Re: Car of the Century

[jack@robotic-midwives.com (Jack Hagerty)]

Scott -

As usual, a well crafted, well reasoned essay, but it could use a little
(how shall I put this?) refinement.

From: Scott Fisher <sefisher@cisco.com>

>Years ago, I read some magazine's compilation of Most Significant Cars,
>and one of the journalists (I don't remember who) picked the 1958
>Thunderbird.  The '58? I thought?  That was a hideous, grotesque,
>oversized pig of a four-seater, a wretched sellout of the original
>Thunderbird concept as a potential second contestant for the title of
>American sports car.  Which was exactly the journalist's point --
>whenever possible, American manufacturers will make cars bigger, less
>fun to drive, and more ostentatious.  

Exactly the reasoning that lead Time Magazine to select Adolf Hitler
as their "Man of the Year" around 1936.

> Look at the Lincoln Navigator...  

When I first heard the radio ads for the Navigator they were were touting
is as "The finest Luxury Sport Utility Vehicle..."  to which I responded 
"OK, make up your mind."

>1.  While Sir Alec Issigonis' Mini (another choice) was in 1959 the
>first car to use the transverse FWD layout, Honda's use of it in the
>1973 Civic moved it out of the realm of oddball or niche cars (such 
>as Saab, Audi, and Lancia) and into the global market.

Lancia, maybe, but outside of the US, Saab and Audi are hardly "oddball niche 
cars." As I pointed out earlier, the Saab 92 had a transverse engine/transaxle 
back in 1949. They were ahead of just about everyone except Cord and Citroen 
(neither of which was small or used a transverse layout).

>4.  Virtually every automobile in the world today owes its platform,
>layout, and execution to the transverse FWD setup that the Civic, if not
>invented, then certainly proved in the automotive world.  

Sorry, Scott, I'm not buying it. I'm not going to let you sweep away
decades of work by Citroen, Saab, Austin/Morris, Simca, Fiat and others
just because they weren't "your" car. The one thing that the Civic
did prove (largely because of the good timeing you mentioned) is that
small FWD sedans can be sold in huge numbers in the largest car market
on earth. But it's unfair to say that the other car makers were just
sitting around without a clue until the Civic came along and they all
jumped up and said "Hey, let's build one of those!" 

>Now name three Japanese car companies named after a single individual.  
>I'm reasonably sure there's only one, Honda.

Actually, Toyota can claim that as well. Kiichiro Toyoda was the son
of Sakichi Toyoda, the big industialist who made automated looms. The
elder Toyoda could see that cars were going to be big in Japan (this 
was in the '30s) and gave his son the task of starting a car company
from scratch. They changed the spelling of the last name to differentiate
the car company from the loom company. This is as much a single individual
creation as Honda. The big difference is that Toyoda's dad was already in 
the manufacturing business which gave him a big head start. It's as legit 
as Romeo's name on our cars or Henry Ford telling Edsel to start Lincoln.

>and whoever the engineer on Giorgetto Giugiaro's team was who adopted 
>the exact same powertrain layout for the original VW Golf of 1975.  

Bzzzzttt. Wrong. Giugiaro's involvement in the original Golf/Rabbit
was strictly people packaging and external appearance. The powertrain
was a completely in-house design which was already in production in
the European-only K70 when the Golf project got started.

- Jack

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| Jack Hagerty                |                                             | 
| jack@robotic-midwives.com   |                                             |
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