A recent Wall Street Journal article denounced the loss of style in products by American auto companies, primarily General Motors. The author commented on the trend to outsource the design and manufacture of their small cars, stating: “Detroit’s eagerness to associate its famous brands with cars that were designed elsewhere may have something to do with their downfall: cars we they carry around, of course, but also, in their appearance, they capture a cultural perspective, a spirit, even a national identity. ” Style corresponds to “cool” and cool cars are sold. But GM and Ford, and certainly Chrysler, are a bit short of cold these days and have been for several decades.

But it was not always like this …

When I was in high school, somewhere in the Pleistocene era, American cars were all there was. Oh, a street Volkswagen, Vauxhall, or Fiat found its way onto American streets, but they were rare and largely ignored as oddities. Foreign-made cars just weren’t relevant. American cars that followed WWII were revamped versions of pre-war designs and they weren’t very exciting. Leftover designs from the 1930s and early 1940s just didn’t fit the fashion department. (I once had a ’46 Ford pickup, which was just a ’40 Ford pickup with a new grill.) It took the American auto industry a few years to change the tooling of tanks and half-tracks to design and build new passenger cars. again.

But sometime in the mid-1950s the American car style took off and we got some great cars. The Corvette 53, an American sports car made from the new material, fiberglass, the two-seat Ford Thunderbird 55, and the Chevy 55 hardtop, each with V-8 engines, were the first truly exciting cars of our youth. And after them came a succession of mind-blowing designs, a seemingly endless buffet of chrome, horsepower, and tail fins. We discovered cars and girls around the same time, and it was hard to tell who our first true love was! For a teenager, this was Nirvana. Of course, we couldn’t afford to buy any of them, nor were most of us old enough to drive them, but we camped every September when new models hit showrooms at dealerships. The walls of our rooms were covered in automobile brochures. And later, a friend’s older brother might take us cruising in a ’63 GTO, ’62 Chevy SS 409, or ’64 Plymouth Hemi.

The mid to late sixties were already a car lover’s paradise and then we got the pony cars, the Mustang, the Camaro, and the Barracuda. Heavy on horsepower with short, light bodies made to run rubber up and down East Oakland’s 14th Street between Pring’s two drive-ins, one at each end of Northern California’s best cruise street!

By the way, gasoline, even superpremium, was about 36 cents a gallon and, being the United States and not postwar Europe, we had everything we could burn. Gas wars between rival stations would lower the price even further (I remember 19.9 cents / gallon!) And we filled and held the pedal to the ground, as was the language of the day. Some foreign cars began to appear in the 1950s and 1960s: the Toyopet from Japan, the MGs from England, and the VW Bug became a bit more noticeable. The bug eventually became a cult car and a hippie symbol, so that was fine, but other than that, American cars were the Kings of cool. The Nash Ramblers were preferable to the Japanese, but maybe that was because the seats folded all the way back into a double bed. My friend Kenny had one and we paid him for two six-packs and a full tank of gas to let us take it on dates.

But we came of age with a jolt. First it was the Vietnam War, and then, in 1973, the Arab Oil Embargo. These events were like the lights on in a movie theater at the end of a fabulous movie and all that could be seen were empty popcorn boxes, candy wrappers, and a blank screen. The oil boycott was underway and the car party was over, in a big way. Gasoline prices soared more than 50% in just a few months between mid-1973 and early 1974. But shortages dominated the day, and at one point there was very little gasoline to buy. The crisis ended a year after it started, but the effects of shortages, artificial or otherwise, and the resulting high prices are still being felt today and it was the beginning of the end for American car culture. Suddenly Toyotas, Datsuns, and Volkswagens were flooding the country and people were buying them as fast as dealers could get in. We were scared to death because we couldn’t get enough gas for our cars. These foreign cars were gas-guzzling compared to the average American V-8, and we couldn’t buy them fast enough.

American auto companies had been trying to compete on some level with this foreign import threat for a decade – the Ford Falcon and Chevrolet Corvair were examples, but American auto companies didn’t have the same experience with small car designs as our companies. Japanese and Japanese. German competitors who had survived the post-war period of fuel shortages and high prices by learning how to build good, fuel-efficient small cars. American companies “discovered” the 4-cylinder and V-6 engine and front-wheel drive sometime in the 1970s, but cars like the Chevy Nova and Ford Maverick were a disaster, and it just got worse. The American love for big, fast cars just couldn’t translate into the small, fuel-efficient car designs from the very companies they had revered for years. Ford and GM did not have the talent to compete with Asia and Europe in the small car department.

But it was worse than that. By turning their attention to small cars and eventually trucks, American auto companies lost their way. They forgot how to style full-size coupes and sedans. Cars became an afterthought, especially when the SUV craze allowed manufacturers to make huge profits from trucks. But Europe and Japan were not limited to small cars. They also improved their larger and more expensive versions. Mercedes, Lexus, Jaguar and BMW, not to mention Porsche and Ferrari, became the lustful objects of a new generation. These cars were stylish. They were great. American auto companies failed with small cars, and now their regular offerings, for years the mainstay of generations of car lovers, were ignored and faded into oblivion in favor of trucks.

Mercedes, BMW and Jaguar do not make trucks, at least not for sale in this country. Oh yes, some commercial vehicles, but the car, the four-door sedan, the big and small coupe, are its mainstay and have been the luxury leaders for two decades. Its SUVs, with a few exceptions, are really crossovers based on the car’s chassis with the ride and handling to match. While American auto companies were obsessed with big, high-profit trucks, the Germans and Japanese sneaked in and stole their bacon. Having ignored cars for so long, it’s not surprising that American auto companies haven’t been able to catch up. Cadillac has the closest thing to a foreign sports sedan, but it may be too late. It is not too late for engineering to catch up. Too late to regain the public’s coldness, desire, and taste for American iron. GM and Ford lost their sense of style. The American public has changed and American auto companies have lagged behind. Ford owned Jaguar. It should have absorbed the Jaguar flair into its main line of cars. But when trucks stopped selling, they sold Jaguars instead of using their unique combination of style and performance to recreate the American passion for their cars.

GM is a mere shadow of what it once was. It has two cars with some degree of freshness: the Chevrolet Corvette and the Cadillac CTS. Everything else is a wasteland from the perspective of the American car-buying public. I look at our parking lot and can count the American-built cars there with one hand. The shame is that domestic cars aren’t bad, but they’re definitely not great. They had it once and lost their way. There are glimmers of hope, but this economy has wreaked havoc on GM’s remaining fortunes, with very little left to use for redesign and recreation. And its competitors in Europe keep coming back with better designs, remakes of a fresh, fueled desire that was once fueled by the likes of the 55 Chevy and Mustang.

As the song said: “Little GTO, you really look good. Three deuces and four speed, and three eighty nine …”

They really looked good, once.

1. Felton, Eric: “Smart Design: To Save Itself, GM Needs Style” Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2009, page W11.