Quote Originally Posted by basschick View Post
maybe the u.s. automakers should try making cars people want to buy. it's easy for them to say that no one is buying cars, but they seem to be buying toyotas.
Even Toyota is struggling, offering 0% financing on just about everything they make. The Prius is still selling, but Toyota is shutting down its plant in Texas that makes the big trucks and Sequoia SUV's. Even their so-called "small" Tacomas (they ain't that small anymore! The extended cab version weighs 3500 pounds and is 208 inches long -- a Lincoln Town Car is 215 inches from bumper to bumper and weighs 4400 pounds) are not selling. The Scion Xb got bigger. Toyota's compact Corolla weighs only about 2800 pounds and gets 35 MPG. Remember the Geo Metro? In 1994, 14 years of technical advances ago, that little thing got almost 50 MPG with a 1 liter engine.

In the last 2 crunches (1975+ and 1981+) foreign makers had small fuel efficient cars for sale next to gigantic American cruisers and beat the Big 3 all over the sales map. Now the "foreign" automakers build their cars in the US and they have big gas guzzlers sitting on their lots and assembly plants idling or running at half speed. It is not just the US based makers caught looking stupid.