US “car recession” spreads among largest automakers.
The media hoopla has been deafening. In December, “new vehicles sales” – defined as the number of new cars, trucks, and SUVs that dealers sold to their customers, including fleets – rose 3.1%. That was stronger than “expected.” And in the media reports, there was euphoria between the lines.
Automakers and dealers had certainly tried. Inventories are high, layoffs and plant closings have already been announced, and so every effort was made to move the iron and pull out the year. No incentive was spared to get the job done.
With this gain in December, total sales for 2016 edged up 0.4% to a record 17.55 million vehicles, according to Autodata. Sales of light trucks and SUVs rose 7.2% for the year, but sales of cars sagged 8.1%. Gasoline is cheap, and Americans love big implements.
Car sales at GM dropped 4.3% in 2016, at Ford 13.0%, and at Fiat Chrysler a catastrophic 33.5%! Plants that build cars were the ones mostly (but not exclusively) hit by shutdowns and layoffs. Then there was the whole to-do about Trump, Ford, and the plant in Mexico.
Alas, while some automakers posted record sales for the year, the biggest automakers were not among them. And you probably didn’t see this in the media unless you started digging through the data yourself. Somehow this one slipped by the media’s attention. Because something ugly happened in 2016, something we haven’t seen since 2009.
For ALL of the big three US automakers, plus for a number of others, sales in 2016 actually fell. For them it was the first annual sales decline since nightmare-year 2009. Here they are, in terms of the annual decline in their total vehicles sales, as measured by dealer sales to their customers (in descending order of sales):
- GM -1.3%
- Ford -0.1%
- Toyota -2.0%
- Fiat-Chrysler -0.4%
- Volkswagen -3.3%
- BMW -9.7%
- Mazda -6.7%
The sales of these seven automakers combined amounted to 11.5 million vehicles in 2016, or 65% of total US sales! And combined, their sales were down 1.5% from the prior year. So this is what Ford meant earlier this year, when it began mentioning the “car recession.”
But there were some winners too. Here are the automakers with sales gains in 2016 (in descending order of sales):
- Honda +3.2%
- Nissan +5.4%
- Hyundai +1.7%
- Kia + 3.5%
- Subaru +5.6%
- Daimler +0.1%
- Jaguar Land Rover +23.6%
- Mitsubishi + 1.0%
- Volvo +18.1%
- Porsche 4.9%
- Tesla +69% (39,975 vehicles, for a market share of 0.2%)
- Maserati 7.1% (12,534 vehicles)
- Ferrari 6.2% (2,398 vehicles)
A special word for two of the biggest winners on this list – Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo.
Jaguar Land Rover is now an Indian company. Ford, which had lost money on Jaguar every year it owned it, sold it to Tata Motors in 2008, during the Financial Crisis. It was one of the deals Ford made to stay out of bankruptcy. But look how Jaguar is doing now.
Annual sales of Jaguar Land Rover jumped 23.6%, with Land Rover sales rising 4.6% to 73,861 vehicles, and Jaguar sales soaring 116% to 31,243 vehicles. In other words, Jaguar in terms of sales growth, was the best performer among all brands, even if you never liked any car they built after the E Type.
Volvo is now a Chinese company, owned by Geely, and is selling its first China-made Volvos (the S60 sedan) in the US. Total sales jumped 18% in 2016. Volvo is not immune to the big-implement theory: its car sales fell 7%. But its SUV sales surged 30%!
The only other major automaker currently offering China-made cars in the US is GM, with its Buick Envision, an SUV with a retail sticker price north of $40,000 – on the theory, if it’s good enough for China, it’s good enough for the US.
So what’s up for 2017?
Inventories are still high for the Big Three. Car sales are the pits, and that’s not changing unless gasoline prices double, which isn’t likely. Incentive levels are already at a record and may rise further. Used vehicle wholesale prices are declining, under pressure from aggressive incentives on the new vehicle side and from surging supply of wholesale vehicles (rental cars and lease turn-ins). This will make trade-ins less valuable, and thus raise their negative equity, which will make it harder to trade, at the worst possible time, just when interest rates are beginning to rise.
Auto loans have soared in 2016, and so has the debt burden of consumers. And rising auto subprime loan delinquencies are now catching even the New York Fed’s eye, with six million Americans being 90-plus days delinquent. So 2017 is going to be a tough year for automakers.
