or pay cash America!
A very simple solution to this problem: Make cars that people want at the price people can afford. Is that too much to ask? It that too much to do as a car maker?
Yes your thinking is sound. I drive a car just to get around and not make a wealth or fashion statement. Good MPG and workmanship are a must. Remember years ago the cheap "YUGO' imports - an example of how to do just about everything wrong. US wages have to rise to make anything happen.
@@ripperwrestling6587 Yes - I remember being just out of the Army in 1972 asking a dealer for a car with a manual transmission and no air conditioning. The guy laughed at me and needless to say he never saw a my money. I had to settle for a used 1970 Mustang with automatic transmission and power steering but no A/C.
Gordon Lumbert I think that you have stated a rarely noted and very important fact. I am a white, middle class Detroiter. There was a significant black middle class in Detroit in the 60s and 70s. When they left for Southfield etc.. the city lost an invaluable asset. Only now, years later, are they returning. I live in Brush Park. My next door neighbor is an African American accountant at Quicken Loans. His wife is a nurse at Henry Ford Hospital. They are representative of the neighborhood. They are involved in a bunch of committees and improvement teams. I am thrilled to see that happening.
@@sixmile2360 yeah we gotta keep a eye on quicken loans make sure they don't quickly leave us. Dan Gilbert is from Detroit and has been doing us pretty good. More people need to have a helping hand rather than there hand out.
The reason there was white flight was the unions were so successful in helping to rip off the automobile industry that the just took the money and ran.
I was working as a temp in a company who are making GM car windows... union own. And let me tell you, they are so lazy. I was working on a 4 person line, meaning 4 people run this line but we were 8 people, 4 temps who was running the line and 4 union workers, them union workers were standing around all day... they called it seniority! In the end we got pumped out after 3 months because they said we didn't work fast enough. Bull s#$&. I hope all union in the car industry will shut down. Union are greedy and only for lazy people. People who are willing to work hard have no chance to drive there because they make them union workers look bad and lazy.
I know unions, some industries more so than others have turned into a cancer for business. It's also worth remembering that unions were formed out of necessity for dealing with unscrupulous employers. I'm certainly not a hard line unionist but I think we're better off with them than without them.
mrpaperbag paperbag I am sorry to call bullshit but... Bullshit. I have worked as a manager at GM for thirty years. If your story is true then it is a management problem or this happened in the insane 70s and 80s. Any supplier worth it’s salt has the opposite problem with labor as car companies continuously squeeze suppliers for reductions in costs. So. Either you worked for a really poorly run company or you are full of shit. Which one is it?
I wondered how it was possible to make a car and ship it from Mexico cheaper than in Detroit, but it makes sense if you needed twice as many people to make the same product in Detroit.
Some of those workers have been out of work so long, it's going to cost a fortune just to re-train 1/2 of them. Plus the enormous cost of retro fitting the old factories. And the simple fact is even if jobs do come back there won't be that many of them as they're not needed anymore.
Honda, Toyota, and VW just simply do it better. They capitalized on the energy crisis of the 1970's by building cars that were simply more practical, more fuel-efficient AND more reliable.
The American auto industry will never ever ever ever learn. How can you tell? Because like the lady said, in 2005 they started seeing and writing about the problems. Those problems started in 1970, which says the stupidity runs deep, and high paid executives and union bosses keep running from the alligator hoping it eats someone else next, and they’ll get out with their pensions and lifestyles intact. She thinks it’s a cycle, yet the city’s been going on only one direction since the HUD scandal of the early 60s.
Here we are 3 years later and I never seen a volt or any electric car on the road. Cost to much for their short range and take to long to charge. It gets much worst if you have them in winter climates. Battery life is shorter in cold temp and power is needed to heat the car's interior .
John Smith . Mr Smith my thoughts exactly ! When I noticed the Obama references I realized this was an old post. But how true we still don’t make the very product that would save the industry. The design dept . With the British accent is a huge laugh as time would tell. Fell flat on your ass ! All they have left is ugly Cadillacs and Opel/Buick’s . My heart goes out to the every day workers who suffer.
@@michaelweizer7794 Chevy Monte Carlo. My point is that during that period the price of cars skyrocketed largely due to dramatic wage increases. These dramatic price increases brought in Japanese cars.
I was born and raised in Detroit. Its a shame what happened to the city. I had to leave in 1980 Absolutely no jobs. I loved the city. But when they signed the NAFTA almost all manufacturing left. I watch the videos. I have to wonder with all the houses being bulldozed down how will they attract people to move back without housing?
