And what was wrong with these "Vega, the Monza, the X-bodies, the
60 degree V6's"?
God Bless America, ßill O|||||||O
http://www.billhughes.com/

wrote:
>
> There were a lot of them. There still are.
>
> GM made the Vega, the Monza, the X-bodies, the 60 degree V6's, in fact
> they did not build a single decent small car for a roughly twenty year
> period.It wasn't until the Saturn GM had a small car it could look to
> with any self-respect at all. Chrysler built and still builds an
> entire generation of minivans with marginal transmissions and the
> horrible Neon.
>
> For what it's worth, for the weight and money, if new car buyers
> bought strictly according to reliability and cost per mile, Detroit's
> passenger car line would be in even worse shape than it is. And their
> big truck lines are selling mostly on the basis of macho and status
> rather than as work trucks-most people do not need that big a truck.
> Somewhere between a Ford Ranger and a Dodge Dakota is the right size.
> If they would offer a Dakota size pickup with the 4 cylinder Cummins
> and a full tilt fiberglass hood like a Freightliner, it would probably
> be the best selling _work_ truck for fleet use in the country-that's
> who's buying Rangers. If you need a "full size pickup" for actual
> work, you probably need a _medium duty truck_ and not a pickup, like
> the small Internationals, the Isuzu Chevy forward cabs, or similar.
>
> And another thing, the toughest industrial engines are Toyotas. Based
> on my company's record with forklifts, I would buy no other brand of
> lift truck. Hyster and Clark simply cannot compete on downtime and
> overall operating expense.