Ford and GM, among other companies, have been hounded by President-Elect Trump’s tweets. And they reacted. But there’s more to it than what’s on the surface. Read… Trump Tweets, Ford & GM Counter, their Shares Jump, the Peso Plunges, but the Jobs Won’t “Come Back” to the USA
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So we buy half of Dogpatch USA, start WS Motors. Begin production on the Orange Tweeter Car and make a fortune. If Twitter or the Tweeter-in-Chief says anything we say it’s all about the sound system with orange tweeters on the rear window deck.
“Sales of light trucks and SUVs rose 7.2% for the year, but sales of cars sagged 8.1%. Gasoline is cheap, and Americans love big implements.” – Wolf
I don’t believe it’s just because we “love big implements”, Wolf. We buy them because they offer maximum utility and THEY LAST for YEARS, Wolf.
As I’ve posted here before, Our family relies on an 18-year-old GMC 4WD Suburban and a 21-year-old Dodge diesel 4WD pickup.
Note that in the Sport Utility “automobile” category, Subaru and Land Rover are doing well. Subaru has good ground clearance, is AWD and has (until recently, in some models) a sterling reliability record. Land Rover is of note for its off-road capability.
These things matter.
I agree. When I was single, a small sedan made sense. With kids, pets, and the gear that a modern family must transport if you have a moderately active lifestyle, utility is what matters. I hate SUV’s, cross-overs, etc., and would settle for a nice wagon, but I’m not willing to step up to luxury pricing and there are no longer many (any?) other options.
Exactly. You listed some the reasons why we love big implements :-)
I think it’s the “small” big implements that are really finding the sweet spot. Honda CR-V sales (we own one) are going like gangbusters, because you get a compact footprint with a taller cabin and ground clearance, which is great for our family of 3 with dog who lives in the city but has a lot of woods and mountains just outside of town.
Bring back the Taurus wagon. What a utilitarian workhorse that was!
so for the new year look for a subprime repossessed truck or suv. Will save you money. A standard utility work truck, although not glamorous, without electric windows and assorted electronics and cushy accouterments will last forever. most parts on these types of vehicles are heavy
duty. But be wary ! your friends will want you to haul things
for them .
I own a 2014 Honda Civic that I paid $18,3K for all in (I average 38 mpg city & highway). My brother has a 2014 Ford F-150, that he paid $34K for all in. You can watch the gas needle move when you accelerate.
I can’t tell you how much I’ve hauled in his truck. I’m a big fan of having a family member or friend with a nice truck. Would never pay for one myself however. Though I do leave the tank topped off of any vehicle I borrow.
I have a 94 ford ranger that I bought (used-36,000 mileage) over a decade ago (72,000, now) which I use …and don’t baby … at all .. and it shows … dings, scratches, faded paint …
I will NEVER sell it, and will operate it to it’s dying day …. ‘;]
.. and yes , it has few frills … but that is of no importance to me.
You sure don’t put any miles on it do ya? Bought a new ’94 Mazda B4000 4×4 at a deep discount when the ’95 came out. They made way too many of them. Immediately flushed the radiator of flux and drove that thing until Superstar sold it last year. 150+k mi
It’s still running around Mountain Home, but… keep the reflector cones in the back in case he blows up
I hate to be the bearer of bad news to this ” happy motoring ” love rest but….. Climate Change. Do our children have a planet to survive on or do we say “screw them”? This is the most serious problem humanity has ever faced.
Can you tell me what the record shows re the emissivity of the sun for the past 50 years, or so?
Do you know how that has correlated with atmospheric and ocean temperatures over that timespan?
It’ll be somewhere in here. http://www.leif.org/research/
You can trust the man too, no agendas.
In fact he gave this link. https://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau1508/
Sorry to say but climate change is here to stay regardless of what Governments, corporations or individuals do. The fact is there are far too many people.
Moving to electric is a non-starter (pun intended) as the carbon footprint to mfg solar and batteries to hold the volatile energy from solar or wind is quite large and toxic. Think sodium hydroxide and hydrofluoric acid. Come to think of it give me a double.
Wars and disease used to keep the population in check. Now that we’ve significantly reduced one and all but eliminated the other there is little that slows down the growth of people.
Energy is never clean, regardless of type. The only question is who gets to control it and the power derived from it. That in a nutshell explains most of the climate change debate. Oil and Gas has the power and control now but Solar and wind what it.
Solar and wind want it. Bad typo.
Hear, hear !
