Jay Leno on U.S. Cars: 'It Ain’t That Hard, Folks. Make Better Cars.'

[RobRich]

Jay Leno has penned an editorial for Portfolio.com describing the basic challenges and potential solutions for domestic automobile manufacturers in the United States.

Where we seem to lose it is in the low-bucks econocar. I used to be able to identify any American car from 25 yards. Now they all have this jellybean look. It’s a mystery to me, because the one thing we used to do better than anybody else was build cheap, extremely high-quality cars. We did it for decades, all the way back to the beginning of the industry. There was no better car for the money than the Model T. It was a basic car, but it used the finest materials available. There are still almost a million of them out there.

When you get into a high-priced, well-made American car today and the key is in the ignition, you hear a melodic bong, bong. But when you get in a cheap American car, like a rental, and the key is left in, it goes plink, plink, plink. It’s just horrible. Every time you use the turn signal, it’s like breaking a chicken leg. In order to make the more expensive car more appealing, U.S. companies feel as though they have to dumb down the cheaper car.

Source: Portfolio.com

[Gomer]

Jay Leno judges the quality of a car by the noise it makes when the key is left in the ignition?????? I sort of follow what he is driving at... but you would think he would come up with a much better example than that. Yeesh.

[M_Six]

...because the one thing we used to do better than anybody else was build cheap, extremely high-quality cars.

When was this?????

[RobRich]

Originally Posted by M_Six

When was this?????

From a general standpoint regarding the United States car market, up until around the 1970s. Most early Japanese imports were largely considered jokes due to rather poor build quality, cheap designs, and extremely underpowered drivetrains. Meanwhile, many European imports were regarded as overly expensive to acquire and maintain.

[Toadman]

The ol' "Made from Japanese Beer Cans" was alive and well. Link to article RR? He's been snoped many times before.