I just retired from GM with 50 years. The answer to GM's problem is in it's past, but GM management is to young to know that. They have no imagination. GM has the engineering to produce a product that can outsell anything made today. The people that have the power to make it happen lack the imagination, and wouldn't consider it because it's not their idea. The Idea could be tested with one SUV assembly line, and people that want it to work. Finding the people is the easy part. The hard part is getting management that wants to do it.
James Holland James. What part of GM did you retire from? I just retired in January after 35+ years. Spent the last twelve years splitting my time as a Platform Engineer in Warren and at Pole Town. Started out on Clark Street. You don’t like the young engineers? I find them refreshing. I blame most of the problems at GM on my generation. Mainly piss poor management, short sighted focus on profit, terrible products, shady quality and an entrenched culture of bureaucracy that drove me crazy for years. It is better now. A lot better but I had enough. I consult now at Pratt and Miller in Wixom and teach a couple of classes at Wayne State in continuous improvement.
Part of GM problem was there attitude was you bought it now its your problem. My local ford dealer answer is if you have a problem is just buy a new one we wont fix your old one . With the junk there producing there isnt anthing I would spend my money on . The quality just isnt there .the high price lack of service no real value its not only the big 3 its all of auto industry. If Mercedes coudent make Chrysler work how is Fiat . Yore paying more for less . I dont see it getting any better any time soon.
Quality of general motors and Ford vehicles is terrible. They have been skating off their brand name for 30 years now. Japanese care far more about the quality of their product.
When I was going up things in the 80s and 90s was diffrent. Like downtown Detroit Hudsens was closed in 1983 later Demolished by 1998. The Brewster Douglas home before it was left in ruins. Was a great place to live. Hidden drugs was out of sight. Corner party stores was easy to reach. Before Cass Technical High school closes in 2005 and demolish in 2011 is where I gotten my summer job in 1999. And in the Brewster homes in 1997. Before Old Hudsen was razed me and my family walk pass there going to Kresge department store. Further down was Radio shack. It was later changed into a dollar store when Radio shack closed in 1999. By the Cadilac Square building they have DDOT shutters (Where you catch the bus to your distination from 1974) it was moved to another location to make way for a park.
UAW bleed them dry, not enough money left to engineer quality products. Legacy costs of retirees will keep the big 3 making inferior products for years to come.
My father knew a Ford engineer who's job it was to reduce the quality of electrical switches so they would fail sometime shortly after the warranty expired. Now explain to me how that was the fault of the UAW.
These are the four main reasons for Detroit's demise: 1. Blacks keeping their bitter attitudes from the unjust treatment of the Jim Crow south thus reinforcing the black stereotype from the local white population. 2. Electing a leftist black racist and corrupt mayor named Coleman Young from 1974 to 1994, which destroyed race relations and business opportunities in the city. 3. Relying on one industry for far too long while other cities, like Pittsburgh, diversified their economies for the 21st century. 4. Becoming a one party city that caused a lack of diversity of thought and ideas to solve the city's problems.
Detroit got too arrogant from their success and refused to adapt to changing times. I remember Africa was flooded with Japanese cars because they were more practical and fuel efficient. No one was crazy enough to drive American cars
I take you never drove a 2019 Chevrolet Silverado LTZ Z71 w/6.2L V8 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fUt6Sfj7QD8.html it eats Japaneses metal.
Dick Johnston went into Club 'd Retirement, and put up that velvet rope right behind him. The Chevy Volt cost $76k per unit and the car will never make tax payers money. My favorite NYT headline features a picture of Obama admiring a Chevy Camaro saying "Detroit is back". The Camaro is made in Canada and Detroit is not back.
Notice all the wide pan shots of the GM building, if they took any close up's you would see all the people walking around in suits and nice cars stacked up at intersections.
After WWII most of the world was blown apart. The big three and Detroit had the world to themselves. Took till the 60's to rebuild Europe and Japan. Then they started producing and perfected their products. Competition. 1970's rolled in and Toyota, Honda, Nissan, BMW ect were poised when fuel prices rose during the embargo. The rest is history...
