Patrick Foster’s George Romney bio is rose-tinted but valuable

Patrick Foster (2005) once lamented that he couldn’t find a publisher for a book on George Romney. “A typical rejection goes something like this: George Romney led an exemplary life, was honest in business, never cheated on his wife or got arrested for drunk driving. Who wants to read about someone like that?”

Twelve years later Foster was able to get published a biography entitled, George Romney: An American Life. Foster deserves applause for his persistence, and Waldorf Publishing deserves credit for championing an important book. Outside of Foster’s writings, Romney has received strikingly little visibility in American automotive histories even though he was one of the most successful industry leaders of the post-war era.

Foster was the ideal historian to write about Romney

It makes sense that Foster would take on this project given his already-extensive knowledge of American Motors and multiple interviews with Romney before he died in 1995.

Readers of Foster’s AMC books will find a familiar storyline of Romney’s tenure as head of the fledgling company, which stretched from 1954 to 1962. However, this book provides a more granular narrative about how Romney approached his work.

Also see ‘Five (arguably) unresolved mysteries of postwar independent automakers’

Foster does a terrific job of sketching Romney’s iconoclastic spirit. For example, in discussing Romney’s call for the Big Three to be broken up (see second quote below), Foster notes that “Romney became a pariah in Detroit. Naturally, he didn’t mind because he believed he was right and that was all it took for him to go out on a limb as he had done. At times, it seemed like he rather enjoyed being the outsider” (p. 173).

Foster offers Romney’s take on historical debates

An American Life sheds light on a number of historical controversies, such as the adversarial relationship between Romney and Studebaker-Packard CEO James Nance. As with his AMC books, Foster focuses on reporting Romney’s side of the conflicts, such as with a parts-sharing agreement gone bad. His perspective deviates from authors such as George Hamlin and Dwight Heinmuller (2002), who blame Romney for the agreement’s collapse.

Foster does acknowledge that Romney’s decision to stop purchasing Packard V8s would end up costing American Motors $10 million to develop its own engine at a time when the company’s financial situation was increasingly tenuous.

This illustrates Foster’s basic approach. Although he interjects critiques at a number of junctures, he is a sympathetic biographer. And sometimes he lapses into hagiography.

Romney drew Big Three to come out with compacts?

Perhaps Foster’s grandest claim is that the Big Three’s rush to introduce compact cars in the early-60s “was almost entirely due to” Romney (see third quote below). That doesn’t add up for me.

I don’t doubt that rising AMC sales in 1957-58 likely contributed to the Big Three’s decision to begin developing compacts. However, even in 1958 Rambler output only reached roughly 162,000 units — a drop in the bucket to the Big Three.

Also see ‘George Romney made eight big mistakes at AMC’

Meanwhile, Foster minimizes the remarkable rise of imported cars, which by 1958 had captured 8.1 percent of the market (Flammang and the auto editors of Consumer Guide, 1995).

That GM, Ford and Chrysler came out with compacts rather than direct competitors to imported subcompacts strikes me as having more to do with 1) the difficulty of making a profit on a U.S.-built subcompact and 2) Detroit’s myopic view that Americans wouldn’t stick with such small cars.

Okay, Romney was really good — but not that good

Foster also rightly highlights Romney’s pioneering effort to partner with labor to make better-built cars. This is a key reason why the early-60s Rambler was a forerunner to today’s Toyota Camry. But then Foster argues that behind-the-scenes negotiation with labor leader Walter Reuther led “to the greatest change in collective bargaining in history” (p. 182).

Yes, that’s close to what Reuther actually said at the time of the agreement’s approval. However, the agreement, which centered around profit sharing, proved to be an outlier in labor-management relations in the U.S. auto industry (Block, 2006). Indeed, profit sharing at AMC was also short-lived, lasting only three years (Foster, 2013).

By the same token, Romney’s efforts to cut AMC’s breakeven point during the mid-50s are presented as tough-minded when one might wonder why he took so long to sell off excess plant capacity in California and Detroit. And while Foster rightly lauds Romney’s resurrection of the 100-inch-wheelbase Rambler in 1958, one might also ask if he had been short-sighted to ditch the import fighter two years earlier. AMC could have used the extra sales during the dark days of 1956-57.

The schmaltz can get rather thick

Judging from the videos I’ve seen of Romney (go here), he sounds like a pretty charismatic leader. Even so, Foster sometimes amps up the schmaltz too much in making that point. Consider this passage:

“His honest appraisal of problems and opportunities inspired his dealers as nothing else had ever done. They gave Romney a standing ovation. More importantly, they pledged themselves to the fight. They became part of the team of thousands and thousands of people pledged to try to save American Motors. They too had felt his missionary zeal.” (p. 161)

Welp, I wasn’t there. But inspired dealers as nothing else had ever done? Ever?

Foster’s admiration for Romney is understandable, but he strikes me as trying too hard to “sell” us on the man’s greatness.