By the way the ‘trend’ is headed … the automobile, in all its permutations, will become a noticeable part of the geological record, kinda like that dino killing iridium layer … but without the blast effects …. ‘;[
Population growth has slowed considerably and could slow dramatically more with cooperation and competent leadership.
https://ourworldindata.org/future-world-population-growth/
RD Blakeslee:
OK, I have a big issue with this post. First of all, it’s the concept of the “minivan” that offers maximum utility. I previously owned one that had AWD (I live in Winnipeg, never got stuck no matter how much snow), seated 7 passengers, and could haul a queen size bed, and yet drove much like a car (and the fuel efficiency wasn’t bad either).
As for an SUV, you get no more seating capacity than a car, but you get the ride and fuel consumption of a truck.
In other words, minivan = best of both worlds; SUV = worst of both worlds.
It’s not just me saying this, the popular notion of an SUV is “excess”.
Yeah, but total sales still rose no matter how small it was. Muppets are still doing their work. Even in a good economy, the tide does not necessarily lift all boats.
Have a look at Doug Short’s article on per-capita vehicle sales here (scroll down to last chart): http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2017/01/04/light-vehicle-sales-per-capita-our-latest-look-at-the-long-term-trend
It’s per-capita sales that count and the trend has been down for a long time.
Yes, miles traveled in vehicles per person is about what it was 15-20 years ago in the US. Also, vehicles per person has been declining for over 20 years. (see dshort).
Vehicles are much more efficient than ever; by several measures. This is squeezing profits in the whole industry.
I’m not sure what percentage of cell phone usage is truly increasing economic efficiency (which gets all the attention), but vehicle engineering improvement is doing this significantly.
Will there be new incentives to turn in 2 and 3 year old cars? Just roll the debt into a new car and keep the whole charade rolling? I’ve noticed VW getting pretty aggressive.
Cash for ‘un-clunkers’ 2.0
It’s hard to believe that Trump can complain about China and Mexico and not mention the huge auto trade deficit with Japan. There is no way Japan can sell millions of cars in this country without the massive currency manipulation of Japan’s central bank. The exchange rate is a national obsession in Japan, but here it’s treated as an afterthought. There are tens of thousands of Americans who don’t have jobs because we allow Japan unlimited access to our consumer and bond markets, but Trump’s silence is deafening.
Note just bond markets , but equities and real estate as well. That’s is how the trade deficit get balance. They buy more and more American assets.
Does Trump own a golf/luxury hotel in Japan?
Don’t forget that the Japanese automakers have big plants in the US and Mexico.
What Trump needs to finally do – what no other President managed to do before him – is to pry open the Japanese auto market for US automakers. The Japanese have erected administrative hurdles against US automakers that are nearly impossible to break through (they can, but it costs a lot of money per each vehicle, so they can’t sell their vehicles at competitive prices in Japan). For US automakers, the Japanese market remains for all practical purposes hermetically sealed off. Ford and GM have been screaming about this for decades, to no avail.
But I have not heard a word from Trump about this.
I believe, and please correct me if I’m wrong, that South Korea also has barriers that restrict US autos from being sold there. In the past, the South Korean government has given tax breaks to their auto manufactures and in essence they have subsidized the cars sold in the US.
Same thing with the Philippines. People say we can’t afford a trade war, yet we are the only country not in a trade war.
Knowing a few Japanese nationals: They can’t afford to purchase an Accord in Japan as the taxes on a vehicle of that size are prohibitive for the average person. Add to that the parking issues/costs associated with and the Japanese gov’t doesn’t need to erect trade barriers.
Their market favors micro cars and some of the weird little box-like vehicles that fit a lot inside with very small displacement motors for that reason.
Wolf,
Maybe it has changed since I lived in Japan, but IIRC Japanese auto makers really don’t make that much profit from selling cars in Japan.
Profit comes from overseas sales.
I really doubt that even if the Japanese market were open to US makers that many Japanese would buy the product. They would be in the same situation as the domestic makers: very little profit.
When I Japan I owned a Nissan Laurel – a big gas guzziling car with a V6 engine that I found to be quite big for many Japanese roads. Big US cars on Japanese roads…………..yeah right.
And on another note. Years back when the A$ was parity to more than the US$ I looked at the pricing of the Mercedes S600 here in Australia and in the USA.
