The death of the American luxury sedan

[LaMedicine]

I could not believe gasoline was sold by the liter in Scotland. Blew my mind.
This is somewhat to me the housing in Japan that people go to to sleep in pods. To the Japanese it is understandable but to us it is

lol lol lol Pods...oh, the capsule hotels, you mean :eusa_doh: lol
Gasoline is sold by the liter here, too. Our roads are too narrow and winding and mountainous and crowded to accomodate big cars. Parking spaces are also a hassle with large cars. I drive a Honda Inspire (higher end of the Accord brand in the US) here, however, I wouldn't mind driving a larger car in the US, with your wide, flat, straight highways. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, and my belief is that just about everything *native* to that country develops in accordance with the needs of the people living there, so, if it works there, fine. But neither do I expect many of them to work elsewhere.
Anyhow. American luxury cars were in a class by themselves, and symbolic in those days of *some day when I...* I thnk the demise of such cars, as well as the US auto companies, is distrubing to the rest of the world, not just Americans. Even here, driving a Caddy was a symbol of success, until, somewhere along the line, these *status* cars changed to European cars with Mercedes leading the pack. If only someone can do a good job of balancing those *American dreams* with the present day world's demands.

 

[Foofoogal]

whew. Glad you understand. It is ludicrous to expect all of us to go global which we all are without some hiccups. When in Rome. Exactly.
Alot of it is just like handing someone some very strange food and saying, eat this. We first have to get over the shock and then investigate and then consider. This takes time. Some more time than others.
For the record I now do alot of recycling. Not a problem to me and easy peasy. Now that I have a place to do it. Where I live has a center to go to now. Believe me they just hit the jackpot with my cardboard boxes from our move and paper. Tons of newsprint that did not have print on it.
My point is all of us becoming clones is not interesting at all. Space determines alot of things.

 

[Viola]

I could not believe gasoline was sold by the liter in Scotland. Blew my mind.

Well they're on metric they sort of have to.

They do the same in Australia and I can work it out but the conversion takes me a mental moment... the first time I saw a gas-station I said to my guy "oh your gas prices aren't THAT bad..." and he was all "...baby, that's not in your gallons."

 

[Flivver]

Cadillacs are no longer the cars they were, but I wonder how many howled when the '48's came out, a major departure from previous styling?
It has always been a mystery to me why GM turned the fleet car biz over to Ford on a platter.

The '48 Cadillacs were *very* controversial when they were first introduced...but people adjusted to the "radical" new styling quickly. By 1955, Cadillac was out-selling all other luxury brands combined (in the U.S.).

It's interesting how, after they are copied by everyone, these radical designs eventually look rather ordinary. I saw a 1986 Taurus recently, and it looked downright bland. But, when it was introduced in 1985, the "radical" styling caused a sensation.

Regarding fleet sales, most manufacturers today are trying to minimize them, for a host of reasons. First, fleet vehicles are sold by competitive bid and are often unprofitable. In addition, fleet vehicles are often dumped onto the used car market after a few years, depressing the resale value of similar vehicles that were sold retail.

Because the Domestic 3 had so much excess capacity recently, they used fleet sales to keep their assembly lines moving. But now, after much of that overcapacity has been removed through restructuring, the domestics will rely less on fleet than in the past as they attempt to improve the resale value of their vehicles, and improve their bottom line profitability.

 

[Flivver]

thank you Flivver. Very interesting. Not sure what engine displacement is .

Engine displacement is the size of the engine...or more technically the swept volume of the pistons in the engine. So by taxing vehicles on the size of their engines, the Europeans forced smaller engines to be used thus forcing the size of the cars smaller as well. Here in North America, there was no limit to engine size so engines and cars grew as large as consumer demand required.

 

[Foofoogal]

So by taxing vehicles on the size of their engines

makes sense :eusa_doh: thank you.