Chrysler to cut 25% of white collar work force

The 70's. The era of spontaneous combusting clothing and UGLY cars.
 
wsuffa said:
...The Rambler, however, wasn't quite so bad. Decendant of the Nash.
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My best buddy's dad a bought a new Rambler in the late 1960s. He was really p-o'd when he discovered he had to let his little daughter sit in front to get fresh air to fight off her motion sickness, - because the back windows didn't roll down. :crazy:
 
Chrysler doesn't do much for me, but if they do merge, please don't ef up the Jeep Wrangler. I do like the new Challenger though with the hemi in it, but it ain't worth over $40K.
 
Keith Lane said:
My brother in law had what I consider the all time crappiest car ever imported to our fair country.

Who can forget the
Renault Fuego​
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And its firebreathing brother, the Turbo Fuego!!!!!
 
It even unlocked it's own doors!!! :hairraise: According to this snappy advert at the time.....
 

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Keith Lane said:
It even unlocked it's own doors!!! :hairraise: According to this snappy advert at the time.....
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With AM/FM Cassette for only $16,995. Can't imagine why it didn't sell more.

That would be worth about $11,000 new TODAY.
 
Funny, I got an email from a conservative friend of mine today that said, basically, "What layoffs? None around here! I'm doing great! Had all my money in CD's! Bush is the best Prez ever!"

My brother just survived the first round of white collar bloodletting at Sony Ericsson, we'll see how he fairs during round two :skeptical:
 
And then there was..........Le Car. :rolleyes2:
 

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since we've somehow wandered down an AMC memory lane, here's mine ...

1966_AMC_Ambassador_DPL.jpg


and no, I DON'T have a picture of me in the blue polyester leisure suit standing next to the car ... (online, that is)
 
gkainz said:
since we've somehow wandered down an AMC memory lane, here's mine ...

1966_AMC_Ambassador_DPL.jpg


and no, I DON'T have a picture of me in the blue polyester leisure suit standing next to the car ... (online, that is)
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:D Needs more chrome.

It no wonder the foreign car makers cleaned our clock.

I refuse to acknowledge that I ever thought such a thing as that was normal.

I remember visiting a Chevy dealer when they first "downsized" the Caprice in the 80s and remarking how small they were. Today one of those would seem ginormous.

If we had parked a current Taurus next to it we would have thought it was a clown car. :goofy:
 
Anthony said:
Its either Kiana or genuine, imitation nylon spandex.
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Jay Honeck said:
Hee hee!

I've got a picture somewhere taken in '75-ish. I'm "truckin'" (of course!) up my parent's driveway, wearing (I'm not kidding) yellow & black plaid bell bottoms, a shiny polyester, skin-tight shirt, and two-tone platform shoes.

God almighty, what WERE we thinking?
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flyersfan31 said:
Scott - sweet duds, sweet rig. Ahhhh, the 70's, when expensive gas cost $0.75 and polyester was hip.
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Anthony said:
The 70's. The era of spontaneous combusting clothing and UGLY cars.
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smigaldi said:
I'll have you know that the shirt was genuine imported Italian nylon!!
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Where no man has gone before. :rofl:

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Cool beans, especially that shot of "leisure Scott"... LOL!!

Wish I had a pic of my mom's 1974 Gremlin: metallic midnight blue with gold pinstripe; bought brand-new for about $2500. It actually looked pretty cool for a Gremlin, and could hold a lot of stuff. she was very stoked to finally have her own new car, although I always preferred the nice second-hand Peugot 504 she owned for a while.

The Gremlin was her daily commuter when we lived up a mountain, and she tore up the clutch pretty quick, then everything inside started to come loose. She had it for about 4 years. How stoned were the marketing guys at AMC, anyway, when they came up with "Gremlin" as a name for a car, anyway? how about "Lemon"? :D

She could have made a living testing cars to destruction, though- any professional test driver would have been terrified riding in the car with my Mom at the helm- I know I always was. :yikes:
She once got radar-clocked doing 90 mph on a spiral offramp in that thing- she swore up and down it was an error, but somehow I could see her somehow managing that. :rolleyes2:
 
rottydaddy said:
...
She could have made a living testing cars to destruction, though- any professional test driver would have been terrified riding in the car with my Mom at the helm- I know I always was. :yikes:
She once got radar-clocked doing 90 mph on a spiral offramp in that thing- she swore up and down it was an error, but somehow I could see her somehow managing that. :rolleyes2:
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Sounds like my ex. I swear she thought that the accelerator only had two positions - idle, and "floor it."
 
