There is an entire segment of the internet automotive news industry that owes its existence to an all-out attack upon the North American car industry.
Current market conditions have given these assassins ample opportunity to apply a serious beating to the domestic auto-makers and feed negative garbage masqueraded as journalism to a large army of mindless chipmunks that buy into their program of venom.
“The daily bombing raids upon the character and product quality of domestic automobile manufacturers is largely a shooting-fish-in-a-barrel exercise for these clowns. So some of them have added a bonus feature on their sites that is a look at Detroit’s past, and it isn’t warm and nostalgic.”
The result is an expansion of topics into the realm of old cars and they don’t spare the lash for the old-timers. Instead they expose the vintage vehicles to an intense level of scrutiny and mock the style and engineering of the day.
“This is the point where these lowlifes should guess the weight of an old car after it has run over them.”
The problem is any comparison between now and then in car world is pointless right from the start. Henry Ford was a god with his affordable Model T, but it would be a reach to expect this legendary vehicle to compete with any car on any car lot today.
I won’t dignify this piece with any names of the sites, but I’m sure that many of you have crossed paths with these automotive hatchet men found on these websites. Most of them have a smarmy arrogant tone and little or no love for cars with a Big Three background, past or present.
The features usually go something like this: Dipstick picks a car from the past and judges its worth in largely 21st century terms while paying no attention to the limitations of cars from the past. Then a chorus of Grape Kool Aid drinkers form a circular form of self-gratification and post opinions that largely endorse the writer’s attack piece.
All of this is done with a fatal dose of an affliction known as a superiority complex. The worst part of these sites is that some of these writers are old enough to know better. They have ridden in, or driven, some of these vehicles when they were new out of the box. But, instead of a warm and fuzzy look at a bygone automotive era, they criticize the limitations of the cars.
They believe a late 60s Detroit sedan was supposed to handle like a BMW. They forget that a lot of us were thrilled when Detroit released its new look every fall and we sure didn’t give a rat’s a** about what Europe and Asia had on their lots.
Whenever I see these pieces that attack our automobile past, I can only come to one conclusion: These clowns were too busy getting beaten up on playgrounds during childhood to truly love cars.
Jim Sutherland
COMMENTS
DENNIS:”this is the same batch of elitists who drove a Volvo or a VW Micro-Bus to the “Save The World” rallies in the 60’s.
Back in the day when most of the cheaper European and Japanese cars were temper-mental little pieces of krap that couldn’t survive on American roadways and were instantly reduced to scrap in any kind of a collision with “Detroit Iron”.
The younger ones are just the product of those above since most of them are now college professors.”
WARREN:”Human nature being what it is, it’s always easier to point out faults, shortcomings and the negative aspects that it is to note the achievements, progress made and other positive aspects. Old story, a few people build things up, and a lot of people tear things down.
Aaron:””They have these bins set up around town lately as a promotion to sell new car, their slogan being “Let us recycle your old car.”
In one bin, at Kelowna Hyundai, was a 1956 Pontiac 4 door! WHY!?!?!?!?!”