At that time the S600 sold for A$477,000 (I still think that is the list price here) and for US$169,000 in the USA (US$189,000 now………)
Our cars are cheaper than when I moved here years ago, but still way over the top compared to the USA or even Japan.
really, the u.s. car manufacturers didn’t pursue marketing cars in japan. for a number of reasons…
1. the japan market is right-hand drive. the u.s. manufacturers decided that as small as the japan market was, it would not tool u.s. manufactured cars for right-hand drive.
2. and yes, though ford and gm do manufacture right-hand drive cars in britain and british colonies, they really made no efforts to export those cars to japan.
though they could have. the japanese really did not erect insurmountable import barriers.
3. the japan market for cars is miniscule in the scheme of the international automobile market. most japanese don’t have the resources to own a car, let alone garage one in the major municipalities.
and even more to the point, where are you going to drive? have you traversed japan by automobile when the routing involved a major urban area?
it is like the 405 in los angeles 24/7/365.
japan is just not a desirable market target.
First things first, ALBERT CHAMPION: You said: “and even more to the point, where are you going to drive? have you traversed japan by automobile when the routing involved a major urban area?”
Yes, I “traversed” Japan by car. Over the years, I traversed Tokyo and other cities by car many times. Rural areas too. I crossed Honshu (main island), Hokkaido (largest island), Kyushu and Shikoku (more in the south) by car. My wife is Japanese. My in-laws live in a Tokyo suburb. We go to Japan a lot. We used to live in Tokyo. And when you drive, it takes forever to go anywhere … Why? Because there are so many cars!
Which brings us your point #3 (we’ll get to your #1 and #2 in a moment):
You wrote: “the japan market for cars is miniscule…” Ouch, this is such TOTAL NONSENSE it hurts. Clearly you have NO IDEA. You’ve never seen the endless neighborhoods where every house has a carport with a car. And the high-rises with garages. Highways and streets are chronically congested. And you have also apparently never looked at the DATA on passenger vehicle registrations. So here they are for your own edification:
Passenger vehicle registrations in the past 12 months (Dec 2015 – Nov 2016, latest available via JAMA): 4.94 million vehicles, beating every market in the world, except China and the US. For example, in Germany, the largest market in the EU, there were only 3.2 million registrations in 2015. Japan is the THIRD LARGEST passenger vehicle market in the world!
That’s why US automakers have always wanted to be there.
Your point #1. Right-hand drive is no issue for US manufacturers if they have enough volume. That’s what manufacturers do ….they make locally adapted models. Ford and GM do that for EVERY market.
Your point #2 – that US automakers “really made no efforts….” They cannot get past the administrative hurdles for mass distribution of vehicles in Japan. Japan has a protected economy. My wife works for a US exporter (food products) to Japan. They’re experts in dealing with the endless administrative hurdles that Japan puts up to block imports or make them uncompetitive. It adds a LOT OF COSTS to the product, but Japan’s food production is inefficient, and even with these extra costs, those imported foods can be competitive on a select basis. That is not the case with Japanese automakers. They’re very efficient and very competitive, and any major additional cost per vehicle kills the profit. It’s called “Japan Inc.” for a reason.
You said at the end: “japan is just not a desirable market target.” That shows better than anything else in your comment just how totally uninformed about Japan you are.
Wolf,
Don’t mix apples with oranges.
Yes, Japan protects its food industry. Pretty smart since embargo’s years ago. They are a tiny island with little natural resources.
U.S. auto manufacturers never seriously tried to penetrate that market. As of a few years ago, there were no brochures printed in Japanese.
They never could jump over the administrative hurdles erected decades ago.
A mass manufacturer cannot just import a few cars into the third largest market in the world to make go of it. I has to be a big operation, with distribution infrastructure and all kinds of things in place. And they have to be able to do it at a competitive cost.
Luxury brands have a lot more leeway because of their big profit margins and the price premiums they can charge for the brands. So Japan is a big market for Ferraris. But they just sell a very small number of them.
Let’s face it. The whole US paradigm is to find the enemy of the day/month/year/decade. Had Trump become President in the 80s, then you would have heard him badmouthing Japan. But since the enemy of the day is currently China/Russia, that’s where all the action is.
Trump is a perfect president for the idiot public who’s not getting the truth: “Japan/China/Russia do not kill Americans, it’s Americans that are killing Americans”. Who’s sending jobs overseas, it’s Americans. Who’s opening up American markets for competition without demanding the same treatment? It’s Americans. Who’s sending Americans overseas to get killed? It’s Americans.
