I love seeing ppl with 2 grand steros in 500$ cars. Or dropped my friend off in a trailer park, nice park, but ppl had new chargers, camaros and lived in a trailer 30 years old. I don't blame them. U spend urr time working and sleeping so let's drive something cool!!
@@mrromantimothy I love those big wagons. I remember the 80s and seems like every family had 1. I wish they still made a full frame sedan like Town Car or a station wagon. Idk why we quit and focused on SUV. I get BIG tahoe, excursion etc but if I don't need 4x4 cause I live in rust belt but was taught driving in a big boat RWD car so it's not that I got 4x4, awd so my cars better than a 2 wheel drive. Not really cause most 4x4, awd are not true awd. Yes back tire and 1 front spin, or some combo. I don't get the appeal. I like the big ppl haulers but pap had a wagon that fit 9 ppl. I think it was a Ford. Front bench, middle bench and the seat folded down in back that fit 3 ppl. Many a trips in those big cars. Safe. Hit a deer at 65 and just made bumper dirty cause it was a real steel bumper, not plastic. Bring back the full size cars please.
Cheverolet did make decent cars for a while. Then they hired engineers to cost reduce every part. As examples - alternators lasted 25k miles, electric window motors died in 3 years, water pump has cheap bushings, paint pull right off, manifolds changed to plastic, its all about reducing costs..... and quality.
I agree! Chevy trucks from the 70s I see still have original paint in good shape. My 1992 Chevrolet truck has the famous white paint that loves to peel off. I'll have to change the color on the registration to blue/white/primer gray soon
Ford uses incredibly cheap parts in some of their vehicles. The major difference between Ford and Toyota is if a problem or defect is found, Toyota will usually try to fix the issue for the next model year. Ford will only fix major defects but the smaller issues will never be fixed. The Ford Windstar could have been a great minivan but Ford refused to address a myriad of issues that afflicted this vehicle.
@@edpinkerton7947 NO! NO! NO! The flathead V8 came out along with the model B, in 1932........ Was never available on the 1931 model A. Check your facts.
@@edpinkerton7947 For me, I appreciate those interested in automotive history and have some knowledge of it like yourself. In truth, Charles Brady King is the first to produce an 8 cylinder engine and left hand drive vehicle. He is the true inventor and builder of Henry Ford’s Quadracycle. He is perhaps the most overlooked automobile pioneer.
Ford has never made claim to inventing the assembly line but everyone believes they invented it. Much like steve jobs and Elon musk, Mr ford did not design the assembly line or car, his engineers did. Hundreds of them.
@@bradlandwehr167 fords chief engineer Sorenson was responsible for the assembly line from the original test line with technicians adding a limited amount of parts to a full on assembly line in a dedicated facility. The dodge brothers who were share holders were in on it as well since they built transmission in a separate facility. The setup was duplicated in 40 locations throughout the world. Of the over 1000 car manufacturers in the world at the time, Ford owned over 90% at one time or another.
Wow, this is so well-researched that you didn't mention Hudson, Studebaker, Willys, AMC, or even Chrysler Corporation. Delorean is a footnote in American automotive history - especially that the cars were not made in the USA - and got more air time than Chrysler with the one mention of the Plymouth Valiant. This video has over 76,000 views and only 738 likes. Think about that.
Yeah, this video makes a lot of inferences that are jarring and make no sense. Was this put together by an AI or someone with a vague grasp of the history of the american auto industry?
After about 3 minutes l came to the conclusion that the voice-over was A.l. A minute later l was quite sure that the copy had been written by a middle-school aged 'tween; Mr Buick grew up in Scotland... "around the docks and swear words...". Yeah, that totally sounds like something l might have written when l was 12 😂
10 mins is about all I could stand , the motor sizes and even the Ford building size was given in liters and meters lol . He did mention the dodge challenger at the beginning but forgot the dodge Brothers completely. If memory serves me , the brothers played a very big part in Fords success in the beginning and even owned a considerable amount of the company.
Yes, this looks like it was written with third hand information. The imagery is jarringly out of synch, and the historical value is almost nil. Somebody melded every wiki artlcle they could find. It's a money grab.
That's because decades ago, American cars were actually decent. Buy a new "American" car that was designed in Europe and assembled in Mexico from cheap Chinese parts and see how long that will last.
@@lastotallyawesomebleach204 I had a 2010 Toyota tundra that broke down at 200k miles. It blew it's headgasket so I sold it for scrap. I bought a 1990 f150 and it has 700k miles with the original engine.
@@thejacket3891 that's what's up, them old f series trucks were bulletproof. Toyota tundras can be pretty decent too, you probably should've fixed that blown head gasket instead of scrapping it.
American cars were so big because fuel was cheap. Fuel in Europe was much more expensive. Also most European roads were built for horses. America as a relatively new country with vast areas to build towns and city's. Many roads in Europe you would struggle with an older American car. But I would love to own a buick riviera boat tail.
For those who say that the federal government and insurance got too heavily involved, so quality suffered, I would counter with this: the Japanese followed those same guidelines and had no quality or reliability problems. They were out to carve a spot in the US market. Detroit on the other hand, continued to build low quality cars playing upon American’s devotion to loyally buy domestic. That only bought them about ten years. By the early 80’s, Jap drive lines were still strong at 150,000 miles where your average domestic engine was done by 80,000, and you’ve already changed the trans. Just my experience from back then working at dealerships.
No. Domestic OEMs produced mainly large body on frame vehicles, Japan didn't. They specialized in the small no power shit box market and refined that corner quite well. By 1975 when CAFE went into effect, the domestic OEMs were caught with their pants down and had to scramble to catch up. One of the rules of CAFE is if a manufacturer can't meet the mandated targets, large fines will be levied. So, because of this glaring issue of wanting to avoid fines and the timeframe, corners were cut and development was rushed. th-cam.com/video/rX7wSNQzpno/w-d-xo.html and th-cam.com/video/gdO62vJsrUc/w-d-xo.html
@@garthhancock3373 One built reliable quality, the other did not, and continued to not until the 90’s. That is the bottom line, regardless of the reasons why.
@@blackhawk7r221 driven a number of 60 and early 70s big three vehicles. Not pintos and vegas. Most of these were fairly well put together and highly reliable. Tell me on what planet a 350 v8 with a turbo 350 Trans is not reliable. I think the examples you happen to have come across were owned by braindead morons who ran them into the ground.
@Blackhawk 7R forgot to mention that most Japanese vehicles from before the mid 90s rusted out notoriously bad. That isn't a good example of quality in my book. Granted the domestic cars would rust too, but not as bad as the Japanese vehicles.
@garthhancock3373 I been driving Honda shitboxes for 50 years. All went past 200,000 miles and one 1990 Accord went 450,000 miles when I drove it to the scrap yard. Spanked many Mustangs and Trans-Am with an 11 second 1/4 mile civic. Full interior and licensed running pump gas. It was junk.
It's funny, they made such a big deal about the Corvair rolling over. Now we have SUVs and oversized pickup trucks that roll over at the drop of a hat.
What happened to the American car company? The US Government, that’s what. Setting unrealistic standards on unrealistic time lines. Whether it was fuel mileage, safety, or emissions. The governmental dictates were unreasonable in light of the existing technology. As a result, the automakers had to use stop gap, inefficient measures to attempt to satisfy the government.
The problem with Corvairs were 1. The cast iron crankcase & cylinder barrels were just too heavy to be placed behind the rear axle. 2. The GM bean counters saved about $2 per car using iron rather than aluminum. 3 the swing axles were cheap copies of the VW beetle. It would have been much better mid engine with aluminum alloy. I've had several friends that had Corvair powered VW's & sand buggies and I was a professional mechanic for decades. If GM woulda spent about $100 more per unit they'd have made a much better product.
