Word: detroit
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Nothing would derail Chrysler's recovery more effectively than a continuation of the disease that has afflicted Detroit for three years: sickly sales. Last year U.S. manufacturers sold only 5.8 million cars, the fewest in 21 years; Chrysler sold 794,000, but its share of the American market inched up, to 10%. So far this year the industry is doing only slightly better. Through February, sales were running at an annual rate of 6 million cars. All of the Big Three are offering customers cut-rate financing of 11.9% in an effort to spur sales. Chrysler's decision last month...
...sales of Japanese-made cars were 1.8 million last year, and are not increasing, thanks to Tokyo's recent acceptance of a third year of "voluntary" import restrictions. Although Detroit is at last beginning to approach the Japanese on quality, evidence suggests that an extra twelve months will enable U.S. carmakers to become significantly more competitive on price. After ten years of mostly futile trying, Detroit continues to watch the small-car market slip away to the Japanese, who are now training their sights on the midsize and luxury end of the market as well...
lacocca personified Detroit...
...keep the buying public bedazzled, Chrysler is developing vehicles for special market segments, known in Detroit as "niche" cars. These are expected to confer some luster on the rest of the car line as well as to reach relatively small but profitable markets where other carmakers are not competing. Later this year Chrysler will introduce the ultimate in elongated K-cars, the roomy five-passenger Chrysler Executive Sedan and a seven-passenger limousine. lacocca has also ordered...
...many spirited gambles, Lee Iacocca three years ago had the body of a K-car sent from Chrysler's proving grounds near Detroit to a custom auto body shop in California. There the car was rebuilt into a convertible and secretly shipped back East. When Iacocca drove it around Boca Raton, Fla., in the winter of 1981, it won instant admirers. That limited market survey helped convince him that the potential demand for a revived convertible was bigger than anyone imagined...