My first-evah car was the AMC Eagle SX-4, which actually looked suspiciously like the one in this blog below. Apparently my parents thought I wouldn't get in much trouble with it. That car was well tested in Erie snowstorms. And local farmer's field - corn rows, you name it. It would go through anything. A fun little car actually. My Mom would get down on her hands and knees and check the underside to see what I got into, with it.

Who knew the new BMW X6 would look so similar.

http://supafly.com/2008-bmw-x6-1984-amc-eagle/
 
mikea said:
With AM/FM Cassette for only $16,995. Can't imagine why it didn't sell more.

That would be worth about $11,000 new TODAY.
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Mike, to be fair, that was in Australian Dollars and, while I cannot tell you what the Aussie was trading for then, it was probably in the 50-60 cent range to the USD.
 
smigaldi said:
It was the Chevette wasn't it? Why don't we see them anymore?
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Chevy Vega. The Chevette was more like the Ford Pinto and we knwo how good those were. I actually thought I'd buy a Chevette when I read preview story in Car and Driver. Drugs were good in those days.

The Vega had an aluminum block 4 that melted on schedule as the warranty ran out. If you screamed GM would replace it - once. That engine never lasted more than 12000 miles.

It was so bad that GM's own Pontiac ran ads about its Vega (can't remember what they called it) bragging about its "Iron Duke" engine which was the cast iron 4 version In other words a GM division was saying they didn't have the same crappy GM engine.
 
mikea said:
Oh. Remember what Chevy's answer was? Seen any still running? Know why that is?
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Now wait just a damned minute...

...the Maverick was just an update of the Falcon, and not a real substantial one at that. It's Chevy competition was the Nova, which sold like hotcakes for a very long time, and was a better car all around than the Maverick. Chevrolet did not need to "answer" the maverick.

Now, Chevy and Ford each came out with their incredible best efforts when they built, respectively, the Vega and the Pinto. Woo Hoo.
 
SCCutler said:
Now wait just a damned minute...

...the Maverick was just an update of the Falcon, and not a real substantial one at that. It's Chevy competition was the Nova, which sold like hotcakes for a very long time, and was a better car all around than the Maverick. Chevrolet did not need to "answer" the maverick.

Now, Chevy and Ford each came out with their incredible best efforts when they built, respectively, the Vega and the Pinto. Woo Hoo.
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Lest we forget the Oldsmobile Omega or Buick Apollo (the Nova in Olds or Buick clothes).
 
gprellwitz said:
A few observations...


1) The space shuttle program is due to be retired in 2010!
2) Where's Bill? Was he miffed about George not inviting him even then?
3) Who's to Gene's left?
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From left to right they are: NASA Administrator Dr. James D. Fletcher; DeForest Kelley, who portrayed Dr. "Bones" McCoy on the series; George Takei (Mr. Sulu); James Doohan (Chief Engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott); Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura); Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock); series creator Gene Rodenberry; an unnamed NASA official; and, Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Chekov).

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1204.html
 
smigaldi said:
From left to right they are: NASA Administrator Dr. James D. Fletcher; DeForest Kelley, who portrayed Dr. "Bones" McCoy on the series; George Takei (Mr. Sulu); James Doohan (Chief Engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott); Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura); Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock); series creator Gene Rodenberry; an unnamed NASA official; and, Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Chekov).

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1204.html
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And I was expected to recognize "an unnamed NASA official"? I admit, I didn't even recognize "NASA Administrator Dr. James D. Fletcher!":aureola:
 
>The Vega had an aluminum block 4 that melted on schedule as the warranty ran
>out. If you screamed GM would replace it - once. That engine never lasted more
>than 12000 miles.

Not true. I had a used Vega. When I sold it, it had 66,000 miles on the original
engine. The only problem with the car was rust (and, if you remember, at that
time almost every car had problems with rust in the northen parts of the U).
 
mikea said:
Chevy Vega. The Chevette was more like the Ford Pinto and we knwo how good those were. I actually thought I'd buy a Chevette when I read preview story in Car and Driver. Drugs were good in those days.

The Vega had an aluminum block 4 that melted on schedule as the warranty ran out. If you screamed GM would replace it - once. That engine never lasted more than 12000 miles.
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Well, GM was trying to be innovative by using an aluminum block without iron cylinder liners. There were problems with just surface hardening the cylinder bores, but I think more Vega engines failed from bad cooling design - blocks warped. Too many years ago to be sure...Chevy did sell scads of them, not many left because they all rusted out in just a few years!

