I fell in love for the first time when I was 16 years old.
Man, she was a beauty. A 1968 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible. Cherry red paint job. Spit-shined chrome. White rag top. A 390 V8 engine.
My friends called it “The Boat.” Of course, in those fuel-conscious days of the 1980s when Le Cars and Omnis rolled the streets instead of Hummers and Excursions, it was a boat.
But she was mine, and I cherished her so much I nearly scrubbed off the Earl Scheib paint job with all of the pampering and polishing. It was one of those typical love affairs Americans have with their cars.
Yet, I was in a bad relationship. A one-sided relationship, where one of us does all the work and endures all of the heartache.
She’d vapor lock on hot summer days, those days when having a convertible means everything. She dropped the drive shaft on my way home from working the night shift at Taco Time. She even stalled out in a busy Dairy Queen drive-thru – in full view of teenage girls inside.
My friends were patient as we’d wait, sometimes hours, for the engine to cool. But eventually, I had to end it. In time, she was replaced by a hand-me-down Chrysler, then a Chevy, a Jeep and a finally Dodge – a long line of American-made cars.
Well, I have a confession. After various reliability problems and thousands spent in repairs, my love affair with American cars is over. My wife and I recently bought a Toyota. And, to follow this relationship analogy, a tiny part of me felt like I was cheating.
Is it unpatriotic to cave and join the growing ranks of red, white and blue Yanks who drive “foreign” vehicles? (I’m not even sure what foreign means anymore, since you can’t truly buy a vehicle that’s made entirely in the U.S. anyway. But I know that it felt strange. Almost wrong.)
But, as we used to say, everyone’s doing it. For the first time ever, foreign-based automakers sold more vehicles in the U.S. in July than domestic manufacturers, known as the Big Three. (It’s not hard to imagine that title going the way of the Edsel.)
Over the past decade, the Big Three’s market share has dropped 20 percent. Foreign brands actually have been selling more cars in the U.S. since 2000, but U.S. automakers were able to cling to their overall marketplace majority by selling more large trucks and SUVs. But with high gas prices, and sky-is-falling environmental forecasts, our desire for huge cars has begun to ebb.
It’s a blow to the national psyche. A recent poll even indicated Americans now have more faith in Japanese-vehicle manufacturers than our friends in Detroit.
However, one auto industry analyst says our dim view of American cars is more a problem of perception than reality. His theory goes something like this: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a generation of teens got behind the wheel of their first car – usually a decade-old American-made car. Your father’s Oldsmobile, if you will. And it had all of the problems that go along with older, used cars. (See vapor lock, above.)
Then, when gas prices jumped and gas lines stretched out of stations, those consumers opted for new Japanese compact cars, which were more fuel-efficient and reliable. And by the time the Japanese expanded their fleets and began offering luxury models, consumers were hooked.
It’s a feasible theory. But thumbing through Consumer Reports this summer, it was painfully obvious that there still are real quality issues with U.S. brands. It’s a management problem the Big Three need to fix before more of us find ourselves out of love.
Still, on hot summer days, I find myself waxing nostalgic for that Ford. Americans still love their cars, and with a little American ingenuity and more quality control, the Big Three can woo consumers back.
Until then, it’s hardly unpatriotic to shop around. In fact, what’s more American than competition?
Dan Haley (dhaley@denverpost.com) is The Post’s editorial page editor.
