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Musings on Cars
May. 4th, 2006 06:15 pmHave you ever wondered whom the auto companies actually serve?
I ask this because it increasingly seems that the actual car buyers get precious little opportunity to make their concerns heard.
Before you get going on an angry rebuttal about how different consumers are as a "populous," let me give a bit of background information. My grandmother had two sisters who owned identical cars. They were two-toned Oldsmobiles from the 50s, teal-green with white accents. Both women owned these cars, I believe, until the day they died.
Since one did not often see identical cars owned by sisters -- especially by sisters so generous with enormous chocolate bars every time you saw them -- I asked where they got them. Back in the fifties, they and their husbands (both men died many years before) took a grand trip by train from Port Angeles, Washington, almost as far west as one could travel in the contiguous United States, to Motor City, to Detroit, where they ordered and received their respective identical cars. Then, it was another grand trip home, this time by road.
Since hearing this story (or mishearing it; it's so hard to tell), I too wanted to get my car as they had. That would give me the opportunity Tanta Frieda and Tanta Carrie had, to see your own car built, and to be the very first to road trip it home. Neat concept, huh?
Except you can't exactly do that anymore. At least not in the US.
And the cars show that to be true.
( Very true, indeed. )
I ask this because it increasingly seems that the actual car buyers get precious little opportunity to make their concerns heard.
Before you get going on an angry rebuttal about how different consumers are as a "populous," let me give a bit of background information. My grandmother had two sisters who owned identical cars. They were two-toned Oldsmobiles from the 50s, teal-green with white accents. Both women owned these cars, I believe, until the day they died.
Since one did not often see identical cars owned by sisters -- especially by sisters so generous with enormous chocolate bars every time you saw them -- I asked where they got them. Back in the fifties, they and their husbands (both men died many years before) took a grand trip by train from Port Angeles, Washington, almost as far west as one could travel in the contiguous United States, to Motor City, to Detroit, where they ordered and received their respective identical cars. Then, it was another grand trip home, this time by road.
Since hearing this story (or mishearing it; it's so hard to tell), I too wanted to get my car as they had. That would give me the opportunity Tanta Frieda and Tanta Carrie had, to see your own car built, and to be the very first to road trip it home. Neat concept, huh?
Except you can't exactly do that anymore. At least not in the US.
And the cars show that to be true.
( Very true, indeed. )