It was so bad that GM's own Pontiac ran ads about its Vega (can't remember what they called it) bragging about its "Iron Duke" engine which was the cast iron 4 version In other words a GM division was saying they didn't have the same crappy GM engine.
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The Astra, I think it was.


Trapper John
 
Back in the late 70s the son of a friend had a Vega that would go like mad. Of course, he had a 327 V-8 under the hood. :D Glad I wasn't buying his tires. That thing would peel rubber in about any gear.
 
Bob Noel said:
>The Vega had an aluminum block 4 that melted on schedule as the warranty ran
>out. If you screamed GM would replace it - once. That engine never lasted more
>than 12000 miles.

Not true. I had a used Vega. When I sold it, it had 66,000 miles on the original
engine. The only problem with the car was rust (and, if you remember, at that
time almost every car had problems with rust in the northen parts of the U).
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Some Vegas had the engine replaced with the "Iron Duke." Did yours really last that long with the aluminum engine?
 
>Some Vegas had the engine replaced with the "Iron Duke."
>Did yours really last that long with the aluminum engine?

yep.
 
The Vega engine, if it did not overheat, was very durable and reliable, and had good power for its size. The problem was that, as it was originally released, it did *not* have the steel cylinder liners, but it had steel pistons and the different rates of expansion for the dissimilar metals caused cylinder wall scoring.

It was later that the steel cylinder liners were put in.

I had a Vega, and it ran like a dream... until (drum roll) I overheated it for a bit too long (stuck thermostat, in the country, no tools along, no brains in head).

But it surely did rust (around the back window), even in Texas.
 
flyersfan31 said:
Hah! Their liability stems from putting out undesirable cars. Deep six Buick and Pontiac. Deep six Dodge. Cut down on the badge engineering. GMC trucks AND Chevy trucks? The Germans aren't price-competitive with the Japanese but they still manage to compete. It's not all about the price. If anything their cost structure is worse than ours. The answer is to put out a good product. GM thinks saving a few pennies by using a cheaper knob is the way to go. Dumb.
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There's a couple of interesting issues here, and I wholeheartedly agree with this post.

When it comes to sedans, C/GM/F have nothing out there right now that can truly compete with the Japanese or the Europeans. From a technology standpoint, their US offerings are sub-par. Same goes for quality, resale value, fuel economy, etc.

That said, they know how to make good cars. Ford in Europe produces excellent cars. GM (as I recently noticed) even has a direct fuel injection engine in the CTS. Not bad. Even if it's just a glorified Saab ;)

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Chrysler and especially GM/Ford were in an much worse situation in a year than they are even now. A large part of their profits came from SUVs and Trucks, which are very cheap to build and sell for pretty high prices. The margin there used to be very good. Now that this revenue is dwindling, they'll see more and more profitability issues. They'd need to throw away all those cars that they're making and have been losing money on for years and start building on some of the platforms that they have in other places like Europe and Australia.

Given the corporate culture, though, I wouldn't bet on that.

-Felix
 
sba55 said:
There's a couple of interesting issues here, and I wholeheartedly agree with this post.

When it comes to sedans, C/GM/F have nothing out there right now that can truly compete with the Japanese or the Europeans. From a technology standpoint, their US offerings are sub-par. Same goes for quality, resale value, fuel economy, etc.

That said, they know how to make good cars. Ford in Europe produces excellent cars. GM (as I recently noticed) even has a direct fuel injection engine in the CTS. Not bad. Even if it's just a glorified Saab ;)

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Chrysler and especially GM/Ford were in an much worse situation in a year than they are even now. A large part of their profits came from SUVs and Trucks, which are very cheap to build and sell for pretty high prices. The margin there used to be very good. Now that this revenue is dwindling, they'll see more and more profitability issues. They'd need to throw away all those cars that they're making and have been losing money on for years and start building on some of the platforms that they have in other places like Europe and Australia.

Given the corporate culture, though, I wouldn't bet on that.

-Felix
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You didn't hear? GM is screaming that they need $10 billion of taxpayer money to buy Chrysler...and Chrysler's cash, which gM will be out of soon. They hope Paulson can just throw some of the $700 billion to GM since they have GMAC...and then sell GMAC to Chrysler's owners.

Problem solved. :mad:
 
flyersfan31 said:
NO, this is what the 70's looked like
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hey !!! I owned one of those..:goofy: . took me to ATC School and back...:cornut: and then some.. worked better once I removed the air-injector smog controls out of the exhaust manifold. !!:yes:
 
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