GM should have never tried to compete with Volkswagen , building rear engine rear-wheel drive vehicles,, they should have stayed with what they did best. Front-engine cars with ta driveshaft and rear-wheel drive, mid-engine Corvairs are dumb , corvairs that have a front engine transmission tunnel and rear wheel drive are the best driving and handling vehicles you will ever drive. The same for adding a transfer case and making one four-wheel drive, you do need to cut the front to allow air flow for a radiator. It makes you wonder what could have been, Back then every other car in a parking lot was a Volkswagen, although it was a bad decision to copy Volkswagen GM engineers nearly pulled it off anyway. A good number of GM executives had children.that died in crashes while driving corvairs
The swing axles were fixed in later models. The rear engine was air cooled making it light even if not all aluminum. The last corvair model was a good car.
The Corvair's crankcase/engine block was cast aluminum, not iron. There were handling problems with the first series, but modifications on the 1964 models greatly improved handling. The Corvair's problems of leaking engine seals, carburetor icing, fan belt tossing, and squirrelily handling didn't stop Chevy from selling over a quarter of a million units every year through 1965. What killed the Corvair was: 1. Lack of advanced technology. The car should have been given power steering and power disc brakes, upgraded GT type interior and controls, and an automatic transmission with a Park position. GM dictated, " no further development except to keep up with government regulations" while other small cars got these upgrades. 2. Lack of power. Chevy was marketing the Corvair as a sporty car by 1962, but the platform couldn't accept any engine other than the 6 cylinder boxer motor. Meanwhile other small cars were getting powerful V8s. 3. Cost. Every other Chevrolet platform could accept all of Chevy's engines, from the inline Turbo-Thrift 230 Six to the big block V8s, except the Corvair with that flat 6. 3. Publicity. While Nader's book misrepresented the Corvair in many areas, no doubt it didn't help sales.
@@mrromantimothy I’m sure a good number of executives had family members die whilst using lots of other product for which they themselves oversaw the design and manufacturing. Smith&Wesson, Winchester, Boeing, Roundup, Toro, GE, Lockheed, Yamaha, Honda, 3M, Glidden, Rustoleum, Johnson&Johnson, Raybestos, Owens-Corning, BP, Goodyear, and even, Sharpie. What, you haven’t heard about the Sharpie executive’s grandson who put like twenty brown Sharpies in his milk glass to make chocolate milk, which poisoned the child, made him crazy, and he took Fiskars scissors and killed his sisters, and then pushed dozens of Acco paper clips under his mom’s nails her hands were Crazy Glued to the kitchen table, making her have an aneurism and die, which in turn caused the father to commit suicide because he felt awful about the time he was driving a Corvair when he was 15 and hit the neighbors dog while parking in his neighbors front yard which he mistook for a giant parking lot because he was tripping his face off on LSD and the dog lost the very tippity tip of his tail fur but still loved acid fiend Howard Sharpie. And, now you know the rest of the story which never happened and Corvair were not and are not any more dangerous than plenty of other common and successful cars. Just like the Audi 5000, the Ford Explorer, and the Cadillac Cimarron, they were all just innocent victims in an unfair game of sensationalism and biased research. No wait, the Cimarron wasn’t thought to be dangerous physically, only a miscarriage of taste and decency were the threats there. Glad you could join me on my loquacious venture into the hypothetical-as-urban-legend-become-fact!??
There were more problems then that but ur not wrong. Gm has had a history of not spending enough money in research and development they get the vehicle/engine 90% there and don’t spend the money to get it the extra 10% which was all the difference. Companies like Toyota spend the money on research and development and they don’t have all the engine and transmission problems like gm does. I’ve been a professional automotive technician for over 20 years and I own a shop, I specialize in engine and transmission repair and I can’t count on one hand how many Toyota engines and transmissions I have fixed or replaced and they were all because of human error like the radiator was leaking and the owner drove it overheating until the engine went and a few that ran out of oil from the shop not tightening the oil filter but as far as gm goes every week I’m doing engine or transmission repairs.
Yes, the author wrote out how the dodge bros funded the Henry Ford motor company and Henry screwed them . Also how he then made the Ford motor company. Also, how the dodge bros created a car company to directly compete with Ford and to spit in his face.
On the Chevrolet corvair it was only the 60-63 models that were prone to rolling 64 added a leaf spring the prevented dropping too to far and in 65 the swing axle was replaced by a cv type axle which then it would no longer roll but by this time the damage was done
This is a really bizarre and unbalanced view of 'What happened to American Cars'? American car companies have made their fair share of mistakes (particularly Vega), but this video isn't an accurate perspective.
Walter Chrysler deserves his own You Tube video as does Ransom Olds, Charles Nash, Henry Leland and Thomas and Charles Jeffery. Others were John and Horace Dodge, Byron Carter, Edward Murphy and Alanson Brush. Jonathan Maxwell and Benjamin Briscoe and Hugh Chalmers. The incompetent Henry Ford took all the credit for all these people’s achievements.
I agree. When my wife's car went to the body shop for repairs after her deer encounter, we got a Chevrolet Malibu as a rental. The infotainment system was so hard for her to figure out. And it amazes me that we need alight to remind us our children are in the back. If my parents were alive today that warning would blow their mind. I can hear mom now, how in the hell can you forget about your kids. Unbelievable.
@@mrromantimothy the Buick OHV 8 was smooth, more efficient, & a low rpm torque "monster" in its day. In terms of straight ahead performance, the Buick could more than hold its own in high gear. The Ford V8 was light, fast, may've handled better than the heavier Buick, but they had horrible brakes & on a long stretch the Buick would simply "outpull" the Ford.
@@a.leemorrisjr.9255 If you want to talk about brakes I got to go from the 1960s up Buick all the way, I had a 38 Buick W straight 8 that had bullet holes in the back , it sat in a garage in Hollywood for years, I was told it belonged to Bonnie and Clyde, I can't say for sure if it was theirs or not but they were the preferred getaway car back in the day. I've listened to stories from moonshiners and old timers and my best friends dad and stuff none of them ever mentioned ford flathead, if you look at the motor itself you can't get any air through them. I've only seen photos of it but in 1932 Cadillac had a straight-eight
@@mrromantimothy Don't think I've ever seen a straight 8 Caddy before. They had a V8 as early as '14, had both flathead & OHV V8s in later years, & a massive V16 in early '30s. Marmon also had one. Not sure if Caddy had a 12, they may've@one time. The OHV design was preferable as you stated. Flatheads were simple, cheaper to build, but as rpms increased, they ran out of breath fast.
Humm, you call it the history of the American car. You talk about Ford, Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac but you forgot to cover one special car even though you mentioned it’s name many times when talking about William Durant and the beginnings of GM. That car was Oldsmobile ! For one thing you went on and on about Ford and the first assembly line but that wasn’t totally true. Ransom E Olds was using early forms of the assembly line and Henry took notice. As with Buick and Chevrolet Ransom Olds had a falling out with Durant and GM who wanted to make big expensive cars. Ransom knew better and left in 1905 after selling the Curved dash Oldsmobile in big numbers and not wanting to build big cars only the well heeled could affo 1:54:28 rd. He started his own company and called it REO witch went on to make cars and trucks, the most famous of which was the REO Speedwagon. The cars and trucks were very good and history shows that building cars the ordinary man or woman could afford was the right business model, hence the Ford T. The Oldsmobile name went on to spectacular success with the Rocket Olds engine and many high performance models such as the 442. However GM in its strange logic killed Olds and left Buick! Ransom Olds never got credit for his use of the early form of the assembly line.
