The Long View

Like most boys, my second objects of infatuation and attachment (after my parents) were cars.

 Growing up in the 1950s and 60s, my friends and I could tell the nuances of styling changes from one year to the next (which baffled my fifth-grade teacher, Miss Keefe), and could even recognize the make of an auto by the sound of its motor (we would sit behind bushes in my back yard listening and guessing before spotting cars going down the street).

Cars had aeronautical wings and fins and scoops and anthropomorphic languid eyes and perky breasts, made out of metal, chrome plated or lacquered to a bright finish.

When I was growing up there were still DeSotos, Nashes, and Studebakers. My father bought used American cars until 1961 when he bought his first in a long line of VWs. (He fought in the South Pacific, not in Europe, so he was less inclined to avoid a German car than a Japanese car.)

So now Chrysler Motors, which in my green and salad days almost went out of business, marches toward bankruptcy, with General Motors close behind. A complex combination of factors have led to this sorry decline, some related to labor, some related to management. Equally clueless in both parts.

A recent issue of the New York Times Sunday Automobiles section was particularly telling.

Front page above the fold: “The Hybrid Superstar Now Shines Brighter.” Of the six listed in “This Year’s Hybrid Parade,” only one is American: Ford Fusion.

Inside, the display ads also tell the story: Multiple dealerships of Acura, Audi, BMW, Infiniti, Lexus, Mercedez-Benz, Volvo. Oh, yeah. And the ubiquitous Potamkin Cadillac (but also Potamkin Saab).

I remember when Chrysler Imperial was de luxe. Avery Dulles (now a Catholic cardinal) used to drive one (a hand me down either from his father, John Foster Dulles, or his uncle, Allan Dulles) when I was in the seminary at Catholic University in the late 1970s. Lincoln was the limousine of presidents.

Sic transit gloria transit.