All you guys should read this book!!!

[Duke W.]

"Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster"
Paul Ingrassia
Random House, 2010

Ingrassia is a long time automotive industry writer for the business press, and these guys often mess up a lot of the details, but Ingrassia knows his stuff about as good as any true car guy.

The first few chapters took me back at least 50 years to the time when cars were such a culteral influence on us. What do kids get off on today: Some hand held gadget that lets them watch movies and send text messages to their friends? Boy, am I glad I grew up in the 50s and 60s!

The music (like "409"), the movies (like "Bullitt") - it's all there along with plenty of mentions of the icon we all love - the Corvette.

I think Ingrassio gets the peak of the industry and the beginning of its long, bumpy decline correct as 1970, but I'll let you read about the fateful event that turned the tide.

IMO Ingrassio allocates the blame in proper proportion - something the drive-by media didn't do a year ago when GM and Chrysler went into their final tailspins. (Recall that we had a bunch of threads on the subject.)

I checked out the book from the LA County library system.

Duke

[Michael M.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

Talk about a time gone by, including the early 70's.
Friday and Saturday night at the Tropical Treat drive-in, bleach burn outs, drag racing and my first 68 tri-power for $1800 when all these time machines were cheap used cars, who new.
Wouldn't trade it for anything,

[Stuart F.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

Duke;

Thanks for the tip. We'll check it out (literally).

Stu Fox

[Tom P.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

Sorry, I'm not interested. I DO NOT have to read a book to know about the mentioned decline. Been there, watched it, experienced it, still experiencing it and I can see where it came from, where it is and where it is going. The closest word in Webster's book to express this phenomenon is "sad"!
Can it be stopped? It's like, once you jump off the cliff, can you stop?
Ya! When you hit bottom and die!!!

[Duke W.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

I finished it last night - LATE - couldn't put it down.

There are a few minor errors like referring to the original 240Z as a "roadster", but the behind the scenes discussions, deals, and insights into the personalities of the players is something the drive-by media never covered as the events unfolded.

I went through a similar downturn at IBM circa late eighties. I always said that Big Blue was heading down the same path as GM, which was the first company I worked for out of college. Fortunately for me, I took a buyout offer and left with my dignity intact in 1991, and fortunately for the IBM shareholders the BoD had the guts to fire IBM lifer John Akers and bring in outsider Lou Gerstner as CEO. He was able to turn it around, albeit at a cost of about 200,000 jobs - half of IBM's peak worldwide workforce in that era.

The GM Board was nowhere near as diligent.

Duke

[Stuart F.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

The 240Z, aka "Fairlady", did begin life as a roadster back in the mid to late 60's in Asia - to the best of my recollection. One of my co-workers back in Bangkok during my contracting days bought one. That was, of course, when they still used Datsun as their corporate name. Guess they figured that sounded too Japanese for the American market so soon after they began importing here they changed it to Nissan.

Stu Fox

[Duke W.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

The original 240Z as imported to the US in 1970 was only available as a coupe, and I don't think a "roadster" (actually a convertible) was available until over a decade later when the model name was 300ZX.

Prior to the 240Z, Datsun imported 1600 and 2000 cc small four-cylinder convertibles - on the order of a MGB. They may have called them "roadster", but IIRC they had roll-up windows and a decent top.

I've always considered a "roadster" to be an open car with no weather protection for the cockpit or maybe minimal protection like the top and side curtains of early English sports cars or early Corvettes. Sports cars with rollup windows and relatively well engineered folding tops that don't leak (at least too much) like '56-up Corvettes are more appropriately called convertibles.

When Corvette was first offered in both open and closed body styles in 1963, the official model names were Corvette Coupe and Corvette Convertible. I also recall that very early on that the Coupe was called Aerocoupe, but the name didn't stick.

Duke

[Donald B.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

I thought Nissan admitted that the biggest mistake was never offering the "Z" in a convertible until it was reintroduced in the early 2000's?