You will never get any real change until you acknowledge that basic truth.
It’s American ‘elites’ ( inclulding CONgress ) , with the help of a compliant 4th estate … silly
And who elected this “CONgress”? Russian hackers? It’s again Muricans …. silly.
Muricans kill Muricans. Full stop.
Seasoned Washington insider shares his views on the chances of him making the economy great again.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/01/03/can-trump-fix-the-economy-in-2017-paul-craig-roberts/
That is a really good summary!
Parts of the article were interesting, but hard to take it seriously when it’s complaining about oligarchs being against Trump. Trump IS an oligarch.
Unitron, Japan also the largest holder of our debt, thanks to the years of imbalance of trade with them. Mazda doesn’t produce anything in America after they left the joint venture with Ford. Nissan imports about 40% Toyota still imports the Prius plus many more. Honda has been the most American. Japan kicked Ford and GM out in 1938 and we still sell almost nothing in Japan or Korea, but us Taxpayers support almost 50,000 American troops between the two.
I drive a 31 year old Toyota 4X4 pickup. The last two weeks two people have flagged me down and asked if I wanted to sell it. I have rebuilt it and the truck looks pretty awesome, but still. Yes, it is uncomfortabe. It is noisy and cramped. But still. Those crank windows, no airbags or doodads, a very primitive computer which probably doesn’t even work, all adds up to a sought after product.
One guy was trying to pawn off his newer Ford.
Wonder why? Have we already reached peak complexity, affordability, gullibility, advertising influence, and debt? When I was a teen and working in a sawmill for awhile one of my co-workers used to walk in through the gates singing, “I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go” (sung to hi ho, hi ho).
Not me, though. :-)
Oh, for you truck borrowers, utility trailers are cheap. I never lend my truck and never will. To quote my dad’s best friend, (long deceased), “I don’t lend out my airplane, my truck, or my wife….in that order”. :-)
I get requests all the time from mechanics who maintain my diesel pickup, to sell it to them.
I had a 20 year old Acura, and in the past year I probably had a half dozen unsolicited requests to buy it. It had power windows, but not much else for frills. I presume people are just looking for a cheap, reliable car, and even for being that old it still got almost 30mpg. I did finally get rid of it since I was moving cross county.
Now down to just a 10+ year old CRV (which we did drive cross country). I’d like to buy another car, but the wife wants something that can haul 7 or 8 people which means dropping 35K. That’s really hard to swallow after having a second car that almost cost nothing to maintain or insure. It also sucks, because it feels like there is about 10K in crap I don’t need in whatever trim group I want.
Toyota quality has decayed substantially in the last 15 years or so. Once they made bullet proof cars and trucks. I will never buy another Toyota, beyond a used 15 or 20 yr old one!
Shoddy build quality in new models, crappy struts, electric steering, etc. And they don’t label many of their parts anymore, so you don’t know where they come from. Once upon a time the parts had the numbers etched onto them!
They’ve lost control of their supply chain!
The brand has been trashed.
Looking into Honda and Subaru right now.
…old engineering joke: “…if something works really well, it doesn’t have enough features, yet…”. (…hmm, might apply to the entire digital & economic ‘industries’, as well…). a better day to all.
Selling Jag and Land Rover to Tata: “It was one of the deals Ford made to stay out of bankruptcy.”
I didn’t remember this at all … what I remember is that Ford was the only one not to get bailed out or go bankrupt, though they did lose big money for a couple of years. I also remember Ford as being generally quite financially prudent as a matter of corporate custom.
I also remember that Ford pulled an ad featuring the fact that they had survived on their own, without a bailout.
Wonder who put the muscle to them?
Nobody put the muscle to them. It’s their policies and who they have (and don’t have) in management. Leverage and financial engineering haven’t been on the plate.
That’s why Ford has been disparaged – they never held out the begging bowl, which makes all the other beggars look bad.
-Ford is a future Gem!
-It will never be humiliated with share prices of $1.01, on election day
of 11/20/2008 and few month later with the low of $1.52 on 2/20/09.
-GM will never disappear again. It will be a Gem, too !
-Both go through a metamorphosis to become nationally important co’s.
-Kia, on the other hand might be @ risk. Every car mfg. east of W. Bengal
will be. Because Trump seek two targets.
Internationally : N. Korea.
