'50 Commander Covert in WSJ article

[Dan White]

There was a good article on the demise of the auto industry in the WSJ over the weekend. It featured a picture of a '50 Commader Covertible!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203771904574173401767415892.html

Dan White
64 R1 GT
64 R2 GT

[BobPalma]

I had seen that as a print copy and thought it was a little over the top. Not that he doesn't make some valid points (he does), but P. J. sometimes gets a little carried away with "facts." To wit:


"American cars have been manufactured mostly by romantic fools. David Buick, Ransom E. Olds, Louis Chevrolet, Robert and Louis Hupp of the Hupmobile, the Dodge brothers, the Studebaker brothers, the Packard brothers, the Duesenberg brothers, Charles W. Nash, E. L. Cord, John North Willys, Preston Tucker and William H. Murphy, whose Cadillac cars were designed by the young Henry Ford, all went broke making cars. The man who founded General Motors in 1908, William Crapo (really) Durant, went broke twice. Henry Ford, of course, did not go broke, nor was he a romantic, but judging by his opinions he certainly was a fool."

I don't really think the brothers Dodge, Studebaker, or Packard ever "went broke," save perhaps a misstep when they were youngsters hustling an occasional beaver pelt or something...but certainly not as adult men in the automobile business, as is implied.

And to make the blanket statement that Henry Ford was a fool just because P.J. probably doesn't appreciate Henry's anti-semitism? That's a pretty broad brush with which to paint a man who did a lot of good, in addition to putting the average man on wheels once and for all. Who does P.J. think financed most of African-American George Washington Carver's useful peanut experiments, if Ford was such a racist?

Well, at least he got the year and model of the Studebaker correct! BP

[jclary]

It is quiet a challenge to produce a short newspaper article that summarizes over a 100 years of multiple corporate enterprises. Lives have been lived, books have been written and years of classes have been taught on the subject. I thought the article was entertaining but overreaching in scope.
I recall the saying attributed to Teddy Roosevelt..."There's something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man" could be extended to our time to say..."There's something about raw horsepower that excites a man's soul." The abandonment of horsepower for dinky little government mandated cars will make the auto just another appliance. It is hard to imagine getting excited about that!


John Clary
Greer, SC

I have only two limitations ...BRAINS & ENERGY
SDC member since 1975