Should Romney have bought Willys?

Foster’s greatest criticism of Romney’s leadership of AMC was his refusal to purchase Willys Motors, which was suggested by then-vice president Roy D. Chapin Jr. This a “huge error of business judgment,” Foster contends. Willys could have given American Motors a foothold in the growing truck market and expanded the company’s overseas operations (p. 188).

Also see ‘AMC’s Roy D. Chapin Jr. succumbed to the illusion of bigness’

That may well have been true, although Studebaker could have more easily integrated the two automakers’ plant capacity. This was because both Willys and Studebaker vehicles used separate body-on-frame construction. In contrast, American Motors only built unit-body cars, which required a different assembly method. This made it more difficult for AMC to efficiently manage the capacity of its plants after purchasing Willys’ successor corporation, Kaiser-Jeep, in 1969.

Romney’s refusal to purchase Jeep may have also been grounded in his apparent distaste for “economic imperialism,” which drove him to develop foreign partnerships rather than own operations in other nations (Harrison, 1962). That strikes me as an unusually principled political stance for a U.S. automobile executive — particularly in the early-60s.

This is a valuable book on a prescient auto executive

My quibbles in this review are not intended to diminish the importance of Foster’s book or Romney’s accomplishments at American Motors. His misfires were far outweighed by an all-too-rare level of prescience for a post-war American auto executive. Foster, in this biography as well as his various books on AMC, is one of the few auto historians who really gets what made Romney so exceptional.

Foster’s biography covers a lot more ground that just Romney’s tenure at AMC. The whole book is worth a read, both because Romney is an interesting public figure and Foster tells an engaging story.

For another take on An American Life, check out a story by Paul Niedermeyer (2021). He draws heavily from Foster’s book to offer an overview of Romney’s early years at Nash and American Motors.

George Romney: An American Life

• Foster, Patrick; 2017
• Waldorf Publishing, Grapevine, TX

“Romney still faced problems with the executive ranks at American Motors. Despite Rambler’s popularity, he needed to convert many of his upper level managers to the idea of small cars because there was an entrenched ‘big car’ mentality leftover from the days when Nash and Hudson were big sellers. Recalling it later Romney said, ‘When I came into the company there were only three men in management at that point who really believed in the Rambler smaller car program. Other officers endeavored to enlist my help; they wanted me to convince (then-CEO George) Mason to kill the whole thing.” (pp. 138-9)

“On February 7, 1958, George Romney was sitting in the witness chair at a Senate hearing concerning the soaring cost of living, which was giving special emphasis to large price increases in steel, petroleum, and automotive industries. although it was an ordinary, one might even say routine Senate hearing, Romney was about to drop a bombshell right in the heart of Detroit. . . . (H)e stated flatly that for the good of the country the Big Three automakers should be broken up into smaller companies, which would serve to encourage competition. . . . To the men of the Big Three this was heresy of the highest order. Romney was figuratively nailing his theses to the door of the automaker’s church, and the big Three were infuriated.” (pp. 171-2)

“The fact that GM, Ford, and Chrysler felt the need to introduce small cars points up the amazing changes that were happening in the US auto marketplace and it was almost entirely due to the efforts of George Romney. Although GM and Ford claimed to be reacting to the growing demand for small imported cars, the products they developed and introduced were not ‘import fighters’ but instead aimed squarely at the Rambler. Through Romney’s unstinting efforts to bring the small car message to America he almost singlehandedly led America’s greatest industry in a whole, new direction.” (p. 177)

OTHER REVIEWS:

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RE:SOURCES

• Block, Richard N.; 2006. “Labor Relations in the Unionized Automobile Assembly Industry in the United States: 1961-2006.” Paper presented at the Automotive Partnership Council for North America, Toluca, Mexico.
• Flammang, James M., and the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide; 1995. Cars of the Fabulous ’50s: A Decade of High Style and Good Times. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
• Foster, Patrick; 2005. “George Romney.” Hemmings Classic Car. Published in July issue.
• ——; 2013. American Motors Corporation: The Rise and Fall of America’s Last Independent Automaker. MBI Publishing Co., Minneapolis, MN.
• Hamlin, George and Dwight Heinmuller; 2002. “Let the Ride Decide: The Fifty-Fifth Series 1955.” In Kimes, Beverly Rae, ed., pp. 582-601. Packard: A History of the Motor Car and the Company. Automobile Quarterly Publications.
• Harrison, Selig S.; 1962. “Romney and the Republicans.” The New Republic. Posted March 4.
• Niedermeyer, Paul; 2021. “Automotive History: George Romney At Nash/Rambler/AMC (1947-1962) – Unflinching Vision and Determination To Take On The Big Three Dinosaurs With Compacts.” Curbside Classic. Posted Feb. 5; accessed Feb. 6.

This is an expanded version of a review that was originally posted Nov. 1, 2019.