On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 06:05:17 -0400, J. Clarke
wrote:

On Tue, 27 Apr 2021 19:26:27 -0700, pyotr filipivich
wrote:

Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet on Tue, 27 Apr 2021 11:07:53 -0500 typed
in rec.woodworking the following:
On 4/26/2021 7:53 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 26 Apr 2021 14:25:19 -0400, wrote:
On Mon, 26 Apr 2021 13:50:36 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:
On Mon, 26 Apr 2021 12:01:38 -0400, wrote:
On Mon, 26 Apr 2021 09:52:14 -0500, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote:
On 4/25/2021 8:42 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 25 Apr 2021 17:07:12 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:
Snip
Between 1900 and 1975 the US managed to invent and bring into
production the airplane, nuclear power, computers, and the capability
to land on the Moon.
With the people born in the '30 and '40s. The millenials live in
mommy's basement and play X-Box. We were talking about 60 the last 60
years.
Well in all fairness, vehicles built in the US were pieces of crap from
72~2000. Progressively getting better year by year. Emission systems
that hardly worked and wasted fuel was not healthier for the earth.

Seems this is when the Japanese entered our market and pretty much
showed us how a vehicle should be built.

The Japanese had just followed the smart ideas coming out of the
US ... to bad American car companies hadn't adopted them.

Well yeah, because those ideas never work in the US. I went through
an example of that at a PPOE. The management jumped on the "Toyota
Production System" and gave all kinds of trainings and started using
words like "Kanban" and "Gemba". They even got an award for it (a US
based award named after a Japanese who don't get no respect in Japan).
I finally gave up on the company's training and started reading up on
the Toyota Production System from the people who actually created and
ran it. Well, what we were doing wasn't anything like the Toyota
Production System. And after a few years in which their
"improvements" didn't improve anything they jumped on the next flashy
thing that some consultand dangled in front of them and then pretended
to implement that.

ISO9001
Zero Defect
PPM
rinse repeat

Glad you only went back to 1972 !
1971 MotorTrend's Car Of The Year
Chevy Vega ... :-)
Which was actually a pretty nice car until it rusted away. My Dad had
one--he really enjoyed driving it.
I had one as a teenager - my second car - it was ~ 4 years old
& I paid $ 450. for it - I needed wheels fast for a job transfer -
- the rust-repairs were already failing badly ;
it burned oil ; noisy ; no trunk space ; uncomfortable seats ;
terrible rear wheel drive traction ; etc
I can't think of a single plus that I could grant it.

$450

Which was still a lot of money in the seventies.

Friends story was of buying a car for $235 "because of a
vibration", which turned out to be the result of a bubble on the
inside of one of the front tires. Drove it, sold to friend, engine
seized, took it back. Had it parked at his dad's station where he
work. Guy comes in the station, wonders if the car might be for sale.
"Yeah, but the engine's shot". Guy just wants it for a restoration.
"So what do you want to offer for it?
$650
"That's fair."

One winter morning, I was spinning on a patch of snow in the
parking lot when a nice guy offered a push - he put one hand on the
drivers door handle and his other hand grabbed the rear fender well -
and gave a good heave-ho - he apologized as he stood there with
a good chunk of fender in his hand - I thanked him for the help and
said don't worry about it .. you can keep that .. :-) true story.

Drove it about 2 years and gladly scrapped it.
Car-Of-The-Year ! yeah right.

Hey, it lasted more than a year, what's yer beef?
I only had my Mustang II for three years until the body rotted out so
badly it couldn't be driven.
Ford liked to dress up other model cars and call them the Mustang. When
they turned the Pinto into a Mustang it was a bad move.

Had a friend with a Shelby Mustang. She called it "Mouse" because
it squeaked. Even at a 105.

And now we have the electric "crossover" that's called a Mustang. Ford
never learns. I remember when the T-Bird was something special, then
it went through a period in which it was "just a car" and now it's
dead. On the other hand GM never lost focus on the Corvette and it's
still going strong.

SWMBO had a '14 Mustang which was a nice car, which she traded in a
'19 (I told her "now or never"). That's a nice car. She looked at
the electric mustang and laughed. "That's not a Mustang!" I's bug
ugly, for one.

The mustang started as a really nice car, which grew into a monster,
into a sissy, then dead. They did a really good job of bring back the
retro-Mustang and improved it a lot over the decade or so. Then...

OTOH, the Thunderbird was a HOT car, which grew into a monster, then
poof. The retro version skipped the retro phase and went straight to
bug ugly. They just can't leave well enough alone.

Well, Ford still has the F150 (I wonder where the F100 went?).