Grosse Pointe myopians Archives

1981-82 DeLorean illustrates Detroit’s failure to understand the rise of imports

March 4, 2021 Steve 20

(UPDATED 9/23/2022) The easiest way to sum up the spectacular failure of the DeLorean Motor Company is to say that its founder was exceptionally unlucky. I am hard pressed to think of a worse time […]

Brock Yates brilliantly analyzed fall of U.S. auto industry

January 22, 2021 Steve 0

The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry is one of the most important automotive books of the last 50 years. That’s because Brock Yates presented what may very well be the best all-around critique […]

Groupthink

May 22, 2019 Steve 1

A tendency toward groupthink has been a chronic problem in the American automobile industry since the mid-50s. This was a key driver of the domestic automakers’ dramatic decline from the late-60s onward. More recently, foreign […]

GM envy

December 1, 2018 Steve 0

GM envy is a tendency of other automakers — first domestic and later foreign — to slavishly copy the basic structure and strategy used by General Motors in its heyday. This has occurred despite General […]

Grosse Pointe myopians

November 1, 2018 Steve Comments Off

“Grosse Pointe myopians” is pejorative term that automotive journalist Brock Yates (2018) gave to the management class of domestic automakers in a review he wrote in 1968. That essay was subsequently expanded into a book, […]