Re: Fw: Alfa Romeo Engineers: Unsung Innovators Behind Todays "Innovations" Part Three of Four

[Stacy Faught <slfaught@domain.elided>]

I have to agree, because the Japanese definately win the prize for taking others' 
inventions and mass-marketing them.  Most of the home electronics in use today are
supposed Japanese inventions (Sony and co.), but if you look hard enough, you'll find
that the original patents were developed by American or European engineers.  

But this poses an interesting question...who is really to blame for this?  Can you really 
blame the Japanese for taking obviously good technology and design and incorporating
it into their generally superior manufacturing techniques?  Can you also blame them for 
jumping on the marketing aspect that was so badly neglected by the originators of the
technology?  I'm not so sure here....they have a keen understanding of what it takes to 
sell vehicles (and other techno-gadgets) in the American and European marketplaces.
I even read the other day that in a random poll, Germans approved of Japanese cars
more than the cars built right at home....needless to say the American public feels the 
same way.  As a young research engineer, one of the first things I was told was that
I had to learn how to write and communicate my ideas, because you can have the best 
idea in the world, but if you can't tell anyone about it in a detailed, comprehensive way, then
you may as well never have had the idea.  I think the same thing applies here--Alfa made
some wonderful innovations to the automobile, but they never seemed to get the message 
out to the people.  Alfa Romeo and Fiat could take a good lesson from the Japanese 
companies as far as marketing goes--Alfa is mopping up in touring car racing, but contrary to
the old saying of 'win on sunday, sell on monday', Alfa and Fiat sales are down about 20%, as
of the latest numbers (and Lancia too...).  Meanwhile, Toyota keeps winning in CART and 
other insignificant racing events, but all I seem to see these days are Toyota commercials
linking them with racing, and Toyota continues to gain market share, even in Italy.

As far as I have seen, Honda, ect.. have never said specifically that they 'invented' VVT,
or that their body designs were amazingly original.  They took what was good from what
was out there, put it in a reliable package, and advertised the hell out of it.  It makes sense, 
if you think of their culture as being an underdog---they were decimated by WWII, and to 
recover they had to do whatever it takes--and sometimes 'whatever it takes' is grabbing 
anything that works and putting it all together, regardless of who did it first.

I've noticed a 'pride factor' in American manufacturing---the mentality of "we always did it
this way, and we're going to continue to do it this way, because we thought of it and 
no one is gonna tell us that some jap has figured a way to do it better."
I can't imagine that it's much different in the proud Italian factories and design studios, either.

The Japanese are very different in this respect---they were downtrodden and beat-up, and
were forced to think that the way they did things was wrong, and the way we do things is 
right, so they took everything the rest of the world does and added their own source of 
pride---they improved it, or at least managed to convince they buying public that they did.  

The end result of this is that we get a lot of "me too" cars out there from Toyota and friends....
I don't like them, but the masses are lining up.  
I can't really fault them for this----and I certainly can't say that what they make is crap, since
they seem to be selling a whole ton of cars these days.  Instead of bashing the Asians, I tend
to think that the original inventors and designers dropped the ball here, because they 
never took advantage of being the first to do something, and thus missed out big-time.

At the same time---is this a bad thing?  Would we love our Alfas nearly as much if we saw them
as much as you see Toyotas?  I think it's kind of cool to drive down the road with the 
feeling of "I know something you don't" to every other driver out there.  Just a thought...  :)





Thanks for your letter ...you are absolutely right!   I have been
absolutely livid reading popular press accounts and advertisements of
supposed new stuff.  I had almost been motivated to write also, but
thankfully you came through with a hell of a lot more facts than I could
have presented.

Back in the 1970s and 1980's, Alfa needed a stronger presence in USA to
command the respect of information venues such as Automotive News, which, if
prompted and properly courted might have written the accurate truth about the
Italian
automobile engineer's contribution to the motoring world in 'real time'
.....and if that
authoritative material was read by the common urinalists of the day ....they
might have
picked it up and propagated the truth throughout the literary landscape.

I still hate with a passion the copying Japanese who thought and still think
nothing about
stealing Italian style and engineering.  The entire Alfasud bodystyle for
example, the names HF,GT, et. cetera.
 Take a look at the Alfa Romeo Proteo of the early 1990's....

within 24 months the design became the four individual headlight beam
Acura/Honda "latest innovative design".  At least Nissan paid something for
the VVT patent!  The "payment" became an alleged $10 million dollars

and a co-produced Arna using Japanese-imported sheetmetal and an

Alfa Romeo drivetrain.

S**t, if the Japanese had an original thought in their whole body, they might
have
something.  Actually, their original thinking they did come up with was pure
crap.
And still is.
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