Perhaps the best thing is from car industry to IT industry what do you think to make Detroit vibrant again. Praying for America to recover morally and economically. God bless.
thay sold union workers out.so thay could make there relatives CEOS. to collect higher paying salaries than people that actually work for a living. and when thay go bust thay go to the government for bailouts. higher wages means more cars sold in America. but those Congress leaders believe corporations before a working man or woman. only to allow corporations to move overseas. and cause jobs loss .make a point to not join the unions. for better wages. the wealthy CONTROLS our government. like our parents always told us. we are just a number. if not perform. good by jobs. and we haven't seen automobiles come down in price without union workers. and now being built by robots. and still making higher profits. always looking for an excuse to bring them higher revenues. to screw worker's out of pensions.
except, when you look at all the most prosperous cities in America, they are democratic run. Really shoots down your theory. And then you look at republican run states and see they are some of the poorest. Now I just sunk your talking points
@Brian Meyer www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/01/04/solved-why-poor-states-are-red-and-rich-states-are-blue/#594851f21d60 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP_per_capita I could go much deeper, but this should show you I know what I'm talking about. The first article even explains why poor people in red states vote red, and that's because their cost of living is lower than wealthy blue states. I mean, I would rather the leaders I elect bring jobs and commerce to my state rather than just keeping the cost of living down. Cost of living in Chicago where I am is medium, yet you can make money without a college degree here if you know what to do. The second link is that of gdp per state. Every state at the bottom is a red state. Red states simply don't make money because no one stays to make it. Red leaders don't know how to bring innovators into the state other than just "tax breaks". Employees look for more than that when going to a city. They look for entertainment, people who aren't willing to shoot and kill you over nothing, the police aren't going to harass you, government that's going to protect your health through clean water and clean food, government that's going to regulate plants and not have them explode or give you cancer, where corruption isn't going to be swept under the rug etc. In closing, you asked for facts, I gave some to you despite not having to. I could care less for politics, but when morons try to blame politics on people who are center (calling liberals in the United States liberal is a joke, since we are still fighting over healthcare, tax paid higher education, job benefits etc when Western Europe has done this and more years ago. Liberals don't exist here, the center and right wing only exists here), I write paragraphs to prove my point because there's no other way around it
The UAW expectations back in the 70's and 80's were so greedy and unrealistic, they contributed mightily to the demise of the Detroit automobile workforce.
FAKE facts...the Union bashing was a key corporate /shareholder agenda who bought themselves the GOP to help them bust the Unions...the booting of the middle class
Spot on. Corrupt unions and politicians killed Detroit and other Rust Belt cities. Now they've turned their attention to once beautiful cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Miami, Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Atlanta, etc. and turning them into urban s#it holes where the only people who live there are either filthy rich or dirt poor. Leftism always has and always will kill any semblance of a viable middle class.
@@knockknockbusted - That's how it works. If there are no investors to risk their *own* money to start and support a business, then there would be no place to the laborers to earn a decent living to support themselves and their families. 🤯
You mean corporate greed killed the company.. if man works 35 plus years hes entitled to retire with a pension .. Because I know for a fact that the CEO's of these companies make more than what they put out for pension. funds
1:53 First off, the People Mover runs on the same technology as the Vancouver Skytrain so it is not a monorail. Also, the train is leaving Cobo en route to the Fort/Cass Station, the audio of the announcement for Millender Center was taken from a different part of the loop. At least downtown looks a lot nicer now. Heck it's busy with people walking around during the pandemic.
I would love to tour this iconic city, it has so much rich history. It's sad that these people destroyed such propsperity and prominent communities. They didn't stop there, they had to vandalized the buildings and physically take down the cities once rich and beautiful legacy. All gone. What a great place this was, it's hard to believe what these people have done. It's sick and it makes me so angry and furious .
Micheal Stapleton Be careful looking at only negative videos. I have lived in Detroit my whole life. The 48 square mile city core is booming with renovations and new construction. There are still huge neighborhoods in serious trouble but the comeback is is spreading outward. You Tube Detroit comeback and Detroit rising to get the other side of the story. I have to be honest I am amazed by what is happening downtown. No one wants to view good news videos. Only ruin porn and negativity. Take it from someone on the ground in Detroit. I saw the city at it’s worse. It is coming back in spite of all the nay sayers who left forty years ago or have never been here. We have a long way to go but check out the positive videos. You will be surprised.
@@AgeofCraccadilliaassent you are correct. i thought it might have been 68. i remember my parents taking us down there and things were still pretty contentious.
I don't think Detroit is 11th radio market on its own though Dick. That has to include the whole Metro area, meaning all of Wayne Co plus Oakland Co, etc.
