Posted on 12/07/2017 11:38:47 AM PST by Strac6
A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (General Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.
On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile .
The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.
Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people paddling and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people paddling.
Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.
They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were paddling.
Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the paddling team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.
They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people paddling the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the paddlers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices, and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channelled into morale boosting programs and teamwork posters.
The next year the Japanese won by two miles..
Humiliated, the American management laid off one paddler, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and cancelled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses.
The next year, try as he might, the lone designated paddler was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles), so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.
Sadly, the End.
Here's something else to think about: GM has spent the last thirty years moving as many factories as it could out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages.
TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US.
The last quarter's results:
TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while GM rack s up 9 billion in losses.
GM folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses.
14 Supra’s?
Wow
My 87 turbo was one of the smoothest cars i ever owned (the 93 above was a typo, that was the year of my J30).
Glad i learned about the head bolt torque issue before instead of after... :)
Really miss that car, dark maroon wrapped in this deep metallic flake trim.
Car looked and drove amazing, i was the envy of all my friends.
“My 87 turbo”
I had 3 87s. One was NA. That was a neat car - the previous owner was the original. He ordered it with solid roof, no turbo and the LSD. That was my daily driver to and from CT and NH for a long time. The head gasket blew, I shaved it down. It blew 8 months later (I was racing at Englishtown doing the Drift Out Wednesday) and I shaved it again. It started to ping and then a year later it blew again. By this point I had shaved .95 off the head and it was running 14.x:1 compression - STATIC. Remember, not a turbo.
It required Cam2 which I was luckily able to get down the road. It was $4.80 a gallon which my friends said was stupid. I gave it to my shopmate who worked at an airport and could steadily feed it avgas.
Heavy, heavy car that was. I had my good 87 turbo (Black on black.. I loved the look of that thing) at the same time I had an RX7TII. The RX7, as a turbo car, was poetry in motion. The Supra demanded good downshifts and fine spooling to really make it go plaid.
But then my friend was killin me with his C4 vette and I was hooked on those things. And the 89 Turbo Grand Prix walked all over my turbo Supras without even trying. It was then that I realised that the Supra just wasn’t getting me where I wanted to be.
A joke: What do 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 and 800 horsepower Supras have in common ?
12 second time slips.
My love of the Camry died in 88. My ex’s 87 with a 5 speed was another “Finest cars ever made”. That thing was the trooper of the lineup.
That whole class of cars was highly competitive. In 87 Japan was bouncing back and forth with the 626 (A car so good the CT state police used them - unprecedented). The Accord (My fave) the Camry and the 87 Maxima were the best rated cars in history (At the time).
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