oink23 Posted September 7, 2007 Share Posted September 7, 2007 awwwwwww im late, well all old cars like the zs are rusty becase they were not primed or anything just painted. I wanted to restore a 1967 fastback eleanor mustang until i figured out about the rust problems. yelp all the old but great car have. i love fastbacks!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted September 7, 2007 Share Posted September 7, 2007 Back in 1990 Harvard Business Review published a study that Toyota completed back in 1980 (Toyota released the study to HBR for publication). What Toyota did was do a large engineering study of who they perceived their foriegn competitors to be 15 years down the road. Toyota engineers bought Mercedes, BMW, Cadillac, Ford, and Chevrolet vehicles and tore them down. They measured parts and subjected parts to materials analysis to determine the quality of manufacture and material selection. The results of their 3 year study was that, at the time of the study, Toyota already had a five fold lead in manufacturing and material quality over the second best manufacturer in their study - Mercedes. What Toyota was behind on was design and engineering quaility (coming up with good designs and engineering more elegant solutions). The article didn't discuss what Toyota did to correct the design and engineering gap, but we know it already as Lexus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjhines Posted September 7, 2007 Share Posted September 7, 2007 John has brought up another interesting tidbit that confirms my thoughts on the Aisian car industry. They built truly amazing cars with an attitude towards dominating the world market. There were some early flaws, but unlike American car companies, the Japanese put considerable effort into improving their designs. My Chevy Z71 Tow vehicle is a prime example of HOW TO SCREW YOUR CUSTOMER. There are things wrong with that truck that are SOO wrong that I have lost all confidence in their design and quality control system. Chevy and Dodge( I have a family member who manages a large dealership chain. Their dealership began picking up more and more Japanese cars as they phased out their traditional American brands. He commented that they had received entire shipments of Odlsmobiles that needed entire drivetrain replacements before they could be sold. The factory knew they had problems but they shipped them anyway and forced the dealerships to perform the repairs. They picked up Honda and Mazda years ago and he was AMAZED that they no longer spent ANY time and effort testing and rebuilding vehicles before they could be sold. They practically had to rebuild the American cars as a regular expense. He remembers when Cadillac tried to rebadge the Cavalier and sell it for TWICE the price. That went over about as well as a screen door on a submarine. It is not just the customers who get screwed, Dealerships are dropping American brands as they realize they are also getting a raw deal. The quality dealerships are switching over to imports while the Domestic brands are left to the poorer quality dealers who cannot compete in the import market shares. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oink23 Posted September 8, 2007 Share Posted September 8, 2007 Well if you ask me all that doesn’t matter because they are all crappy but great cars. We invest in potential and dreams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.