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W
e e k l y F
e a t u r e P a g e
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Here you may find articles of interest, pictures, historical information
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WHEELS
We all love’em. Big, small, fast, slow, steel, rubber, the world runs on
wheels and we love’em. For all of us that are still on the green side of
the grass, it’s been that way our whole lives. They made Michigan great,
they made America great, and we were the kings, right here in our own back yard.
The legacy is still here, many of the plants are still here, many of the guys
that worked in them are still here, and the UAW is still here with them, but
the rank and file is but a shadow of what it was in the glory days. Obviously,
it’s still a powerful organization, but a number of marketplace forces
have all aligned to vastly reduce their numbers, when compared to the figures
of the 50’s and 60’s era. At the time when many of us came out of
high school, the “shops” were taking about all the warm bodies
they could get, and it was almost a given that you could get a summer job
there or
even a permanent one if you so desired. For those who did, it was often only
a matter of time before you went to work for Uncle Sam in Southeast Asia,
but at least you kept your seniority in the shop.
It was a way of life here in Michigan. For much of the 20th century,
the heavy manufacturing industry kept America and the world on wheels.
It was
the bedrock
of the Nations economy and the rest of the world looked on us with envy,
while they looked to us to provide them with our products. It was that
same broad
based manufacturing infrastructure that was already in place which allowed
the generation
before us to put the military on wheels and even added the wings that turned
the tide of WWII. Henry Ford in Dearborn with the Rouge Plant, Steering
Gear with the “Gun Plant” in Saginaw, and similar facilities
all over this country were able to be quickly converted to the defense
industry needs
that would allow us to remain the “Land of the Free”. When
the war had been won, it was right back to Buicks and breadwinners, Pontiacs
and prosperity.
For most of us, the American Dream came with lots of chrome, a big V-8,
and the comforting knowledge that the bumper was securely bolted on by
Uncle Pat, the
farm boy from Irishtown who migrated to Flint to make a career at “the
Buick”.
Even us poor folks can remember the thrill of making a stop
at the local dealership when the new Chevy model was being unveiled because
we knew
it would look nothing
like the model before it. From two blocks away, we’d know if it
was a BelAir, or just a Biscayne, a Crown Victoria or a Customline, a
Roadmaster
or a Special.
How much “status” could your family afford? We knew that
Cadillac’s
were only driven by politicians or maybe the Pope, a good doctor might
have a Buick or Lincoln, a local business man might aspire to a Pontiac
or an Olds,
while the rest of us were well aware that our station in life was unmistakably
identified by the Chevys and Fords that we drove, and how many model
years out
of style it was. Even though it was more than half a century ago, we
all remember the first one we drove, the first one we owned, the first
one
we wrecked.
Fast forward to 2008, the North American Auto Show in Detroit,
right where it ought to be. Still quite a bit of hoopla attached, and
a fair
amount
of press
coverage, at least here in Michigan, but I can’t escape the feeling
that we will never recover the core magic that rolled in on those chrome
capped wheels
we saw in our youth. The new products, we know, are longer lasting,
more efficient, better designed than were the marvels of our era, but
they
also seem more homogenized,
more indistinguishable, more uninteresting. Songs like, “Little
GTO, Hot Rod Linclon, and “409”, aren’t likely to
be written about the 2008 offerings from the auto industry. Today,
all the
hype seems to center around
the latest electronic wizardry that has found it’s way into the
world of wheels. GPS, voice activated phones and music, stability control,
variable displacement,
traction control, DVD players, interactive speed control, etc. It seems
like the Las Vegas Electronics show and the Detroit Auto show have
merged. Smoke and
mirrors, loud music and anorexic models, big screen video sales pitches,
it all feels more like a “virtual” auto show to those of
us who remember the real smoke and thunder of a good test drive back
in our day. It should be
no surprise that the only truly big marketplace introductions these
days are for things like the latest I-Phone, or the newest Nintendo
widget.
You don’t
see people camping out overnight in front of the Ford dealer to be
the first in line to buy a new Focus.
As the National press almost
gleefully tells us that Toyota has nearly
tied General Motors in global auto production, the price ofgas regularly
exceeds
$3 per gallon,
and the price of a new F150 should get you a decent modular home, one
begins to wonder if we can ever recapture the great era when “Made
in America” was
the norm, and the label “Imported” only added snob appeal
to a bottle of wine? As local witnesses to the grand history of the
automobile, we very well
know what happens to the economy when the “Wheels” fall
off.
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