I see a nice restored 260Z here at work - still a nice looking car.

I also believe it WAS called the Datsun 240Z - the name Nissan came in the 70's.

[Stuart F.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

Does anyone want to question the origin of the first Honda sports car? I have a cross section drawing of their little 500cc roadster from the mid 60's. I'll have to dig it out to confirm whether it actually was a roadster or a convertible. Then there was the little Toyota sports car from the same era with a 2 cylinder opposed engine. Had very advanced styling for it's day too.

Stu Fox

[Duke W.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

I don't recall any mention of such a "mistake", but considering that when introduced in 1970 the 240Z was a sell-out and tough to buy without a bunch of dealer add-ons for several years...

When introduced in 1970 it was definitely the Datsun 240Z, and IIRC the name change to Nissan was sometime in the eighties.

I see a nice 260Z (along with its early Mustang convertible garage mate) on my walking route to the local grocery store and library. The early Z-cars are still a pleasant design, relatively light with good performance, but some of the early models had real finnicky carburetors, and the '73 may have been the worst, but many cars of that era had carburetor issues and were tough to keep "in tune".

I also remember them sometimes referred to as a "poor man's Corvette", but a lot of people were paying nearly as much as a Corvette to pry one away from a dealer. IIRC the list price was in the mid-3000 dollar range, but most people were paying about 5 grand not including tax, license, and title.

Duke

[Terry M.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

I don't recall any mention of such a "mistake", but considering that when introduced in 1970 the 240Z was a sell-out and tough to buy without a bunch of dealer add-ons for several years...

When introduced in 1970 it was definitely the Datsun 240Z, and IIRC the name change to Nissan was sometime in the eighties.

I see a nice 260Z (along with its early Mustang convertible garage mate) on my walking route to the local grocery store and library. The early Z-cars are still a pleasant design, relatively light with good performance, but some of the early models had real finnicky carburetors, and the '73 may have been the worst, but many cars of that era had carburetor issues and were tough to keep "in tune".

I also remember them sometimes referred to as a "poor man's Corvette", but a lot of people were paying nearly as much as a Corvette to pry one away from a dealer. IIRC the list price was in the mid-3000 dollar range, but most people were paying about 5 grand not including tax, license, and title.

Duke

A good friend and colleague has had a 240Z "under restoration" for several decades. I haven't been in touch with him since his retirement last year. I'll have to ask him how it is coming along. Bright orange color with a matte black hood stripe. When it was running, it was quite a nice little performer.

[John H.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

Nissan opened a factory-operated 240Z restoration center in California 10-15 years ago; they bought the best-condition 240Z's they could find, and did complete restorations on them (down to bare metal and back up again with whatever new parts were required), and sold them for about ten times the original sticker price. I think they did about twenty of them before they ran out of buyers and closed the doors.

[George C.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

Nissan opened a factory-operated 240Z restoration center in California 10-15 years ago; they bought the best-condition 240Z's they could find, and did complete restorations on them (down to bare metal and back up again with whatever new parts were required), and sold them for about ten times the original sticker price. I think they did about twenty of them before they ran out of buyers and closed the doors.

Imagine that ......in the foreign car State (Kalifornia) capital.

[Joe R.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

The 280Z was also a Datsun. My folks got a used Datsun 810 when I was in high school, around 1982 or so. I think the car was a '78 model. The 810 was a wolf in sheep's clothing, it was a sedan with the 280Z engine. I got a ticket for getting scratch in second gear with three buddies in the car. We had just scored a case of Moosehead, the cops made us pour it out. That was a real bummer, cuz it was not often we could afford decent beer at the time!

Joe

[George J.]

Re: All you guys should read this book!!!

My friends mother had a 260Z that one of us had to ride around in the back hatch area when we went with her on errands. It was cramped, even for a 10yr old. Cool car, though.

George