This history is not true it jumps all over the place with dates and times and leaves out a lot of important American car makers like DeSoto Packard the Tucker the Studebaker I had to turn it off because I'll get tired of all the revisionist history
@@tomboone201 William Couzins and the Dodge brothers are the real geniuses behind Henry Ford,s 3rd car company currently known as The Ford Motor Company. Ford didn’t even invent his first car. It was other engineers and mechanics in his garage in evenings. Ford is a big fraud.
David Buick was born in Scotland. Many Scots moved to an area north of Detroit with names like Bruce Twp and Scotch Settlement. The Scots were not effected by the Irish potato famine. Buick’s greatest contribution to the auto industry is his engine valves. Prior to that, he didn’t invent the toilet. He invented a method to attach ceramic on cast iron used on tubs and sinks.
Firstly, government regulations on emissions, then there's the Arab/Israeli war that generated the first gas crisis, then US automakers began to produce really bad cars, then the Arabs again in 1979, then more government regulations. This paved the way for Japan to sort of get revenge over Hiroshima and Nagasaki by making better cars than any kind of American car could ever hope to be.
What went wrong?. Auto Union's mission was not to make and improve cars but to protect workers who didn't want to make cars but just wanted fringe benefits.
Pinto: They had carburetor issues that caused the car to stall when accelerated. You entered the highway, stall and get rear ended....Fire. They later put a piece of plastic between the tank and axle, and changed the carburetor, but it was a minimal effort. Many cars in the day had rear gas tanks. mustang etc had a drop in gas tank that was actually the floor of the trunk. Corvair: The swing axle had a large radius of motion and it would "tuck" under. It was solved with a sway bar and limiters ( a strap). ALSO the bias ply tires were small and total CRAP!!
But, Ford sold over 1.5 MILLION Pintos! As far as the Pinto being a "dangerous" car, there were even worse small cars during that era, but Ford had "deeper pockets" for the lawyers to go after!
I like how the government mandates high gas mileage - and then in 2023 all they want to produce is big trucks and SUVs. Makes sense to me................................
Jordan did not participate in the Yom Kipur war in October 1973. The massive airlift by the US was because Nixon was affraid Israel will use Doom's Day weapons against Egypt and Syria.
They had great looking affordable cars - 1969 Charger - 1967 GTO - 1972 Cutlass Convertible. But they changed them into ugly cars that cost more. That's what happened.
1:20:00 America dragged kicking and screaming toward proper safety measures that Euro, British and Australian-built cars had put in place several decades earlier.
All in all, I found this contained too many errors to mention and I'm English so my automotive knowledge centres around our own illustrious legacies in the main.. Bloody awful to be honest, old stick, but thank you for your efforts nonetheless.
Yes! That's just one of the odd things about this doc. The time sequence is very out-of-order chronologically. It describes the Beetle being introduced in the late 50's-early 60's, yet it was actually developed in the 30's.
Love both corvairs and Bugs. Both needs less air in front tires. I was 16 and used to filling up dad's truck to 35psi. So I filled VW bug tires up 35 psi. Took off and it was scary. Idk what's wrong dad, he checked pressure and said that's way too much for a rear engine car. So he lowered the psi and I drove that thing everywhere. Loved it. If only it had like 2.8, 3.1 chevy HP n TQ and they be great. 30 HP is ok for 1940. Not 1996.
If you took an automotive designer from the 50's or 60's and showed them what cars in the 2000's would look like, they'd tell you ,you were crazy, it wouldn't happen! Cadillac? 'ain't no way!'
I've been working at a body shop for a bit now and extra tips I learned was if you're painting the door, it's better to take off the mirror and belt molding (the trim at the bottom of the window) for a better paint job in the end. The mirror can get in the way, and if you're unlucky, the clear coat could stick in that gap
American brand automobiles backed by US government siphoning taxpayers deep pockets never try hard to build quality automobiles. My American brand automobiles constantly needed repairs and still breaking down like transmission, AC, fuel system, electrical system, body hardware, fit and finish. Buying Toyota and Honda fixed all the issues. My current 2005 Toyota Sienna runs great at 323K miles with only few minor repairs. My wife’s 2003 Honda Pilot is running good at 223K miles. None of the American brands I could keep for more than 10 years unless I was willing to pay for major repair like replacing piston rings, replacing transmission, or major AC system repair.
have a soft spot for certain classic American cars particularly of the full size variety I.E. the Chevrolet Impala/Caprice Ford Crown Victoria/Lincoln Town Car Buick Century and Cadillac Deville among others dad is a retiring police officer in Boston MA and used to bring the cruiser home every so often when I was growing up 90s early 2000s and it was usually always a crown Vic both of us were sad when Ford discontinued the panther platform cars production without a replacement in 2011 the crown Vic/town car could've gone on a few more years
Surprisingly you mentioned the Crown Vic. I suggest an LTD as an alternative. Or if you want to go a little newer, then go for a Taurus or Mercury Lynx.
The title of this video seems to be somewhat misleading. The video is an elaboration of the American car industry footnotes. It never mentions about the rise of Japanese imports V.S. the decline of American car ownership.
What hacks me The Most about the Vega, is they DID NOT learn anything on the Covair. They did not ship a few dollar bills with the car (take a small loss) and later take a lower profit margin & cost reduce, & slowely raise the price AFTER they had a STABLE, RELIABLE PRODUCT.
@Don West // Jay Leno did a show on the Oldsmobile Turbo (Jet Fire?). He mentioned all the griping about adding Turbo lubricant AND always checking oil after every gas fill-up with a Mazda Wankel. Americans are not really mindful people.
O.K. DON'T waste your time with this! Sorry guys but there are TONS of mistakes and messed up facts in this video. Too many to list. Also most of the stills & video clips to NOT match the era he is speaking of! This is actually a part where the clip he stole starts talking over his own narration, lol. It's at 7:36. I'm not sure what the purpose was for posting this.
At last! Someone who noticed this. I thought this was one of the strangest documentaries I've ever seen! Entertaining, but a lot of dubious 'facts', time narrative was out of synch, the narrator sounded like he was talking to young children, jokes were weird, it lacked cohesive focus or an overall thesis, etc. No mention of Japanese at all, hardly any mention of the 1974 gas crisis, said the Beetle was introduced in the early 1960's when it was invented in the 1930's. Even a shot of a newspaper ad said the Corvair was competing with the Rabbit, which was the Beetle's so-called replacement. A lot of coverage of Darth Nader
100% of the time these documentaries have less than stellar narrators. This is no exception. His total lack of enthusiasm is off-putting. It's a job to you, buddy, but it's supposed to be a pleasant experience for us.
The Porsche 911 had a similar butt flip forward problem until brakes, suspension, stability control & AWD fixes were implemented. /// Like the 911, you can NOT brake harder than the curve PRIOR to the APEX, you CAN ACCELERATE at the APEX & AFTER to steer out. It takes technique & a bit of nerve, shortages in a novice.
@@joelcruz9415 // Speaking of the 911, the rear fenders or bolt-on fender flares allowed for wider tires. AS YOU MENTIONED JOEL, Tire Compounds, Tread Patterns, & adjusted wheel diameter / tire aspect ratio (Height tp Width) have accommodated handling variations & improvements.
That is INCORRECT. Carl Benz was the first person to utilize gasoline, in his internal combustion engines. It was/is a byproduct in the distillation process of kerosene making for lanterns, originally. The same process used today in oil refineries. Oil companies like John Rockefellers Standard Oil (then turned AMOCO, now BP) used to discard the gasoline in oil fields and rivers, because it was too volatile for use & storage, and had no practical use before the internal combustion engine. 😉
Dosco, a steel mill in Atlantic canada, sent samples of sheet metal, and steel for car frames, chev, ford, and other American car companies, told the plant managers, that the steel would not rust fast enough, and adjusted,, that's why American cars in the 70s ended up in the scrap yards before 80.000 miles!
