GM bashing a bit overboard

[C M Smith <cmsmith@domain.elided>]

Sorry guys, but the fact is that the General builds cars that way because 
the customers LIKE them that way. If the customers ever decided they wanted 
them different then the General would oblige. No one ever went broke 
UNDERESTIMATING the taste or intellectual capabilities of the general 
public (to really bastardize a source).

The SAAB 9 3 is a fine car. The Olds Aurora and the Cadillac STS are also 
fine cars. The new Lincoln Jaguar is a definite step in the right 
direction, people are actually buying them! The last two Corvettes are 
fantastic machines though not to my taste (had a drive of the older C4 
recently, what a rocket). Buicks are very well built crummy cars,( by my 
driving standards, but other more normal people LIKE them and buy thousands 
of them). If more normal people liked ALFAs enough to buy them maybe 
there'd be a few performance versions built that we more weird types could 
actually buy.

  No one is going to change North American driving tastes anytime soon, 
what we Alfisti need is a company which will produce enough ALFAs 
attractive to more North American buyers that there'll actually be a market 
for them. Half an ALFA is indeed better than no ALFA at all, springs and 
shocks can be swapped, engines can be chipped, the designers will still be 
Italian, some of them anyway.

Bring on the fruits of this hybrid union, lets see if ALFA can redesign 
it's cars to make them actually convenient to use in the North American 
driving environment (completely different from conditions in Europe) while 
retaining the driving character we love. SAAB has done it, Volvo has 
actually made huge improvements, Jaguar is positively influencing Ford (as 
well as vice versa). And who knows, maybe the General will finally allow 
the Caddy that zigs to actually drive more like the Opel it is derived 
from, beats the heck out of the Allante anyway.





Michael Smith
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
91 Alfa 164L, White, original owner

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