On 60 Minutes last night Andy Rooney spent his whole segment bowing to the hate mail he'd received for bad-mouthing American cars. I didn't see his original rant but reading it I can imagine pretty much how it went. One of the hate mail letters Andy read last night talked about how it's fashionable right now to drive foreign cars. Yeah, you know why? Cuz not spending your time in the auto garage is fashionable. I can understand the gentleman that works at Ford or GM being concerned about the movement to foreign cars writing in to let Andy know he's not gonna watch his show any more. But to write in with something like this is bold:
“I do not believe it is lack of quality that has adversely affected General Motors - the product has been getting better and better. The problem is that the intellectual elite have decided it's un-cool to drive American.”
It's especially bold when the story to which the letter is reacting quoted the following statistic (aka fact):
“Consumer Reports tested a lot of cars and gave their highest reliability rating to 31 of them. Of those 31 most reliable cars, just two were American. The other 29 were Japanese.
Of the cars that were least reliable, 22 were American made.”
And just when you thought the American car makers might 'get it' Ford gives us this @ the Detroit Auto Show:
“Ford showed its F-250 Super Chief concept, a massive four-door pickup truck that shows that the company isn't done with big trucks...The truck has a supercharged V-10 that can run on gasoline, ethanol and hydrogen. The interior is paneled in walnut, with big brown leather seats and ottomans in the rear.”