CORRECTION: Ford did not "invent" the production line, it was already being used in factories prior to Ford; Henry perfected the production line, improoved it etc..
this is filled with all kinds of BS it says Americans weren't familiar with the handling of rear wheel drive cars, when during that time half the cars in the average American parking lot were Volkswagen rear wheel drive. by far the most dangerous cars of that time were Volkswagen beetles, Germans have been making those cars since before WWII it was a bad business decision for GM to expect to compete with them from scratch. GM should have stayed building the cars that it knew how to build . A front-engine corvair with a V6 rear-wheel-drive is the most awesome handling vehicle Chevrolet never made a 2024 retro model of this corvair would probably sell millions. and the first Arab oil embargo was because of the shah of Iran getting overthrown, and the Ayatollah Khomeini took power and decided to cut oil production. Nothing's happened to American car companies except us automakers compete with each other, all the while getting ripped off for all their ideas and innovations, by foreign carmakers such as the five Japanese automakers who work together to avoid competing with each other to the point they run each other out of business, all five will intentionally collaborate to ensure that none of them build any auto parts that can possibly interchange. Toyota after becoming the number one automaker has struggled because they've never had to be innovators with new ideas or car designers. Despite all the cutthroat unfair competition,American automakers are going to be just fine
Nothing went wrong, time and taste changes. American cars were great, and they are great today. European cars are different but great too in their own rights... Cars are great.
The dealers were sent new cars that had smog controls and were not reliable even though they cast more. Many mechanics working at the dealer had not learned how to fix the new smog controlled cars.
The government happened to our cars. We used to have the cars to back up our attitude and pride. Now we got a new kind of pride and the perfect cars to represent it.
so this is what A.I. generated documentaries looks like, watch out for; whatever happened to A.I. generated documentaries with it's inconsistent and highly wrongful information....this is just sad.... 😕
My Dad bought a Chevy Vega from a friend that owned a salvage yard! The motor didn't run of course so he pulled the block out of the car and had steel sleeve's put in plus other work to it by a machine shop! let's just say he drove that thing without nothing more than routine maintenance until he retired from Kraft years Later !
My folks bought a Vega when they first came out. It blew a head gasket within a year. Great body style but another chevy egg. The side post battery was another egg but I like old chevys.
BUT, those cars were well received by the American public, selling in record numbers along with the Chevette (record sales) and the infamous GM "X"bodies (record sales)!
The usa government and corporations interferred with car production, and manufacturing thats what happened all owned by same 1% cabal owns all of us. Japan was actually told not to make such good toyota cars in 1990s because they lasted so long and less usa cars selling.
Nothing "happened" to American cars - consumers simply discovered that other cars were better. Much, much better. I drive a Lincoln MKZ. It's pretty good... because it's a Mazda.
SOMETHING happened to American cars, which this documentary made no effort to explain. If you look now, eight or nine cars on the road are foreign designs, even more if you don't count pick-ups or SUV's...
I THOUGHT it seemed odd, the narration was so enunciated and measured, like he's talking to Grade 3 students, lots of other odd characteristics about this doc.
And Chrysler? AMC or any of the other smaller American automakers? Are you biased? Lots of confusion with the story lines. Should rename the video as 'the history of GM and Ford' instead
This unusual documentary was quite entertaining, and at the same time, quite odd in terms of the narration and editing. Not bad odd, just....strange. Is it just me, or does anyone agree? Most of the comments are about the subject, not the video.
I agree it is more to skim over, around, an threw the subject at matter. now the video on the other hand is odd but yet entertaining at the fact of how it's out together in a flow of following points in history but not to dissect every point threw history of American cars an ETC
American cars: Because sometimes you just need a car that's bigger than your house.
I don't know what size your family was but I came from a family of six children and two parents so it was all the time
I love seeing ppl with 2 grand steros in 500$ cars. Or dropped my friend off in a trailer park, nice park, but ppl had new chargers, camaros and lived in a trailer 30 years old. I don't blame them. U spend urr time working and sleeping so let's drive something cool!!
@@mrromantimothy I love those big wagons. I remember the 80s and seems like every family had 1. I wish they still made a full frame sedan like Town Car or a station wagon. Idk why we quit and focused on SUV. I get BIG tahoe, excursion etc but if I don't need 4x4 cause I live in rust belt but was taught driving in a big boat RWD car so it's not that I got 4x4, awd so my cars better than a 2 wheel drive. Not really cause most 4x4, awd are not true awd. Yes back tire and 1 front spin, or some combo. I don't get the appeal. I like the big ppl haulers but pap had a wagon that fit 9 ppl. I think it was a Ford. Front bench, middle bench and the seat folded down in back that fit 3 ppl. Many a trips in those big cars. Safe. Hit a deer at 65 and just made bumper dirty cause it was a real steel bumper, not plastic. Bring back the full size cars please.
GREED !
It does not even make sense to you, but you posted it anyway.
Cheverolet did make decent cars for a while. Then they hired engineers to cost reduce every part. As examples - alternators lasted 25k miles, electric window motors died in 3 years, water pump has cheap bushings, paint pull right off, manifolds changed to plastic, its all about reducing costs..... and quality.
I agree! Chevy trucks from the 70s I see still have original paint in good shape. My 1992 Chevrolet truck has the famous white paint that loves to peel off. I'll have to change the color on the registration to blue/white/primer gray soon
Oi tink dats wot dey call "Planned Obsolescence". Now everybody does it, Plastic EVERYTHING.
@@davidhicks2178GM junk is the only reason I drive a Mopar
That is very disturbing what you post. I owned a Chevy HHR 2007 which worked well. But hey!
Ford uses incredibly cheap parts in some of their vehicles. The major difference between Ford and Toyota is if a problem or defect is found, Toyota will usually try to fix the issue for the next model year. Ford will only fix major defects but the smaller issues will never be fixed. The Ford Windstar could have been a great minivan but Ford refused to address a myriad of issues that afflicted this vehicle.
I’d be rich if I had a nickel for every untruth in this presentation. For openers, the Ford model A was NEVER sold with a V8 engine.
It’s indescribable how inaccurate this video is.
The model A was the first mass produced model available with a flathead V8 engine Chevrolet only had a 6 cyl option
@@edpinkerton7947 NO! NO! NO! The flathead V8 came out along with the model B, in 1932........ Was never available on the 1931 model A. Check your facts.
I stand corrected
@@edpinkerton7947 For me, I appreciate those interested in automotive history and have some knowledge of it like yourself.
In truth, Charles Brady King is the first to produce an 8 cylinder engine and left hand drive vehicle. He is the true inventor and builder of Henry Ford’s Quadracycle. He is perhaps the most overlooked automobile pioneer.
One untrue statement is that Henry Ford invented the assembly line. He streamlined it and perfected it but he didn't invent it!
Ford has never made claim to inventing the assembly line but everyone believes they invented it. Much like steve jobs and Elon musk, Mr ford did not design the assembly line or car, his engineers did. Hundreds of them.
I believe it was the Dodge brothers that invented it when they worked for Ford
More like 14th century, building boats on the water.
@@bradlandwehr167 fords chief engineer Sorenson was responsible for the assembly line from the original test line with technicians adding a limited amount of parts to a full on assembly line in a dedicated facility. The dodge brothers who were share holders were in on it as well since they built transmission in a separate facility. The setup was duplicated in 40 locations throughout the world. Of the over 1000 car manufacturers in the world at the time, Ford owned over 90% at one time or another.
