Word: gm
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Each of the Big Three had something special to brag about. GM increased its already top-heavy share of the domestic market to a record 55.8%, from 53.1% in 1975. To get an early start on meeting federal reg-ulatioris that require U.S.-made autos to average 27.5 m.p.g. by 1985, GM has ' taken a multi-billion-dollar gamble in shrinking the size and weight of its cars. The public's approval of the lighter and crisply styled autos has delighted GM executives. Cadillac, which brought out its Mercedes-size Seville, experienced its best year ever...
Chrysler, which had been ailing for several years, made a spectacular comeback. Its total car sales last year leaped 31% over 1975, exceeding even GM's 28% gain. The company's revival rested largely on three handsomely styled, scaled-down autos: the Volaré, which sold 311,000 and the Aspen (232,000), which are both compacts, and the intermediate-size Cordoba (175,500), which packs a lot of luxury into a fairly small package...
Starting off 1977, the industry's only real problem is excess capacity to make small cars. Both GM and American Motors have been offering rebates to tempt buyers into ordering models like the Vega and Pacer, and Ford Chairman Henry Ford II has complained publicly that his company must build more small cars than it wants to in order to keep the average gas mileage of its fleet within federal standards...
...Clouds. But that difficulty hardly even clouds a mood of euphoria in Detroit. Last year total car sales, including imports, hit 10.1 million. GM Chairman Thomas Aquinas Murphy predicts 11.25 million in 1977, barely under the 1973 record; Chrysler guesses 10.8 million and Ford 10.6 million. There are sound reasons for optimism. For example, though the unemployment rate is high, the number of Americans who do have jobs is rising strongly, and most lenders will now make 48-month loans to car buyers, v. 36 months formerly; that lowers monthly payments. GM and Ford are also scheduling record spending...
...sales experiments so far, air bags have indeed proved unpopular. General Motors offered air bags as an option on some models in 1974 at $225 per car and at slightly higher prices for the next two model years. GM thought it might sell 300,000 air-bag autos per year, but total sales were only...