Internally, in the US : silicon valley. He will cut & dice it and shift
major pcs. to the Midwest. From Pittsburgh Pa. ,Ohio, to Detroit Michigan & Indiana, all the way south to Austin & Dallas Tx.
-Michigan, Indiana and W. Pa will get most of attention.
-Sorry, but that’s politics
California is the gateway that Asian countries use to ship their goods. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that Lexus loving west coasters should pay the price for the role they play in decimating America’s heartland.
Tell you what, I won’t characterize all red-staters as foaming-at-the-mouth fundamentalists if you don’t characterize all Californians as Lexus-loving liberals. My car is a 2008 Mustang GT–name a car that is more American; in assembly, content and symbolism.
California has become a thorn, hopefully it slides into the ocean and takes it’s BS with it. DC and NYC are equally defective.
You’ll miss California; you can’t pay your bills without our help.
My parasitic bills are in large degree, a result of Californians influence in DC
Oddly enough, I’ve been lamenting my Jeep and wish I’d bought a Lexus RX, which happens to be made in the US, btw.
America’s heartland is filled with inbred, toothless hicks who can go f— off back to the 19th century.
Gosh, I love painting with wide strokes, don’t you?
I wasn’t aware N. Korea is a major vehicle manufacturer or that Trump has a specific plan to restrict trade with this country known for human rights violations.
I do know that N. Korea is #1 on list of military threats, China is inching up and in recent history US has a terrible record of being a bully. IMO, US has been a bully at nearly everyone’s expense (except US politicians and military industrial complex investors have gotten rich due to waging fake wars), so maybe I can’t blame China?
See RUSL ETF, market loves Putin in defiance of fake lying news casters claims.
Trump must be reading Wolfstreet as he trumptweeted about Toyota today!
I saw that!!
:-)
I have a 1932 Ford Roadster and IMO the most beautiful car ever built. Yes its cold in the winter, hot in the summer, I get wet when it rains and it drinks petrol, (gasoline), like a drunken sailor, but it is easy to maintain, every time I drive it I feel like I’m 17 years old and the chicks dig it. The BEST of all it has a rumble seat for the girlfriend so as I don’t have to listen to her bitch and moan. I love chicks, but why marry one when she nags you to grow up and buy a “NEW CAR” that depreciates in value and isn’t any fun to drive? “Where were you in ’62?” This is by far one of the most interesting articles on Wolfstreet!
When I was 17, I owned a Dodge Charger I’d bought used for $1,000 and boy was that a car….
You are so LUCKY to be living in the USA! I bet you wish you had kept it?
I wish I could’ve kept it out of the elements, it eventually rotted away.
Very sad! It would be worth a mint today.
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.pinthiscars.com%2Fimages%2Fdodge-charger-rt-1970-interior-wallpaper-8.jpg&f=1
That Carroll Shelby designed ’67 Mercury Cougar handling package as a high school kid is probably what kept this young fool alive. Honestly, I had it airborne and even raced it on an asphalt track.
The USA is Hot Rod and Muscle Car Heaven. Just imagining the chicks you would have picked up in the ’67 Mercury!
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fimage1.cougparts.com%2Fsc%2Fimages%2F1000380.jpg&f=1
This is it almost exactly. I sold it to a man wanting to restore it for his teenage son. That thing is a road course car, it loved the pig trails in the Ozarks. Girls did like it…
https://youtu.be/0y0542trBiM
Just Googled Ozarks. Looks like a really cool place to live! I am in Australia. I love old American cars. I am surmising with Nixon going off the GOLD standard in August 1971, the price of oil going from $3.00 to $12.00 a barrel, inflation and economical & cheap Japanese cars spelt the death knell for American Muscle Cars? My Dad was also German. He could never understand my obsession with American cars and R’n’R. He however did advise me to buy physical GOLD and SILVER … wise man, but did I listen NO because I was @#$%ING smart! Wish I had of as I would be a millionaire today.
My dad found the car and bought it off a used car lot in Fort Smith, AR about 1974, before the used car prices exploded. He let me take it over a couple of years later when I was old enough to get a license. Smart man, full blood German.
Yeah, Reb, the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and another embargo in 1978-79 contributed to it also. Deregulation of airlines changed the refineries to more jet fuel, then the government removed oil industry price & allocation controls and we lost over a hundred refineries in the mid 1980’s. The NEO-STUPIDS had arrived.