I thought it was the Romans who came up with the production line…
Wow, this is so well-researched that you didn't mention Hudson, Studebaker, Willys, AMC, or even Chrysler Corporation. Delorean is a footnote in American automotive history - especially that the cars were not made in the USA - and got more air time than Chrysler with the one mention of the Plymouth Valiant. This video has over 76,000 views and only 738 likes. Think about that.
Yeah, this video makes a lot of inferences that are jarring and make no sense. Was this put together by an AI or someone with a vague grasp of the history of the american auto industry?
After about 3 minutes l came to the conclusion that the voice-over was A.l.
A minute later l was quite sure that the copy had been written by a middle-school aged 'tween; Mr Buick grew up in Scotland... "around the docks and swear words...".
Yeah, that totally sounds like something l might have written when l was 12 😂
10 mins is about all I could stand , the motor sizes and even the Ford building size was given in liters and meters lol . He did mention the dodge challenger at the beginning but forgot the dodge Brothers completely. If memory serves me , the brothers played a very big part in Fords success in the beginning and even owned a considerable amount of the company.
Yes, this looks like it was written with third hand information. The imagery is jarringly out of synch, and the historical value is almost nil. Somebody melded every wiki artlcle they could find. It's a money grab.
76 thousand views &786 likes! I would like to see how many.....dislikes.....it received, only Y.T. doesn't release that information any more.
Meanwhile I still own and drive decades old American cars .
That's because decades ago, American cars were actually decent. Buy a new "American" car that was designed in Europe and assembled in Mexico from cheap Chinese parts and see how long that will last.
@@lastotallyawesomebleach204 I had a 2010 Toyota tundra that broke down at 200k miles. It blew it's headgasket so I sold it for scrap. I bought a 1990 f150 and it has 700k miles with the original engine.
@@thejacket3891 that's what's up, them old f series trucks were bulletproof. Toyota tundras can be pretty decent too, you probably should've fixed that blown head gasket instead of scrapping it.
@@lastotallyawesomebleach204 Yeah
American cars were so big because fuel was cheap. Fuel in Europe was much more expensive. Also most European roads were built for horses. America as a relatively new country with vast areas to build towns and city's. Many roads in Europe you would struggle with an older American car. But I would love to own a buick riviera boat tail.
Not true modern cars a massive big Audi's ,BMWs and Bentleys plus SUVs
I would love to own a '59 Cadillac with 500ci engine. There is NO substitute for cubic inches!
For those who say that the federal government and insurance got too heavily involved, so quality suffered, I would counter with this: the Japanese followed those same guidelines and had no quality or reliability problems. They were out to carve a spot in the US market. Detroit on the other hand, continued to build low quality cars playing upon American’s devotion to loyally buy domestic. That only bought them about ten years. By the early 80’s, Jap drive lines were still strong at 150,000 miles where your average domestic engine was done by 80,000, and you’ve already changed the trans.
Just my experience from back then working at dealerships.
No. Domestic OEMs produced mainly large body on frame vehicles, Japan didn't. They specialized in the small no power shit box market and refined that corner quite well. By 1975 when CAFE went into effect, the domestic OEMs were caught with their pants down and had to scramble to catch up. One of the rules of CAFE is if a manufacturer can't meet the mandated targets, large fines will be levied. So, because of this glaring issue of wanting to avoid fines and the timeframe, corners were cut and development was rushed. th-cam.com/video/rX7wSNQzpno/w-d-xo.html and th-cam.com/video/gdO62vJsrUc/w-d-xo.html
@@garthhancock3373 One built reliable quality, the other did not, and continued to not until the 90’s. That is the bottom line, regardless of the reasons why.
@@blackhawk7r221 driven a number of 60 and early 70s big three vehicles. Not pintos and vegas. Most of these were fairly well put together and highly reliable. Tell me on what planet a 350 v8 with a turbo 350 Trans is not reliable. I think the examples you happen to have come across were owned by braindead morons who ran them into the ground.
@Blackhawk 7R forgot to mention that most Japanese vehicles from before the mid 90s rusted out notoriously bad. That isn't a good example of quality in my book. Granted the domestic cars would rust too, but not as bad as the Japanese vehicles.
@garthhancock3373 I been driving Honda shitboxes for 50 years. All went past 200,000 miles and one 1990 Accord went 450,000 miles when I drove it to the scrap yard.
Spanked many Mustangs and Trans-Am with an 11 second 1/4 mile civic. Full interior and licensed running pump gas. It was junk.
Sitting in for a young Henry Ford is a young Walt Disney 😂 Nice video, I enjoyed it.
These big V8 cars were abandoned when the oil crisis raged in the seventies.Smaller economical cars were preferred afterwards .
It's funny, they made such a big deal about the Corvair rolling over. Now we have SUVs and oversized pickup trucks that roll over at the drop of a hat.
That's what they call improving the product. LOL.
So true! And they call these rollover machines safer…
What happened to the American car company? The US Government, that’s what. Setting unrealistic standards on unrealistic time lines. Whether it was fuel mileage, safety, or emissions. The governmental dictates were unreasonable in light of the existing technology. As a result, the automakers had to use stop gap, inefficient measures to attempt to satisfy the government.
And the resulting vehicles were not appealing the consumers.
And I thought it was just the piss poor quality.
Japanese engineers trained by watching Americans laugh at this comment.
It was not just the Feds, The insurance companies were also handing down edicts left and right
It wasn't untill the first imports hit the shores that U.S. car designers said: "how clever, Let's do that too"
In my experience, American cars have not treated me well in decades, especially Fords. I gave up on them years ago.
The problem with Corvairs were 1. The cast iron crankcase & cylinder barrels were just too heavy to be placed behind the rear axle. 2. The GM bean counters saved about $2 per car using iron rather than aluminum. 3 the swing axles were cheap copies of the VW beetle. It would have been much better mid engine with aluminum alloy. I've had several friends that had Corvair powered VW's & sand buggies and I was a professional mechanic for decades. If GM woulda spent about $100 more per unit they'd have made a much better product.
GM should have never tried to compete with Volkswagen , building rear engine rear-wheel drive vehicles,, they should have stayed with what they did best. Front-engine cars with ta driveshaft and rear-wheel drive, mid-engine Corvairs are dumb , corvairs that have a front engine transmission tunnel and rear wheel drive are the best driving and handling vehicles you will ever drive. The same for adding a transfer case and making one four-wheel drive, you do need to cut the front to allow air flow for a radiator. It makes you wonder what could have been, Back then every other car in a parking lot was a Volkswagen, although it was a bad decision to copy Volkswagen GM engineers nearly pulled it off anyway. A good number of GM executives had children.that died in crashes while driving corvairs
The swing axles were fixed in later models. The rear engine was air cooled making it light even if not all aluminum. The last corvair model was a good car.
The Corvair's crankcase/engine block was cast aluminum, not iron. There were handling problems with the first series, but modifications on the 1964 models greatly improved handling. The Corvair's problems of leaking engine seals, carburetor icing, fan belt tossing, and squirrelily handling didn't stop Chevy from selling over a quarter of a million units every year through 1965. What killed the Corvair was:
1. Lack of advanced technology. The car should have been given power steering and power disc brakes, upgraded GT type interior and controls, and an automatic transmission with a Park position. GM dictated, " no further development except to keep up with government regulations" while other small cars got these upgrades.
2. Lack of power. Chevy was marketing the Corvair as a sporty car by 1962, but the platform couldn't accept any engine other than the 6 cylinder boxer motor. Meanwhile other small cars were getting powerful V8s.
