In article >, Backyard Mechanic wrote:

> 1. There's nothing inherently wrong with the platforms, generally, it's the
> presentation... and sometimes the support logistics

That's much of what I stated.

> 2. Dont tell me the Crossfire is a success... my kid has one and likes it,
> but, like the Ram-look Chryslers, I think the design fails fast.

I didn't even mention it for specific reasons. However it is typical
chrysler styling on the MB platform. They accomplished what the author
stated earlier in the article couldn't be done.

> - do you prefer the Charger.. or the concept Challenger? nuff said?

The challenger looks like challenger. The charger looks like a truck
front end grafted to a 4 door sedan. (which is typical of chrysler
styling these days)

> 3. Are we going to blame the -blah- 500 on some inbreeding? Or is it a
> lack of vision in the US?

The 500, is based on a volvo platform as I understand it. is it blah
because it's just another blah vehicle in realm where ford apparently
thinks it should be making blah vehicles? Is it blah because it's a volvo
based taurus replacement? (a sort of melding of blah)

> Remember the japanese never got it right -with the auto-enthusiast- until
> they started up the US design studios.

240Z,280Z,RX7. They got it right with the auto-enthusiast pretty early
on. I don't know when they opened the US design studios, but that has
them doing it in the early 1970s late 1960s if your statement is true.
But as I recall they didn't do it until the 1980s.

Nissan's website appears to agree with my memory...
http://www.nissan-global.com/GCC/Jap...y/index-e.html
RX7 I'll have to check printed material at home. I have an automobile
quarterly from the late 70s with an article on the RX7's design.

> And it goes both ways... what's wrong with Jag lower lines? Simple...
> looks too much like a Ford.

It's always been a stupid idea to use a higher production platform to
make a lower end luxury car. The cimeron being the most glaring example.
And that was an all US vehicle. Perhaps that was also the catera problem.
Lincoln versailes... another one based on the granada which was built on
a stretched maverick platform which was an evolution of the
mustang/falcon platform.

> Contour looked too much like the Taurus

Such similiarities are typical of US makes going back to the 1930s at least.

Ford and GM can design good cars here. The problem is they'll
never/rarely see the light of day that way. The people doing them always
have to run the car though a crushing political system and internal
requirements that end up ruining it to at least some degree, sometimes
fatally.

I've experienced this myself with other products and what I know of Ford
and GM it isn't any different there.