That Cougar was still running in 1990 or so when I sold it to this man who was simply crazy about it. He could restore it, I couldn’t afford to and didn’t want to see it wasted away… his kid didn’t seem to like it… bet that changed after it was restored.
Here we go again, the Neo-Stupids… remember when the transition team asked for names of climate change staff at DOE and women’s program staff at State? This is why. What a mean, vindictive bunch the GOP.
House Republicans revive obscure rule that allows them to slash the pay of individual federal workers to $1
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/house-republicans-revive-obscure-rule-that-could-allow-them-to-slash-the-pay-of-individual-federal-workers-to-1/2017/01/04/4e80c990-d2b2-11e6-945a-76f69a399dd5_story.html?postshare=9111483655972852&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.f1151953a7a2
I was thinking that the Land Rover thing might be explicable in terms of demand for paramilitary vehicles being insulated from the vicissitudes of the non-war economy, but it doesn’t seem to have helped Toyota with Hiluxes. Then again, maybe everyone who wants a hilux already has one.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-06/bmw-finance-to-repay-millions-to-customers/8095076
I am currently in negotiation with Volkswagon Finance over a loan they gave my young underemployed daughter for a $50k high performance car at 13% finance. Negotiations are through the Credit Ombudsman and things are looking good.
She might even be refunded.
Fingers crossed.
That’s interesting, and I wonder what’s happening with this over here in the US. When I see that the average amount spent on a new car is around $34K here in the US, and the median household income is $52K, it makes me think that many are in over their head.
I mean, candidly, my income apparently puts me in the top five percent in the US, and I’ve never spent $34K on a car.
The 3/2 brick house I bought in 1986 cost $36K. I just can’t wrap my brain around a car costing just about what a house used to. But I am old.
At the time the US little 3 got into trouble, Ford had that idiot Nasser who bungled the Firestone tires on the automatically-rolling-over-explorers, So in comes the Boeing guy, who in order to build his crap needs MAJOR FINANCING – He takes this to Blue Oval, sees the writing and lines up several LARGE lines of credit with long lives, this is pretty much how F didn’t need a bail out. Almost forgot, Billy was in there between Nasser and the Boeing guy, he is too dumb to to stuff groceries into plastic or paper bags…. His grand daddy would have whipped him for what he did….. Does he have an MBA —? Just one?
They did do plenty of stupid though, I think they owned in part or whole, Range Rover, Jaguar, Mazda, and Volvo, oh, I was gunna say SAAB too, but that mess was GM’s…..
It will be interesting to see what luck Donald has leveling the fields with trade, I wish him luck. I can see him kicking some out if we can’t sell our crap in their countries, maybe that’s what needs to happen…. Still love my Honda’s
And yes I also get lots of offers both for my ’88 Dakota, and our old 91, and ’86 Honda’s.
Also found this little tidbid on today’s news feed….
“DETROIT – Ford Motor Co. is pulling out of Japan and Indonesia, saying that market conditions in each country have made it difficult to grow sales or make sustained profits.
“Japan is the most closed, developed auto economy in the world, with all imported brands accounting for less than 6% of Japan’s annual new car market,” spokesman Neal McCarthy said. The 12-nation Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement in its current form will not improve Ford’s ability to compete there, he said. Congress could vote on the pact this year.”
Neither market is large for the Dearborn, Michigan, automaker. Last year Ford sold only 6,100 cars and trucks in Indonesia and only 5,000 in Japan, where it has accused the government of protecting domestic brands.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/01/26/business/corporate-business/despite-tpp-ford-exit-closed-japan-indonesia/#.WG6ZwVKfKYV
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Your comments keep getting caught in my moderation queue for some reason, and I cannot figure out why. Could you try as a test to post a comment without the URL of the Avon site? Just to see if it will go through. Just write “test” into the comment. I’ll delete the test comment. Thanks.
As someone who likes to follow the South East Asian market, I am not sure how Ford had structured their operation in Indonesia, but without having a local partner, they are toast. The Japanese automakers all have a local partner although the term “local” has changed quite a bit. For example: Toyota is still partnered with Astra, however the majority ownership of Astra has changed to Jardine’s Cycle and Carriage after the local owner got into trouble with the Bank Summa bankcruptcy.
Too many banks and too many dealers and three jeeps on one corner! A mile from the foothills.
Mountain homes available along any point overlook or pinnacle!
Rates are low sellers are motivated
City is ideal for your green thumb Broadmoor Colo.