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(Adapted from "The United States of Toyota: How Detroit Squandered Its Legacy and Enabled Toyota to Become America's Car Company.")
Forty-eight years ago, I remember being glued to the television set for the debut of "Bonanza," which before long would garner ratings numbers comparable to today's Super Bowl.
This episode would be special because not only would it be in full color but because Chevrolet, the show's sponsor, was withholding all commercial messages until the end of the show, a bold and unexpectedly dramatic move for those times. Instead, Chevrolet would run a five-minute film on its entire lineup of new models for 1960.
Things were different back then. Chevrolet was, far and away, the most popular car in America. It was truly one of the all-American brands, an icon along with Coca-Cola (KO, news, msgs). And its theme "See the USA in your Chevrolet" went on to become one of the most memorable and popular themes in automotive advertising history.
General Motors (GM, news, msgs) was on its way to flat-out dominating the American market, and its Chevrolet division dominated almost every segment it competed in with a remarkable combination of style, performance and value that no other car company could match. But a lot has happened to America and its car market since then.
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Today, the U.S. automotive landscape is fundamentally altered. Japanese carmakers are part of the American automotive establishment. They build their cars in factories all over the U.S., with American white-collar and blue-collar labor. The Europeans, led by the Germans, have taken broad swipes out of the performance and luxury segments in this country, too.
The decline of General Motors
In 1979, GM controlled 48% of the domestic car market. In 2007, it's struggling to hang on to 25% of it. And the most glaring change? The most glaring change is that for all intents and purposes, Chevrolet has been usurped and replaced by Toyota in the hearts and minds of the American car-buying public.Toyota is everywhere, dominating in a range of industry segments. Toyota has become ingrained in U.S. society to the point that Americans working for Toyota, whether it is at factories or dealerships, consider it to be an American company. And it's easy to see why, what with Toyota selling more vehicles in the U.S. than it does in Japan on a regular basis.
A lot of people would even argue the fact that it really doesn't matter anymore who owns Toyota, that it's a moot point and that nationalistic concerns should have nothing to do with it. Add to this the fact that to people in cities across the U.S., where Toyota is the reason they are able to feed their families, pay for their kids' education and make a comfortable living, it doesn't matter what Toyota really is in the global scheme of things. To them it's a local company, involved in their communities, and it provides them with a comfortable standard of living.
If you look at it that way, they're absolutely right. But I offer a different perspective.
And no, this will not be some maudlin, jingoistic "buy American" diatribe. I'm certainly not going to dispute the fact that the American automobile companies brought their current predicament upon themselves -- because they absolutely did.
Continued: Deck stacked against Detroit
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