Blame NAFTA, car makers went "South" or overseas as America's factories and jobs did also. I saw a Mexican Ford factory all happy about the prosperity it to the area. Jerks!
Detroit left. It is not coming back. Move on with you're lives. Im from erie Pa its getting to be just like detroit. A dead city yet the people still there keep hangin on.for what? I left in the 80s.
The Chevrolet Volta is the bigseller in the future for GM?! The all-electric range is officially rated at 53 mi (85 km). I am not impressed when compered to Tesla with its all-electric range of 220 miles (350 km) and the long range model delivers 310 miles (500 km). Wonder who they think will buy Volta?
I live in Saltillo, the Detroit of, Mexico. This is where your so called American car and pickup makers went. Late at night miles long trains loaded with parts are assembled here by line workers making about US $12 to $15 dollars equivalent PER DAY. This is where your Republican oligarcs outsourced thos Detroit jobs. They will be returning to the USA right after Evanka Trump closes her garment sweatshops in China. Lots oif luck to those of you who believe that the oligarcs are going to return their businesses to the USA and cut their profits. !Saludos desde Mexico!
You leftist dumbass. The entire problem is that unions destroyed Detroit not allowing Free Market Capitalism to work. They forced Automakers to pay unsustainable wages, benefits, and pensions even in times of economic downturn. The result as always is companies closing factories in order to survive and actually make sustainable profits by moving to Mexico and other countries. Democrats, big government, corruption, lefist/ Communist, politics and policies are primarily responsible for not only the fall of Detroit, but of every city, county, state, and nation that's failing in the entire world. They can't understand that it's better to have 100,000 jobs at $10 to $25 an hour, than 30,000 at $35 an hour. SF, Boston, NYC, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, LA, Seattle, Portland, Cleveland, etc. etc. they are all being destroyed by big government and leftist politics. Democrats tax societies to death, and have no concept of trickle down economics and how economies and Capitalism actually work (and why Free Market Capitalism is the only system that has ever worked).
@pices229 - Is what why (Capitalism)? What does that even mean? And what does it have to do with Trump? And please link your sources/evidence that Trump's family business has it's operational, financial, or organizational headquarters in China. I am a conservative leaning Libertarian since about 2009 (as has always been the innate necessity and nature of human beings throughout human history. But I am impartial. Issues have to be analyzed and dealt with individually, just as problems, solutions, and human beings. I am not a big fan of Trump (though I did vote for him). He has done and said a lot of things I agree with, as well as many I disagree with. But overall, he is the President and we have to give him a chance during his term and judge it at the end. I was a moderate Democrat for most of my life, and voted for Obama in 2008. But the Democrat Party was hijacked in the 20th Century, and especially since the 1960s. A major problem is the divide and conquer two party system (where both parties are corrupt). But in the history of this nation, the Republican Party has been far less corrupt, and more reasonable, honorable, and patriotic. What we really need is to break the two party system and get a 3rd Party (if not 4th) in power and in office, such as the Libertarian Party.
Most probably Japanese autos and the gas shortages. When the price of gas surged guys like me looked for MPG and that was either an air cooled VW or a Japanese import. When gas prices stabilized I remembered pushing a car to a gas pump so I was not about to buy a guzzler. Of course there are other reasons for Detroit's problems and as in any city should the jobs vanish so will the middle class and the tax base.
I fail to see the answer for the question 'How' from this documentary's title...in my opinion, the companies (especially GM) did this to themselves. I was laid off 2 separate times before I made the decision to move from Michigan for a better opportunity. With that, I came to the realization that if I was that disposable to GM, I vowed never, ever to purchase any GM product ever again. Plus, i suspect that guy gushing over the equinox may have had a rude awakening...Didn't GM kill all future car production to rely only on SUV and trucks??
It was a combination of factors. The union bears some of this, they got too greedy, but more so, the company's, especially GM and Chrysler for failing to see the changes in auto trend, and their quality went down bad. But the big 3 all were more greedy than the uaw. They shipped more and more jobs overseas to exploit cheap labor. And, that is the main reason, to exploit cheap labor, it's not like they dropped the car prices any. What plants didn't go overseas, many moved to southern parts of the US where the labor market is less. They fled Detroit so fast, its unbelievable. The city that once thrived on the big 3, was doomed. What a damn shame.
Yeah, the 2 great things, the cars and Motown. We're living in the end times. All the more reason I'm listening to music I grew up with more than ever. And I'm saving for a 2007 or 2008 Ford Mustang. It will be my last fling.
