The End Of The Affair

With the U.S. automobile industry falling into what appears to be permanent decline, Paul Harris muses on what it means for America's "love affair with the car" when its cars are built somewhere else.

1 minute read

January 31, 2006, 5:00 AM PST

By Michael Dudley

"America's tempestuous affair with the car has become a passionless marriage. Americans still need their cars, but the world has changed and they no longer really love them. Chrysler was taken over by Germany's Daimler. Japanese firms, such as Toyota and Honda, are opening plants as Ford shuts down. Cars are not big business. Ford as a company is worth about $15bn -- Google is worth $129bn."

"Many of the US cars now on the market copy modest European and Japanese designs and shun the brasher concepts. Ford has brought in two Britons to be in charge of the look of its European and US products. Future cars will also be more fuel-efficient and aware of green issues. That is probably good for the environment, but represents a huge shift in what a car actually means to Americans - and what America means to itself."

FULL STORY: How the US fell out of love with its cars

Sunday, January 29, 2006 in Observer (UK)

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