Are Foreign-Built Cars Superior to the American Made Machine?
If you think that the debate over which is better, an American or foreign made automobile is an age old controversy, you're right.
We came across an article on the internet from the New York Times with the title “Foreign-Built Car Is Superior to the American-Made Machine”, and reading through it, like so many other articles today making this claim, one would have thought it was written recently. Surprisingly, it was published 100 years ago on October 18th, 1908.
This century old article blasts American auto makers by saying that they have faithfully copied an outward appearance and design of foreign models that has resulted in an appearance of being a twin brother. Also, complaints were raised about America’s tendency to consolidate its large manufacturing industries over their constant concerns of huge capitol and seeking only large orders. Sound familiar?
The person behind the slander of American made cars was E. R. Hollander, a Fiat dealer in New York at the time, who is said to have pursued racing legend Ralph De Palma to drive a Fiat Cyclone at the Minneapolis State Fair. In the Cyclone, Palma established a new one mile record at 52 seconds at this meet and went on to win more than 2,000 of the 2,800 races that he entered.
But E.R. Hollander was also known as part owner of Hol-Tan Company which sold the Moon Car to Easterners. And Hol-Tan was famous for being the first to enter an American made car, their Moon, in the 1908 Great Race from New York to Paris…and then backed out three weeks before the race. Harry Fosdick, Hol-Tan Company’s Vice President at the time was quoted to say;
“We have carefully considered the question in all its details, and have come to the conclusion that we are entertaining no dream in endeavoring to show that an American built machine can successfully accomplish the rigors of a tour of this sort.”That might have been the reason they backed out. So was the article of October 1908 just sour grapes by E. R. Hollander? It just might be because on June 30th, 1908, the Great Race was won by an American automobile, the Thomas Flyer.
Comments
I have been quiet for 20 years. But, I have to speak up now. I was the owner of one of the last (to change to Chrysler) AMC/JEEP/Renault Dealerships in the St. Louis area. I have been looking around at different blogs about the reliability of American made cars. On September 28, 1982, I took Dealership delivery of our first AMC/Renault Alliance DL 4-Door. I kept that car for myself and I still have it 25 years later! I also kept for myself a 1986 Alliance L 4-door, and a 1986 Encore GS. We have all 3 cars to this day! NO RUST, NO BREAKDOWNS, NOT ONE TIME did any of them leave us sitting on the side of the road. In July 1994 I bought a NEW Dodge Caravan LE and in the first 3 months it was TOWED to a Dealer 4 times and driven in for service 5 more times. I finally after 2 transmissions and one cylinder heads replacement I got a lawyer and got my money back! We just kept on driving our little Renaults. My daughter finally in June of 2003 talked us into buying another NEW car. We bought a 2004 Ford F-150XLT. We pulled out of the dealers lot at just a couple minutes after 3pm…. At 4:35pm I was riding in the cab of the Pippin Towing truck on the way back to the dealership. We did not get the vehicle back for MORE THAN 2 WEEKS!!! When we got it back the A/C did not work, the CHECK ENGINE light would not go off, the front grill was broken and the engine would die when you first put it in gear in the morning!! Ford Service Manager told us that we did not know how to operate a Pick-up Truck. I asked him why it was that we had more than 250,000 miles on our 3 AMC/Renault cars, without ONE BREAKDOWN. The EXPERT at Ford then said that we were just lucky!!!! The people of America will be driving this JUNK that is made today, as long as you keep BUYING IT!!!
Sorry about the typo, we bought the F150 in June of 2004.
the only cars that are police cars for 5 years and then a taxi for 10 more years and hold up are american! magnus chicago area.