3. Cost. Every other Chevrolet platform could accept all of Chevy's engines, from the inline Turbo-Thrift 230 Six to the big block V8s, except the Corvair with that flat 6.
3. Publicity. While Nader's book misrepresented the Corvair in many areas, no doubt it didn't help sales.
@@mrromantimothy I’m sure a good number of executives had family members die whilst using lots of other product for which they themselves oversaw the design and manufacturing. Smith&Wesson, Winchester, Boeing, Roundup, Toro, GE, Lockheed, Yamaha, Honda, 3M, Glidden, Rustoleum, Johnson&Johnson, Raybestos, Owens-Corning, BP, Goodyear, and even, Sharpie. What, you haven’t heard about the Sharpie executive’s grandson who put like twenty brown Sharpies in his milk glass to make chocolate milk, which poisoned the child, made him crazy, and he took Fiskars scissors and killed his sisters, and then pushed dozens of Acco paper clips under his mom’s nails her hands were Crazy Glued to the kitchen table, making her have an aneurism and die, which in turn caused the father to commit suicide because he felt awful about the time he was driving a Corvair when he was 15 and hit the neighbors dog while parking in his neighbors front yard which he mistook for a giant parking lot because he was tripping his face off on LSD and the dog lost the very tippity tip of his tail fur but still loved acid fiend Howard Sharpie. And, now you know the rest of the story which never happened and Corvair were not and are not any more dangerous than plenty of other common and successful cars. Just like the Audi 5000, the Ford Explorer, and the Cadillac Cimarron, they were all just innocent victims in an unfair game of sensationalism and biased research. No wait, the Cimarron wasn’t thought to be dangerous physically, only a miscarriage of taste and decency were the threats there. Glad you could join me on my loquacious venture into the hypothetical-as-urban-legend-become-fact!??
There were more problems then that but ur not wrong. Gm has had a history of not spending enough money in research and development they get the vehicle/engine 90% there and don’t spend the money to get it the extra 10% which was all the difference. Companies like Toyota spend the money on research and development and they don’t have all the engine and transmission problems like gm does. I’ve been a professional automotive technician for over 20 years and I own a shop, I specialize in engine and transmission repair and I can’t count on one hand how many Toyota engines and transmissions I have fixed or replaced and they were all because of human error like the radiator was leaking and the owner drove it overheating until the engine went and a few that ran out of oil from the shop not tightening the oil filter but as far as gm goes every week I’m doing engine or transmission repairs.
This video writes the Dodge brothers out of the history of Ford. Also, the Model A did not have a V8 engine. That was introduced in 1932.
Yes, the author wrote out how the dodge bros funded the Henry Ford motor company and Henry screwed them . Also how he then made the Ford motor company. Also, how the dodge bros created a car company to directly compete with Ford and to spit in his face.
I thought it was the model A that had a v8 in 32.
I meant model B
Ralph Nader should have gone after the Pimto instead of the Corvair
Lmao ! What I thought !
Ford paid him more..
Nader started going after the Corvair before Ford introduced the Pinto in 1970.
Pintos ddid not catch fire any more often than other small cars Nader is a Hack
you mean the pimento?
If Delorean where to manufactured the car in Japan or South Korea, would be a different story.
Just maybe, the quality may have been better but was still a dog of a " Sports car"
AWESOME DOCO!
On the Chevrolet corvair it was only the 60-63 models that were prone to rolling 64 added a leaf spring the prevented dropping too to far and in 65 the swing axle was replaced by a cv type axle which then it would no longer roll but by this time the damage was done
The whole issue was over blown
This is a really bizarre and unbalanced view of 'What happened to American Cars'? American car companies have made their fair share of mistakes (particularly Vega), but this video isn't an accurate perspective.
Don't forget to mention the pinto that Ford motor company made
Great editing job 😂😂😂😂
NOT... it seemed chronologically out-of-synch I thought
@@intercommerce Sarcasm fail...
Why only Ford and GM Cars ? Why NOTHING on CHRYSLER CORPORATION?
Walter Chrysler deserves his own You Tube video as does Ransom Olds, Charles Nash, Henry Leland and Thomas and Charles Jeffery.
Others were John and Horace Dodge, Byron Carter, Edward Murphy and Alanson Brush. Jonathan Maxwell and Benjamin Briscoe and Hugh Chalmers.
The incompetent Henry Ford took all the credit for all these people’s achievements.
Some say, that it was easier for a pedestrian to fathom the controls of a Model T than it would be to comprehend the controls we know today.
Have you ever driven a Model T?
I agree. When my wife's car went to the body shop for repairs after her deer encounter, we got a Chevrolet Malibu as a rental. The infotainment system was so hard for her to figure out. And it amazes me that we need alight to remind us our children are in the back. If my parents were alive today that warning would blow their mind. I can hear mom now, how in the hell can you forget about your kids. Unbelievable.
Model A's were not V8 powered. That was the mass produced 1 piece block flathead of 1932.
Those flathead V8's couldn't compete with a Buick straight 8
@@mrromantimothy the Buick OHV 8 was smooth, more efficient, & a low rpm torque "monster" in its day. In terms of straight ahead performance, the Buick could more than hold its own in high gear. The Ford V8 was light, fast, may've handled better than the heavier Buick, but they had horrible brakes & on a long stretch the Buick would simply "outpull" the Ford.
@@a.leemorrisjr.9255 If you want to talk about brakes I got to go from the 1960s up Buick all the way, I had a 38 Buick W straight 8 that had bullet holes in the back , it sat in a garage in Hollywood for years, I was told it belonged to Bonnie and Clyde, I can't say for sure if it was theirs or not but they were the preferred getaway car back in the day. I've listened to stories from moonshiners and old timers and my best friends dad and stuff none of them ever mentioned ford flathead, if you look at the motor itself you can't get any air through them. I've only seen photos of it but in 1932 Cadillac had a straight-eight
I think the tape was spliced rendering this mistake
@@mrromantimothy Don't think I've ever seen a straight 8 Caddy before. They had a V8 as early as '14, had both flathead & OHV V8s in later years, & a massive V16 in early '30s. Marmon also had one. Not sure if Caddy had a 12, they may've@one time. The OHV design was preferable as you stated. Flatheads were simple, cheaper to build, but as rpms increased, they ran out of breath fast.
Humm, you call it the history of the American car. You talk about Ford, Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac but you forgot to cover one special car even though you mentioned it’s name many times when talking about William Durant and the beginnings of GM. That car was Oldsmobile ! For one thing you went on and on about Ford and the first assembly line but that wasn’t totally true. Ransom E Olds was using early forms of the assembly line and Henry took notice. As with Buick and Chevrolet Ransom Olds had a falling out with Durant and GM who wanted to make big expensive cars. Ransom knew better and left in 1905 after selling the Curved dash Oldsmobile in big numbers and not wanting to build big cars only the well heeled could affo 1:54:28 rd. He started his own company and called it REO witch went on to make cars and trucks, the most famous of which was the REO Speedwagon. The cars and trucks were very good and history shows that building cars the ordinary man or woman could afford was the right business model, hence the Ford T. The Oldsmobile name went on to spectacular success with the Rocket Olds engine and many high performance models such as the 442. However GM in its strange logic killed Olds and left Buick! Ransom Olds never got credit for his use of the early form of the assembly line.
This history is not true it jumps all over the place with dates and times and leaves out a lot of important American car makers like DeSoto Packard the Tucker the Studebaker I had to turn it off because I'll get tired of all the revisionist history
Or the Dodge bros
Also the story of Oakland and Pontiac and Edward Murphy and Alanson Brush.
@@tomboone201 William Couzins and the Dodge brothers are the real geniuses behind Henry Ford,s 3rd car company currently known as The Ford Motor Company. Ford didn’t even invent his first car. It was other engineers and mechanics in his garage in evenings. Ford is a big fraud.
