Cars, Gas Crisis, EPA & the 1970s: What's it mean?

self ^ | August 17, 2005 | self

[nicollo]

Asking freepers for advice: 1970s & cars... what's it mean?

I'm researching for an article that will be the final of a series of four on "Motoring in Tough Times," on automobiles and economic trouble. We started with WWI and the 1920 depression, went from there to the 1930s, on to WWII & its aftermath, and now heading into the 1970s. The articles are being published by the best automotive and automotive history magazine out there, a hard-bound quarterly, which you will know if you know it.

I go to Freepers for advice because the 1970s marks such a complicated, wild moment in history that we have yet to understand, and that is yet is playing out upon us. In that it's so recent, as history goes, it's difficult to separate it from the present tense. I'll do my best, anyway.

Some topics are:

Vietnam, Interstates, Nixon, Muscle Cars, NASCAR, Gas Crisis, OPEC, Small cars, Pimp mobiles, UAW, EPA, NHTSA, Ralph Nader, Jimmy Carter, Bugs, Honda, Ferrari, Really Bad Colors, Stagflation, Front Wheel Drive, & etc.

[LS]

Let me comment only on government's role in creating the "Big Three": government had harassed and persecuted not only Preston Tucker but also (on unrelated matters) Henry Kaiser. Now, even though the attacks on Kaiser were not related to his Kaiser-Frazer, but his airplane work, still one has to wonder if the government wasn't undermining his company behind the scenes. On the other hand, there is no question K-F was vastly underfunded (as was Tucker). However, the Fair Labor Standards Act had become ensconced by then, making it almost impossible for a smaller manufacturer to compete with a company that had more flexibility in its overhead.

[LS]

On the small car, it wasn't "smallness" per se: government's assault on the "muscle cars" drove them out of production---the combo of EPA that took away their power and the CAFE requirements, along with the EPA requirements, that penalized them vs. a smaller car.

However, Detroit played a part in its own demise: remember that the Thunderbird was a small two-seater . . . until Ford's engineers made it into a big luxury car. Compare a '68 Mustang with a 73-75 Mustang---there is no comparison. One is a small car, one is a boat. Ditto the GTO. Only the Camaro remained about the same size---the Chevelle got really big. I think Detroit's engineers got obsessed with bigness just as many Americans favored smaller cars, but that did not mean they opposed POWER, just size.

[nicollo]

"Government Gets Involved"

That's a title that should have been used from the beginning of the Motor Age... I guess it's applicable to the 1970s more than before, although it's a matter of degree, not kind.

I'm a little dubious on your description of big cars as "dinosaurs" -- from what I can tell into the 1980s -- and today -- the consumer preference was for the larger car. Honda and Toyota, for example, progressively moved towards larger cars. I think you are more right on matters of quality than size. Government policy, certainly, turned anti-large car, with CAFE.

Many thanks for your good thoughts, which I knew you'd have!

[nicollo]

Here for a Pinto Pony MPG!

I was 16 in '79, and just got my license. I made a bundle that summer by driving the neighbors' cars to the gas stations and sitting in the lines for them.

[operation clinton cleanup]

I made a bundle that summer by driving the neighbors' cars to the gas stations and sitting in the lines for them.

Wow! A dream job compared to mowing lawns. My first car was a 78 or 79 2-door Honda Civic. Not only was it rough being 6'3", but people used to carry it and place it in front of the High School main entrance doors.... good times!

[nicollo]

Many were trying to push small cars in the early '60's. The Chevy II, Tempest, Falcon and and Valiant and Duster were tries at econocars by the US manufacturers.

Actually, the "small car" thing goes waaay back to the beginnings of the automobile. There has ever been this twisted, populist notion that "the people" want a small car. Here's an early example, from 1908:

Hattfield Buggyabout

This was the "small car" of its day -- a populist reply to the wasteful, luxurious autos that dominated the day. What folks don't know about the Model T is that its success came not as a small car but as a cheaper big car. The Model T succeeded because it was all car -- 4 cylinders, three speeds, etc. -- for an amazing price ($950 in 1908, and downward to >$250 in the early 19320s).

