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From the creation of fast food, to the design of cities, to the character of our landscape, the automobile has shaped nearly every aspect of modern American life. In fact, the U.S. motor vehicle industry is the largest manufacturing industry in the world.James Rubenstein documents the story of the automotive industry... which despite its power, is an industry constantly struggling to redefine itself and assure its success. Making and Selling Cars: Innovation and Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry shows how this industry made adjustments and fostered innovations in both production and marketing in order to remain a viable force throughout the twentieth-century.Rubenstein builds his study of the American auto industry with care, taking the reader through this quintessentially modern history of production and consumption. Avoiding jargon while never over simplifying, Rubenstein gives a detailed and straightforward account of both the production and merchandising of cars. We learn how the industry began and about its methods for building cars and the modern American marketplace. Along the way there were many missteps and challenges—the Edsel, the fuel crisis, and the ascendancy of Japanese cars in the 1980s. The industry met these types of problems with new techniques and approaches. To demonstrate this, Rubenstein gives the reader examples of how the auto industry used to work, which he alternates with chapters showing how the industry has reinvented itself. Making and Selling Cars explains why the U.S. automotive industry has been and remains a vigorous shaper of the American economy.
E-Book Content
Making and Selling Cars
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Making and Selling Cars Innovation and Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry
James M. Rubenstein
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The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore & London
© 2001 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2001 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rubenstein, James M. Making and selling cars : innovation and change in the U.S. automotive industry / James M. Rubenstein. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8018-6714-2 1. Automobile industry and trade—United States. I. Title. hd9710.u52 r836 2001 338.4'76292'0973—dc21 00-012496 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
CONTENT S
Preface vii PA R T I
MAKING MOTOR VEHICLES
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From Fordist Production . . . 3
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. . . To Lean Production 30
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From Making Parts . . . 56
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. . . To Buying Parts 88
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From Deskilling the Work Force . . . 119
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. . . To Reskilling Labor 151 PA R T I I
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SELLING MOTOR VEHICLES
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From a Class-based Market . . . 183
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. . . To a Personal Market 217
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From Dealing with Customers . . . 251
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. . . To Serving Customers 278
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From a National Market . . . 307
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. . . To a Global Market 331 Conclusion 353 Notes 357 Bibliography 371 Index 387
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P R E FA C E
A house is for sleeping, a car is for living. —Attributed to Joost Dijkhuizen, Niels Wisse, and Bert Robben
During the century just ended, Americans walked on the moon and split the atom. They invented miracle seeds that could feed the world, and nuclear weapons that could destroy it. But no invention contributed more to transformation of life in the United States in those years than the motor vehicle. In 1900 the United States contained