American car companies

[willy knight]

I was watching Dennis Gage or Cage (the guy with the mustache) talking to Jay Leno on his show and he was talking about a 1914 Pierce car that was made in Indiana.He said that at one time Indiana had around 250 car manufacturers and was competing with Detroit to be number one in car production.
MY POINT IS THIS : 250 AMERICAN car companies in Indiana alone.Now just 2 and 1/2 American car companies.How could this ever have happened.
What a neat time it would have been to live then as a car nut.

 

[TiredIronGRB]

MY POINT IS THIS : 250 AMERICAN car companies in Indiana alone.Now just 2 and 1/2 American car companies.How could this ever have happened?

U.A.W.

 

[sgtpontiac]

You have to remember....

I was watching Dennis Gage or Cage (the guy with the mustache) talking to Jay Leno on his show and he was talking about a 1914 Pierce car that was made in Indiana.He said that at one time Indiana had around 250 car manufacturers and was competing with Detroit to be number one in car production.
MY POINT IS THIS : 250 AMERICAN car companies in Indiana alone.Now just 2 and 1/2 American car companies.How could this ever have happened.
What a neat time it would have been to live then as a car nut.

All the initial manufacturers were independant at the time and then formed companies based on 2 or several smaller companies.... i.e. General Motors.... they were formed from Oldsmobile, Chevrolet and Buick and I believe Oakland which turned into Pontiac..... then the smaller companies were bought out and formed other larger groups.... Dodge, Plymouth and Chrysler etc..etc...
I'm sure at one time there were hundreds of smaller companies all over.... just couldn't compete with the newly formed combined companies....

 

[sgtpontiac]

I must have been typing when TiredIron answered..

U.A.W.

to an extent that is correct as well...good point.... could you imagine there being 2 or 3 hundred companies vying for the sales market... no body would sell enough to make it work... hence the formation of groups under one larger name....

 

[Got Rust?]

Bigger companies also had parts,,,and lot's of em interchanged.

 

[earthman]

No one has mentioned the Depression yet.

 

[rainman]

Greed, big fish gobbled up the small ones!!

 

[Toad]

And don't forget government involvement!

Toad

 

[Fe2O3]

U.A.W.

Always easy to blame the the Union but the reality was, that many of those company's management could NOT run a sucessfull business.

 

[sgtpontiac]

Amen.... forgot about that issue...

No one has mentioned the Depression yet.

When the market crashed, a lot of companies crumbled... heck people were throwing themselves off of buildings on wall street..... good point
Also, Unions are not our downfall.... but the unreasonable pay scales and benefits that came about that have priced us out of of the market in many areas.... that and this damn Free Trade crap..... what a flock of hooey.... the writing was on the wall when they did that.... it was the governments first move to try and break the unions.... JMHO.... no disrepect to the unions, I'm in one now, but never had a union before becoming a cop and I did pretty good without one... now the sick lame and lazy are rewarded for poor workmanship while the honest hard working guys and gals work their butts off trying to clean up the mess and God forbid you praise the hard workers without rewarding the others....again...JMHO

 

[anvil]

Some just made better bearings then whole cars or engines so they just built the parts for others.

 

[CR55]

Always easy to blame the the Union but the reality was, that many of those company's management could NOT run a sucessfull business.

And the UAW saved them?[S

 

[The Rattler]

U.A.W.

I think the UAW was started in the mid 30's and by that time most of those companies were already history.

Rattler

 

[Fe2O3]

And the UAW saved them?[S

Now, I did not say that

The UAW was formed in 1935 and wasn't truely a force to be reconned with untill post WWII.

As Rattler posted, " I think the UAW was started in the mid 30's and by that time most of those companies were already history."

Support then or hate them, they would have never been created if the Industral Robber Barron's would not have abused labor.

 

[the reverend muddy grimes]

UAW is singlehandedly responsible for IHC going belly up, and for that alone I will never deal with a union of any kind.

 

[Fe2O3]

Rev. - Found this on Wikipedia

"In 1979 IH named a new CEO, who was determined to improve profit margins and drastically cut a ballooning cost structure. Unprofitable model lines were terminated, and factory production curtailed. By the end of the year, IH profits were at their highest in 10 years, but cash reserves were still too low. Union members became increasingly irate over production cutbacks and other cost-cutting measures. In the spring and summer of 1979, IH began short-term planning for a strike that seemed inevitable. Then on November 1, IH announced figures showing that president and chairman Archie McCardell received a US$1.8 million (in 1979 values) bonus. McCardell sought overtime, work rule, and other changes from the UAW, which led to a strike on November 2, 1979.[2]

Soon after, the economy turned unfavorable, and IH faced a financial crisis. The strike lasted approximately six months. When it ended, IH had lost almost $600 million (in 1979 value; over $2 billion today).[3]"

Seems to me that Archie was the one to blame not the Union. Timing of course is everything this happening in the earily 80's was maybe the final straw.