“The small cars that Detroit had produced, [Hal Sperlich] believed, had been bad ones, reluctant efforts at best. If anything the companies had brought out inferior, unappealing small cars to prove their own thesis that small cars were in fact inferior and unpopular. The cars were not very good, were weak and underpowered, and the companies had not pushed them, and that had proved, the industry argued, that Americans did not like small cars.
When the market for big cars finally went sour in the late seventies, during the energy crisis, the Detroit people argued that it was not their fault, for they had produced small cars in the past and their customers had turned away. That was true, Sperlich believed, but it was far from the whole truth, which was that the industry had never given its customers good small cars. Rather, he was convinced, Detroit had produced its small cars in precisely the wrong way, not as a labor of love but as a defensive necessity, to fend off at least momentarily the European invasion. It had been done by men whose hearts had never been in it.”
— David Halberstam, The Reckoning (1986; pp. 512-513)
RE:SOURCES
- Halberstam, David; 1986. The Reckoning. William Morrow & Co., New York, NY.
BROCHURES & ADVERTISEMENTS:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Ford Pinto (1972)
Also see ‘Lee Iacocca got lucky with the 1964-66 Ford Mustang’
Curbside Classics had a great article today on how bad Road and Track found the original 1970 Maverick. The Maverick was inferior in every way to the 66 to 70 Falcon that preceded it. One person pointed out that Ford may have been better off keeping the Falcon and improving it the way Chrysler did Valiant/Dart in the 70’s. Of course, the Fairmont that replaced the Maverick was a more rational vehicle, but rather flimsy itself.
I owned a Maverick for a while and found it to be crude and unreliable. Not sure I’d compare it to the 1966-70 Falcon because that was a shortened mid-sized Fairlane rather than a true compact. The Maverick was more like a decontented 1969-70 Mustang without the long snout. Or a 1965 Falcon with trendier styling.
In a way the Maverick was admirable because it was ultra simple. However, it also seemed to be designed to get you to consider moving up to a bigger Ford. There wasn’t even a glove box.
The Pinto turned out to be a more sophisticated car. I borrowed one for a while and didn’t find it to be terribly satisfying, particularly compared to the imports I subsequently owned.
My favorite small car of the 1970s and early-80s was a 1981 Honda Civic. The base model was hardly fancy, but the car was relentlessly reliable, got great gas mileage, was fun to drive and was quite roomy for its size. I never went back to a US car.
I suspect that what Sperlich had in mind was a small car along the lines of a Civic, e.g., he was quite big on front-wheel drive at a time when Detroit auto executives still tended to consider that technology to be too exotic and expensive to use in American economy cars.
FYI, you inspired me to come up with a fake ad about the 1971 Maverick (go here).
This article is based on part of a book by David Halberstam, who was one of the customers at my antique car repair shop. David and his brother Michael owned a 1950 Studebaker Champion Regal Deluxe, and I had just about finished working on it when 3 weeks before Christmas 1980, I heard on the radio of Michael’s sudden death from a man who robbed his home and shot him before fleeing. The last time I spoke with David was when he and and Michael’s wife Elliott came out to my shop and picked up the car.
To read about the tragic but interesting incident [Michael was driving himself to the hospital, saw his killer, and ran him over with his Monte Carlo.], the local PBS station has a great article on the crime and the criminal who killed Michael, and burglarized many residences of wealthy Washington DC homeowners: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2018/11/28/running-down-ghost-burglar
Bill, that’s a tragic story but thank you for sharing it. Life can be more fragile than we might sometimes imagine.
Edouard Seidler’s book on the Fiesta and Steve Saxty’s Secret Ford books does touch upon the Detroit attitude towards small cars.
In Ford’s case they would typically cite their UK division’s tale of taking apart a Mini and finding it cost more to build, while omitting the fact it was done before the Mini went on to become a sales success as well as fact the costing was before the launch of the similarly successful 1100/1300 aka America which carried over much from the Mini to further improve economies of scale (that is not to say there wasn’t scope for further component sharing above 30% or cost-reduction).
