Quote:
Originally Posted by DonBarletta
So they are typically very conservative, adverse to risk, and inclined to only make cars that would hopefully have mainstream appeal and generate massive profits.
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That's a big part of the Aztek drum I keep beating... it was a big risk, and if everyone gets over their opinion about its looks it's actually a very easy machine to live with (the two friends I know with Azteks love theirs, and I envy.. they do almost everything I do in a grand cherokee but with more cargo room, an easier to clean/configure interior, less fuel used and better road manners)
A similar thing goes with the Isuzu Vehicross.. when it was introduced it looked like nothing on the road and few people liked it, and Isuzu is now gone entirely from America - but today's latest generation of small SUV's look a heck of a lot like Vehicrosses.. Granted the Vehicross isn't so easy to live with (my brother in law has one) and few people grok that it's more Wrangler than WRX..
The Nissan Juke brings America a tiny, turbocharged engine (isn't that something we applaud here?) and highly controversial looks - again they don't seem to sell well, I never see 'em on the road.
Automakers don't take many risks because the public doesn't reward those risks, we're addicted to buying nostalgia like Mustangs and Camaros and Challengers and Power Wagons because we once rode in our older cousin's and it was
kool..
and whole cultures of luddism appear throughout motoring culture, get on any Jeep board and you'll here a bunch of cave men grunting that
no real man drives an automatic, and half of them will argue that carburetors are better than fuel injection or electronics, even to the point of citing their own unwillingness or inability to understand modern systems as the main reason for this opinion (but it's the electronics' fault, for being too... moderny...
) .. so many people are stuck in the past or dreamy-eyed about how things used to be, romanticising whatever crap was good enough 30 years ago because nothing better had yet come into existence. It's an idea that permeates culture so much that even when I actively acknowledge the fallacy I find myself falling for it from time to time.
So until such time as the public is willing to buy the future with their money, the future won't happen.