David Buick was born in Scotland. Many Scots moved to an area north of Detroit with names like Bruce Twp and Scotch Settlement. The Scots were not effected by the Irish potato famine. Buick’s greatest contribution to the auto industry is his engine valves. Prior to that, he didn’t invent the toilet. He invented a method to attach ceramic on cast iron used on tubs and sinks.
Lots of mistake. They seem more interested in making the video funny and silly rather than accurate. .i stopped counting mistakes after 20.
the jokes were silly
overlaying audio glitch at 7:36 btw
Corporate greed is what happened to the American cars!
Firstly, government regulations on emissions, then there's the Arab/Israeli war that generated the first gas crisis, then US automakers began to produce really bad cars, then the Arabs again in 1979, then more government regulations. This paved the way for Japan to sort of get revenge over Hiroshima and Nagasaki by making better cars than any kind of American car could ever hope to be.
What went wrong with American Cars?
Exactly the same thing that happened with the rest of America . . . . .
Big Corp.
A time when men were men , and women were women.....# History is knowledge.
What has that got to do with the video??🥴😂
@@louisbarningham It’s History!
There was more miss pronounced words then an email from an African prince
What went wrong?.
Auto Union's mission was not to make and improve cars but to protect workers who didn't want to make cars but just wanted fringe benefits.
Gas wasn't created it was a byproduct of kerosene and they were dumping in the ground because in was so volatile.
Pinto: They had carburetor issues that caused the car to stall when accelerated. You entered the highway, stall and get rear ended....Fire.
They later put a piece of plastic between the tank and axle, and changed the carburetor, but it was a minimal effort.
Many cars in the day had rear gas tanks. mustang etc had a drop in gas tank that was actually the floor of the trunk.
Corvair: The swing axle had a large radius of motion and it would "tuck" under. It was solved with a sway bar and limiters ( a strap).
ALSO the bias ply tires were small and total CRAP!!
But, Ford sold over 1.5 MILLION Pintos! As far as the Pinto being a "dangerous" car, there were even worse small cars during that era, but Ford had "deeper pockets" for the lawyers to go after!
I like how the government mandates high gas mileage -
and then in 2023 all they want to produce is big trucks and SUVs.
Makes sense to me................................
that is because Big trucks last longer then Cars
@@dknowles60 < --- Some dummy who doesn't get the point.
Jordan did not participate in the Yom Kipur war in October 1973. The massive airlift by the US was because Nixon was affraid Israel will use Doom's Day weapons against Egypt and Syria.
I doubt they'd want to live next to that after such a war...
Surprised Edison didn't try stealing one of Henry's patents.
Imagine if Iacocca had listened to the British engineers. And had brought the Ford Escort into America
American car brands are amazing, they make the best trucks for sure.
They had great looking affordable cars - 1969 Charger - 1967 GTO - 1972 Cutlass Convertible.
But they changed them into ugly cars that cost more. That's what happened.
1:20:00 America dragged kicking and screaming toward proper safety measures that Euro, British and Australian-built cars had put in place several decades earlier.
Nice lie
Isn't it fun to shit on Americans?
If you're going to say "not by England " the least you could do would be to show an English flag.
All in all, I found this contained too many errors to mention and I'm English so my automotive knowledge centres around our own illustrious legacies in the main..
Bloody awful to be honest, old stick, but thank you for your efforts nonetheless.
What happened to the "Henry Ford company" that turned into the Cadillac company?? Your all over the place
Yes! That's just one of the odd things about this doc. The time sequence is very out-of-order chronologically. It describes the Beetle being introduced in the late 50's-early 60's, yet it was actually developed in the 30's.
Love both corvairs and Bugs. Both needs less air in front tires. I was 16 and used to filling up dad's truck to 35psi. So I filled VW bug tires up 35 psi. Took off and it was scary. Idk what's wrong dad, he checked pressure and said that's way too much for a rear engine car. So he lowered the psi and I drove that thing everywhere. Loved it. If only it had like 2.8, 3.1 chevy HP n TQ and they be great. 30 HP is ok for 1940. Not 1996.
If you took an automotive designer from the 50's or 60's and showed them what cars in the 2000's would look like, they'd tell you ,you were crazy, it wouldn't happen! Cadillac? 'ain't no way!'
How the company started by Louis Chevrolet called Frontenac wasn't mentioned? Mentioning how he slowly started that company is pretty interesting
I've been working at a body shop for a bit now and extra tips I learned was if you're painting the door, it's better to take off the mirror and belt molding (the trim at the bottom of the window) for a better paint job in the end. The mirror can get in the way, and if you're unlucky, the clear coat could stick in that gap
See 2:06 of this video. That's not Henry Ford. That's Walt Disney
There are overlapping videos that explain stocks before 8:12
American brand automobiles backed by US government siphoning taxpayers deep pockets never try hard to build quality automobiles.
My American brand automobiles constantly needed repairs and still breaking down like transmission, AC, fuel system, electrical system, body hardware, fit and finish.
Buying Toyota and Honda fixed all the issues. My current 2005 Toyota Sienna runs great at 323K miles with only few minor repairs. My wife’s 2003 Honda Pilot is running good at 223K miles. None of the American brands I could keep for more than 10 years unless I was willing to pay for major repair like replacing piston rings, replacing transmission, or major AC system repair.
Blame the obtuse AMERICAN consumers who continued to buy the "slip-shod" US built vehicles!
The Main problem IS the Federal Government and the EPA!! Good in some ways, Bad in everything else!
Doesn't explain their exports, which shouldn't have the same restrictions if those come from the US Government...
have a soft spot for certain classic American cars particularly of the full size variety I.E. the Chevrolet Impala/Caprice Ford Crown Victoria/Lincoln Town Car Buick Century and Cadillac Deville among others dad is a retiring police officer in Boston MA and used to bring the cruiser home every so often when I was growing up 90s early 2000s and it was usually always a crown Vic both of us were sad when Ford discontinued the panther platform cars production without a replacement in 2011 the crown Vic/town car could've gone on a few more years
Surprisingly you mentioned the Crown Vic. I suggest an LTD as an alternative. Or if you want to go a little newer, then go for a Taurus or Mercury Lynx.
23:20 and earlier, The Dollar symbol($) should appear *AHEAD OF,* and not behind the dollar value, thus $1,000, not 1,000$.
The title of this video seems to be somewhat misleading. The video is an elaboration of the American car industry footnotes. It never mentions about the rise of Japanese imports V.S. the decline of American car ownership.
What hacks me The Most about the Vega, is they DID NOT learn anything on the Covair. They did not ship a few dollar bills with the car (take a small loss) and later take a lower profit margin & cost reduce, & slowely raise the price AFTER they had a STABLE, RELIABLE PRODUCT.
lack of R&D, (cost cutting). Needed ignition disabling temperature guage. Americans used to indestructable iron blocks.
@Don West //
Jay Leno did a show on the Oldsmobile Turbo (Jet Fire?). He mentioned all the griping about adding Turbo lubricant AND always checking oil after every gas fill-up with a Mazda Wankel. Americans are not really mindful people.
O.K. DON'T waste your time with this! Sorry guys but there are TONS of mistakes and messed up facts in this video. Too many to list. Also most of the stills & video clips to NOT match the era he is speaking of! This is actually a part where the clip he stole starts talking over his own narration, lol. It's at 7:36. I'm not sure what the purpose was for posting this.
At last! Someone who noticed this. I thought this was one of the strangest documentaries I've ever seen! Entertaining, but a lot of dubious 'facts', time narrative was out of synch, the narrator sounded like he was talking to young children, jokes were weird, it lacked cohesive focus or an overall thesis, etc.