The Big Three plus AMC did not have to have its smaller cars be FWD immediately in North America, just something that would not look completely out of place in Europe or Australia if not even properly adapt its overseas models to the US domestic markets (including overseas-inspired halo models) before it was done out of necessity.
From what information is available on Big Three efforts into small FWD cars. Ford had the Cardinal aka P4/P6 later the mk1 Fiesta, GM had the Vauxhall XP-714 (Opel followed later with their own FWD project in the late-1960s) and Chrysler basically inherited the Simca 1100 (despite their opposition to it on top of FWD saloon prototype*).
AFAIK closest AMC or Kaiser-Jeep came was the Renault 16-based Jeep Model H concept.
*Simca saloon prototype – https://www.facebook.com/cardesignarchives/posts/pfbid029nwLxJZXrsXKfGu7dyDfyRWU6W6CjhRQLXFFBrSnvYjj7dV7nqYJTQ7sekecT1jJl
Hemmings Motor News current page has an article on the Jeep model H.
Just seen the Hemmings article. It makes one contemplate if AMC being in a position to acquire Kaiser-Jeep earlier would have opened up an opportunity for AMC, via a short-term alliance with Renault to also gain Willys Project M aka the Renault 12 derived Ford Corcel (later Ford Del Rey / Pampa) before Ford do Brazil acquired Willys do Brazil.
The Renault 16-sourced 1.5-litre Cleon-Alu engine used in the Jeep Model H was originally designed as an inline-six for the Renault Fregate replacing front-engine RWD Renault Projet 114 saloon that preceded what became the 16. Renault also had thoughts of using a 1.3-litre version of the 1.5 engine for the Renault 12, allowing another way for an “AMC Corcel” to differentiate itself from Renault (that used the Cleon-Fonte later seen as a 1.4-litre powering the Le Car / Alliance) and provide a smaller engine for AMC receptive to both tuning by Lotus and additional development as well as turbocharging (though one that would only allow for longitudinal FWD installation).
The Renault 12 / Ford Corcel route would have allowed AMC further flexibility in creating various spinoffs on its own including further downsized models, think Renault equivalent of the Brasilian-built North American Volkswagen Fox followed by a smaller Ford Fiesta-sized model (see Fox/Gol-based VW BY projeto) akin to the Ford Mini-Corcel projeto.
It was even possible for the 12/Corcel to be used to eventually replace the Jeep Model H by way of the ARO 10 aka Dacia Duster and Brazilian Ford Jampa prototype. While Dacia also looked at other bodystyles like the Brasovia Coupe, Liberta Hatchback (see also Dacia 1320), Jumbo LAV and Pick-Up.
Hal Sperlich seems to have been one executive with a brain. What a shame they weren’t all like this.
I always wondered why the American companies seemed to make such a half-hearted effort at smaller cars. I’d heard it was to encourage buyers to ‘move up’ to a more profitable vehicle – as though that was somehow desirable. But how come it never occurred to the executives that buyers would look elsewhere to get what they wanted? Did they really think Americans were so brand-indoctrinated that they would not jump ship?
As an Aussie, I was intrigued by the Maverick, which we didn’t get here. It seemed a good idea, but why was it such a basic stripper? In Australia our slightly larger Falcon could be ordered with a long list of comfort and convenience items denied to Maverick buyers at first. Admittedly our Falcon was the standard-size car here, but why was the American industry so slow to realize that buyers might want some luxury in a smaller package? They seemed to be reacting reluctantly rather than anticipating buyer demands, as Ford had with the Mustang.
Then there were all those drivability and quality issues. The seventies was not a good time for cars.
So, the idea was to hand the small inexpensive car buyers a POS in the hopes they will trade up. Yeah, let’s go back to the dealer and manufacturer that boned us like a new prisoner in SuperMax. So they get a Corolla, or a Civic, or a 510 and never look back. Ray Charles could have seen this coming. Jeez, this is Marketing 101.