I threw a lot of shade yesterday on Ford, GM, and Chrysler. So, I’m going say a couple nice things. Each one of these companies made a mark in different ways. Up to the 1960’s they had been leading the world in technology, innovation, and offerings. I mean we are talking about Ford who brought the V8 to the masses, with hot Lincoln V8s running in the first hot rods. GM who brought us the automatic main stream, and Chrysler who brought us Hemi power for the end of the hot rodding years plus their impenetrable 727 Torque Flite Auto. It wasn’t until they started having a large enough corporate structure that real problems started to arise and add in a dash of recession mixed with foreign competition that they really didn’t have the business sense to fight their way out of a paper bag. General motors corporate structure was so ridiculously large by the 1960’s that they were already showing signs of fatigue even during a booming economy. Choices like giving into John Delorean to pump out GTO’s were a sign they had zero connection too their consumer. If it hadn’t been for that little bit of young blood they might not have joined the muscle car fray till the 1970’s talk about a disaster they could have added to their list.

Chrysler is a distant third to the three I truly think that’s why they still had quite a bit of development chops and innovation through the 60’s. They had to fight for market share and some weird stuff came out, but they kept plugging along. Did I mention the Barracuda came out before the Mustang? It wasn’t like the Camaro trying to catch up with Fords new grab bag. Ford on the other hand, started off strong like General Motors had except they had younger talent at the time and plenty of resources. So much in fact, that when they failed to acquire Ferrari, they paid a Texan chicken farmer and a British racing group to build a car that could win Le-mans against Ferrari. You know what – it took a hell of a lot to do that. I think that’s more of a testament to Ferrari than Ford.

The fact one of the largest car companies in the world dropping unlimited funds to show up a small but famous Italian car company could still have to fight so damn hard. I’m getting off topic but let’s say for a while, these companies had a will to be around and kept enough people around that were driven to make cars, and push boundaries. Focus is what’s missing for so many reasons and its what you need to do to be relevant. They used to have it, and I hope they find it again. Those people working for them would probably like to keep their jobs and be proud of what they make.