General Motors: A day late and many dollars short

American automobile manufacturers ought to be the best in the world. At one time, they were. The Big Three gave us the first automatic transmissions, the first power brakes, the first power steering...and a long list of technological innovations the rest of the world's manufacturers were quick to copy.

But somewhere along the way, they lost their way.

A column in The Washington Post this morning by a former editor recounts the day when she actually abandoned her 1972 Chevy Vega at a service station, taking only the license plates as she made her escape. The Vega started reluctantly each morning, sometimes not at all, and overheated regularly when it did start.

I worked briefly for Ford Motor Company in the mid-1960s when the Mustang was king of the road. Fresh out of college, I was excited to be there. One day, I mistakenly told an office mate that I aspired to be head of the company...or at the very least, a regional manager. He looked at me in disbelief and said, "Unless you graduated from one of the ivy covered business colleges in the Northeast, forget it." I didn't understand. I loved cars, had an economics degree and a willingness to dedicate my best effort to a career with Ford. Later I learned the business philosophy of all the manufacturers was "make money, first and foremost." Funny, I always thought if you "made cars" the public wanted to buy, you would make money, too. But then, I didn't graduate from Wharton or Harvard or Yale or Brown. Silly me. If I had graduated from one of those schools, I would have known that Ford's Edsel and Pinto, Chevrolet's Vega and Corvair, and AMC's Pacer and Gremlin, to name a few, were beautifully designed cars that would just sell like hotcakes.

Meanwhile Toyota, Mercedes, VW, BMW, even Honda (after a rough start) and other foreign manufacturers were designing cars customers couldn't wait to put in their driveways.

Detroit finally started building cars that would operate reliably, but they did not keep pace with foreign designs or technological innovation. For example, now that Toyota and others are selling hybrid cars like crazy, GM says "We have one, too, AND it will be ready for the showroom in 2010! Sorry we're late, could we tide you over with an SUV or two?"

In recent decades they have been a day late and a dollar short regularly.

Bottom line: Detroit forgot its reason for being in business. When it needed car people in charge, it went out and hired money people. Money people are fine, of course, for what they know but most wouldn't know a Blue Flame Six from a six pack of beer, or an overhead cam from a overhead camera.