My Automotive History

Today's the day I've been waiting for. General Motors has a really good chance of going bankrupt. Not that I want GM to go bankrupt. Quite the contrary, but you see, I have this history.

My first new car was a Fiat. A 1980 Fiat Strada in a lovely copper color. It was a comfortable, beautifully designed car. Those Italians know how to design a car. Unfortunately they don't really know how to build them. I credit that car with teaching me much of what I know about cars and how to fix their problems. That car wouldn't start if it was below 10 degrees or above 90. Or if it was raining. If the engine got wet you'd have to open the choke and stick a screwdriver in the carbureator the spray all the spark plug wires with WD40 and maybe it would start. Things regularly fell off of it for no apparent reason. Little things like the knobs on the radio and the rubber cover on the gas pedal and big things like the windsheild wiper that flew across six lanes of traffic on Lake Shore Drive and impaled a squirrel on a tree.

The car came with a handy tool kit which was nice because everything was metric and American tools wouldn't work on it. I also had to pay twice as much for an olio filtre than I would have for an ordinary oil filter. But most of all it started a trend for me. Within a couple of months of buying the car, the dealership went out of business and then about a year later Fiat stopped selling cars in North America.

I think I kept the car until 1985 or 1986 when I traded it in for another European wonder--a Renault. The Renault was not as bad as the Fiat but a few months after buying it the dealer went out of business and within a couple of years Renault stopped selling cars in North America.

In 1992 I bought a Geo Tracker which was sold as a GM car but was actually made by Suzuki in Canada. Nothing happened. In fact, at that point I started leasing cars and had a steady stream of GM cars that gave me very little trouble.

But in the back of my mind I always figured something terrible would eventually happen to GM. But what could happen? Back then they were the biggest company in America and the biggest car manufacturer in the world. But slowly it started to erode. Exxon Mobil took over the biggest company in America and Toyota eventually sold more cars. But GM? C'mon.

My current GM car is a Chevy Trailblazer which I love dearly. It's comfortable and I feel safe driving it. I've taken many long solo driving trips in it. I carried in it all the furniture I bought for the club from the Ikea store in Phoenix and the five computers I brought home from California.

I think the dealership where I bought it is still in business--Sharp Chevrolet on Golf Road in Skokie but the big one, of course is GM going out of business. I hope it doesn't happen. I hope they can get it together and build cars that people want to buy.

In the meantime...I see Chrysler is merging with Fiat. Good luck with that one.