In the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s/70s, as you say, there were "small car" alternatives. They've never caught on, as we know today. The "small car" has ever been a solution to a problem the American consumer never shared with reformers and idealists. I have no doubt that the 1970s were NOT about the small car. Something else was going on.

[nicollo]

I'm not sure that the Government was much a direct problem for Kaiser, as he used Government subsidies for his project. (The Government was never directly against him -- its policies, as you say, screwed him.) Tucker, the comman man's hero, ironically, was brought down by the common man's other hero, FDR: it was FDR's SEC that went after him, and not without reason. Tucker never had a legitimate project.

Kaiser, though, had the real thing. From what I can understand, what did in Kaiser was Truman's anti-inflation measures, which screwed innovation by raising taxes, wages, and limiting capital investment. That is, as you say, the Fair Labor Standards Act and its offspring, especially Truman's stupid post-WWII economic interventions, brought Kaiser down. He almost pulled it off. But for the Korean War, he may well have gotten away with it. What a glorious thing that would have been!

Thanks for your thoughts. Anything on the 1970s?

[nicollo]

Oops, your post no. 22 is all about the 70's -- thanks!

I think you and I are of the same mind on the small car. I am struck by late 70s/ early 80's GM ads which depict large cars in photos and sell small, efficient cars in the descriptions. Marketers may sell crap, but they aren't dumb.

[nicollo]

Sitting in the gas lines was NOT a dream job. I distinctly remember it being a huge bore. And I made far more money cutting grass -- the gas crisis never cut into my lawn mowing adventures...

My first car was a '77 Toyota Corolla. My friends called it the "Golden Bullet," with all the sarcasm implied. It was, truly, a P.O.S. The clutch never worked, and it was small, heavy, and got shitty mileage. I guess had I bought a Buick instead it would have been just as bad, or worse. I'm thinking that the perceptions of the 1970s were at least as strong as the realities.

[operation clinton cleanup]

My first self bought car ($1,200 in 1983) was a 1976 Monte Carlo. Had more space between the radiator and the front grill than the Civic (family 3rd car) had trunk space.

One angle you could include is all the 70 mpg carb devices that the big three were keeping of the market conspiracies. (They were conspiracies, right?)

[LisaFab]

LOL! My brothers used to pay me to sit in the gas lines for them. My cousin and I would buy a six-pack and flirt with all the guys in line...heaven!

[operation clinton cleanup]

Perhaps the car was not the focus of ad campaigns in the 70's.

[LisaFab]

The unions were always in it. But, IMHO they went out of control in the 60s and 70s, pricing Detroit out of business when compared to what Japanese workers were paid and how they worked.

See the movie, "Gung Ho."

[operation clinton cleanup]

Check this out for 70's era car advertising:
http://www.rareads.com/rareads/webauto.html

[nicollo]

Simply put, once again, that wonderful bastion of liberal theory 'free trade' began in earnest during the 1970's after the massive reductions in tariffs due to the Kennedy Round of Trade Deals. Japan and Germany roared, Americans soured hurting the Auto Industry and my state which lost 600,000 jobs in that decade alone.

I'm not so sure that it was free trade that was the problem so much as free trade, as expressed in imports, addressed an existing problem. That is, Detroit didn't suffer from imports so much as imports took advantage of Detroit. I believe that had viable domestic independent auto mfgs survived the New Deal and the 1950s, imports never would have had their day as they did. That is, it's not international free trade that was the problem so much as unfair trade back home.

I dunno. I'm just exploring it all here and now. I appreciate your thoughts.

[nicollo]

carburetor conspiracies.

YES!!! Thanks for bringing that up!

[nicollo]

My cousin and I would buy a six-pack and flirt with all the guys in line...heaven!

Any photos? I want this in my article!

[nicollo]

Thanks for that link to the ads site... Great stuff!

Distracting the buyer with pretty girls was nothing new to the 1970s. It's a day-one thing. This 1923 ad, however, is the most famous for starting the so-called "lifestyle" ads, the back-bone of modern Madison Ave:



The Jordan Playboy