No mention of Japanese at all, hardly any mention of the 1974 gas crisis, said the Beetle was introduced in the early 1960's when it was invented in the 1930's. Even a shot of a newspaper ad said the Corvair was competing with the Rabbit, which was the Beetle's so-called replacement. A lot of coverage of Darth Nader
The big four thought people would buy any POS that they made...
What's the biggest problem American cars have to deal with?
United Auto Workers union.
Maybe fix your double audio error before publishing your video (7:50)
100% of the time these documentaries have less than stellar narrators. This is no exception. His total lack of enthusiasm is off-putting. It's a job to you, buddy, but it's supposed to be a pleasant experience for us.
But at least they'll throw in a commercial for mint Mobile
The Porsche 911 had a similar butt flip forward problem until brakes, suspension, stability control & AWD fixes were implemented.
///
Like the 911, you can NOT brake harder than the curve PRIOR to the APEX, you CAN ACCELERATE at the APEX & AFTER to steer out. It takes technique & a bit of nerve, shortages in a novice.
Porsche underwent years of refinement to reduce the "tail happy" cornering behavior of these cars. The turbo cars were called "widow makers"
Plus tires have come a long way as well.
@@joelcruz9415 //
Speaking of the 911, the rear fenders or bolt-on fender flares allowed for wider tires. AS YOU MENTIONED JOEL, Tire Compounds, Tread Patterns, & adjusted wheel diameter / tire aspect ratio (Height tp Width) have accommodated handling variations & improvements.
The Government ?
That is INCORRECT. Carl Benz was the first person to utilize gasoline, in his internal combustion engines. It was/is a byproduct in the distillation process of kerosene making for lanterns, originally. The same process used today in oil refineries. Oil companies like John Rockefellers Standard Oil (then turned AMOCO, now BP) used to discard the gasoline in oil fields and rivers, because it was too volatile for use & storage, and had no practical use before the internal combustion engine. 😉
Dosco, a steel mill in Atlantic canada, sent samples of sheet metal, and steel for car frames, chev, ford, and other American car companies, told the plant managers, that the steel would not rust fast enough, and adjusted,, that's why American cars in the 70s ended up in the scrap yards before 80.000 miles!
CORRECTION: Ford did not "invent" the production line, it was already being used in factories prior to Ford; Henry perfected the production line, improoved it etc..
this is filled with all kinds of BS it says Americans weren't familiar with the handling of rear wheel drive cars, when during that time half the cars in the average American parking lot were Volkswagen rear wheel drive. by far the most dangerous cars of that time were Volkswagen beetles, Germans have been making those cars since before WWII it was a bad business decision for GM to expect to compete with them from scratch. GM should have stayed building the cars that it knew how to build . A front-engine corvair with a V6 rear-wheel-drive is the most awesome handling vehicle Chevrolet never made a 2024 retro model of this corvair would probably sell millions.
and the first Arab oil embargo was because of the shah of Iran getting overthrown, and the Ayatollah Khomeini took power and decided to cut oil production. Nothing's happened to American car companies except us automakers compete with each other, all the while getting ripped off for all their ideas and innovations, by foreign carmakers such as the five Japanese automakers who work together to avoid competing with each other to the point they run each other out of business, all five will intentionally collaborate to ensure that none of them build any auto parts that can possibly interchange. Toyota after becoming the number one automaker has struggled because they've never had to be innovators with new ideas or car designers. Despite all the cutthroat unfair competition,American automakers are going to be just fine
The Corvair was rear engine rwd.
George Selden filed the first patent on May 8, 1879. There is a brass prototype at the Smithsonian.
Nothing went wrong, time and taste changes. American cars were great, and they are great today. European cars are different but great too in their own rights... Cars are great.
The dealers were sent new cars that had smog controls and were not reliable even though they cast more. Many mechanics working at the dealer had not learned how to fix the new smog controlled cars.
My great Grandpa was just a few months old when the model T was built.
The best cars were from the 1970s. I drove cars, motorcycles, vans, and pickups from the 1970s until 2015. Nothing but the 70s.
I saved 4 trucks,motorhome, and motorcycle all from the 70s when I saw where modern cars were headed. Glad I did.
What happened to real narrators?
The BEST thing I like about the whole car is the STAINLESS STEEL BODY !
What a wondrful work are you doing! Congratulations
The government happened to our cars. We used to have the cars to back up our attitude and pride. Now we got a new kind of pride and the perfect cars to represent it.
Nothing went wrong until the late 70"s !
so this is what A.I. generated documentaries looks like, watch out for; whatever happened to A.I. generated documentaries with it's inconsistent and highly wrongful information....this is just sad.... 😕
My Dad bought a Chevy Vega from a friend that owned a salvage yard! The motor didn't run of course so he pulled the block out of the car and had steel sleeve's put in plus other work to it by a machine shop! let's just say he drove that thing without nothing more than routine maintenance until he retired from Kraft years Later !
My folks bought a Vega when they first came out. It blew a head gasket within a year. Great body style but another chevy egg. The side post battery was another egg but I like old chevys.
The government and UAW. That's what happened.
Ford made his first car run off of hemp oil!
Let that sink in at the fuel pump!
Popular mechanics
American cars aren't even American anymore😂😂.
All cars of this era had gas tanks behind the rear axle I had a 1973 Pinto and I enjoyed it.
Incomplete and inaccurate documentary.
The Ford model A never came with a v8.
If you have ever driven a Chevy Vega or Ford Pinto then you know what happened to Detroit Automakers.
BUT, those cars were well received by the American public, selling in record numbers along with the Chevette (record sales) and the infamous GM "X"bodies (record sales)!
The Government is what happened !
The usa government and corporations interferred with car production, and manufacturing thats what happened all owned by same 1% cabal owns all of us. Japan was actually told not to make such good toyota cars in 1990s because they lasted so long and less usa cars selling.
And there were hundreds of auto manufacturers, the big 3 were just the survivors
The pinto 4 cyl block lead to 2.0 litre Formula Atlantic motor and later 2.3 turbo SVO
😂didn’t knows the term Hold My Beer going that far back.
Nothing "happened" to American cars - consumers simply discovered that other cars were better. Much, much better.
I drive a Lincoln MKZ. It's pretty good... because it's a Mazda.
SOMETHING happened to American cars, which this documentary made no effort to explain. If you look now, eight or nine cars on the road are foreign designs, even more if you don't count pick-ups or SUV's...
The MKZ is really an upscale Ford Fusion. Ford used Mazda designed power train in the 2007 Fusion!
Feels like an AI video to me..
''Locomobile''???? Traction engine. Not Locomobile, which was an early maker.
I suspect this video was AI generated. There is an oddness to how this video is presented. Who would state the size of Ford's factory in meters?
I THOUGHT it seemed odd, the narration was so enunciated and measured, like he's talking to Grade 3 students, lots of other odd characteristics about this doc.
Your background music drowns out you talking
You talk too much, with many errors ....
And Chrysler? AMC or any of the other smaller American automakers? Are you biased? Lots of confusion with the story lines. Should rename the video as 'the history of GM and Ford' instead
This unusual documentary was quite entertaining, and at the same time, quite odd in terms of the narration and editing. Not bad odd, just....strange. Is it just me, or does anyone agree? Most of the comments are about the subject, not the video.
I agree it is more to skim over, around, an threw the subject at matter. now the video on the other hand is odd but yet entertaining at the fact of how it's out together in a flow of following points in history but not to dissect every point threw history of American cars an ETC
Lol look at that intersection at 26:08 total madness. I imagine car accidents would have been rampant.