I visited Detroit (as a tourist) last year 2017. It was my third visit and I could see the changes. Detroit has definitely turned the corner. It may never be the city it was, but it will be great again, You can feel it in the air.
I brought a Ford & took off the stupid union decal ASAP. A good chunk of my price tag went straight into the UAW's pockets. Next time I'm buying a VW or Toyota
@Derek Charette Tell that nonsense to Boeing where the company was sued in 2010 by the union for leaving Seattle for Charleston, SC over "worker's rights". Not only that but despite rejecting unionization in a 2017 vote the unions are still agitating in 2018 for another election until they get the results they want.
@Derek Charette Furthermore you trying to equate unions with quality control is bunk. The most highly skilled workers in Germany are trained by their companies, NOT the unions. Industrial training is incorporated into the Educational Systems in most advanced West European economies. Despite that, on a cost and quality level Europeans are pretty much on par with the US. VW is notorious for selling safety at the expense of affordability. American cars are no different. TANSTAAFL!
13:08 IKEA to take over GM ....!!! 😂😂😂 wish if that could've happened. Then I could have got myself a kit Chevy Camaro or a corvette which I could myself assemble in my garage...!!
GM no longer produces ANY cars except Corvette. Detroit is dead, GM is dead, "Chrysler" is now Fiat and makes junk. Detroit is America's first totally dead major city. A portent of things to come for American industrial metropolis'.
One thing that annoys me about media from this era is this universal understanding that SUVs were the problem with Detroit. Toyota sold more SUVs than anyone, and to this day they are what makes money for everyone. Small fuel-efficient cars are practically sold at-cost. Today the whole industry is going all-in on SUVs and discontinuing their unprofitable smaller cars. Detroit had a million problems, but a lack of cheap eco cars wasn't one. In 2008 GM was the global tech leader in EVs. After bankruptcy, GM and Chrysler were legally compelled to make more cars with high fuel efficiency. Both did, both lost money on them, and both bounced back to massive profitability on the back of trucks and SUVs. The Jeep and Ram brands were so profitable, they alone kept the entire Italian car industry from imploding after the Fiat merger.
First the workers took control through unions, sometimes requiring 4 or more be paid for the work formerly done bi one. Then in response to the Race Riots companies paid taxes to support welfare for those who did not work. This was the start of regulations making production more expensive. Mexico, here we come.
Slim Morden You are absolutely full of shit. I was a manager at GM for thirty years. We never hired four people to do one persons work. Ever. You are either ill informed or making up sheer bull shit. Which is it?
LIONEL ROGER I could deal with ugly, if the damn things would RUN reliably- the worst two pieces of junk I ever had were a Dodge and a Chevy! I'll never own either brand again!
GM, Ford and Chrysler stopped to build the cars that liked to us. Crown Vics Marquis Oldsmobiles Cadillacs Pontiacs Furys. But now everything is plastic and rebadged Japanese, Chinese or Korean. We will not see again the glorious Fleetwoods RWD or the 1981 Pontiac Bonneville. It's sad to see how the big three are downsizing all the models. Asia is increasing the size of the SUVs. What is next?
YES YOU ARE RIGHT, AND THE VOLT IS NO MORE AND GM IS A CRAPSHOOT COMPANY GOING TO CHINA because I live here in Ecorse 1 mile from Detroit and liberals keep killing this city
Detroit is a model of what happens when economies shift. When Reagan was in office America was the #1 lender in the world, Now the largest debtor. Biggest producer to largest consumer. Not Democrats or Republicans fault.
Daniel McKenzie Two things. GM is not going to China. I recently retired from GM after thirty years. All major companies worldwide have a presence in China. While I am not happy about importing the two D Platforms from China I will offer that the real threat is from Mexico. The decision to build the Blazer in Mexico has led me to wash my hands of the company that I worked for for thirty years. Second. Ecorse? My youngest son lives next In Wyandotte. Ecorse is nothing to brag about my friend. It has always been a sketchy place.
As a new driver, I only bought and drove used american cars. I fixed what I thought the prior owners had broken. By my mid 20s, I bought my first new car...american of course. I was not happy with the shoddy construction, the cheap materials that looked old quickly, and the recurring mechanical failures. I shopped around when it was time for a replacement and realized the quality of the american brands was in the toilet. Sorry Detroit if I contributed to your decline but I never bought another american vehicle.