Automotive PODs/alternate cars

[redrobin65]

I've always been an automotive enthusiast, and as such I thought it would be interesting to create a thread for Automotive AH. 

One idea is: what if American automakers as a whole were more successful in the 70s and 80s, preventing Japanese brands from chipping away at their market share? This would likely require significantly different management, but if it could be done it would have wide-ranging effects.

Another is if the roles of the various Japanese luxury brands were reversed, with Infiniti or Acura being able to properly and consistently compete with German brands while Lexus is the also-ran. 

[James G]

May 27, 2021 17:38:46 GMT redrobin65 said:

I've always been an automotive enthusiast, and as such I thought it would be interesting to create a thread for Automotive AH. 

One idea is: what if American automakers as a whole were more successful in the 70s and 80s, preventing Japanese brands from chipping away at their market share? This would likely require significantly different management, but if it could be done it would have wide-ranging effects.

Another is if the roles of the various Japanese luxury brands were reversed, with Infiniti or Acura being able to properly and consistently compete with German brands while Lexus is the also-ran. 

Not sure how true this is, but didn't Japanese cars enter the market following the 1973 oil shock, because they were more fuel efficient? A different Arab-Israeli issue all together might be too big of a POD (!) I guess, but maybe there is something useful there. 

[redrobin65]

May 27, 2021 17:58:35 GMT James G said:

May 27, 2021 17:38:46 GMT redrobin65 said:

I've always been an automotive enthusiast, and as such I thought it would be interesting to create a thread for Automotive AH. 

One idea is: what if American automakers as a whole were more successful in the 70s and 80s, preventing Japanese brands from chipping away at their market share? This would likely require significantly different management, but if it could be done it would have wide-ranging effects.

Another is if the roles of the various Japanese luxury brands were reversed, with Infiniti or Acura being able to properly and consistently compete with German brands while Lexus is the also-ran. 

Not sure how true this is, but didn't Japanese cars enter the market following the 1973 oil shock, because they were more fuel efficient? A different Arab-Israeli issue all together might be too big of a POD (!) I guess, but maybe there is something useful there. 

Yeah that would actually be an interesting POD. Before the Oil Shock, Japanese cars in America were mostly sold in the Pacific States + Hawaii, and weren't really popular there. Suddenly though, the need for fuel efficiency propelled them to heights that they arguably have yet to come down from. A lack of an Oil Shock would secure Detroit's dominance over the domestic sales, and technological progress would help them improve further. There would likely still be a place for the best Japanese brands, like Toyota or Honda, but they would not sweep the Americans out of certain car segments like they did OTL.

[stevep]

May 27, 2021 19:29:43 GMT redrobin65 said:

May 27, 2021 17:58:35 GMT James G said:

Not sure how true this is, but didn't Japanese cars enter the market following the 1973 oil shock, because they were more fuel efficient? A different Arab-Israeli issue all together might be too big of a POD (!) I guess, but maybe there is something useful there. 

Yeah that would actually be an interesting POD. Before the Oil Shock, Japanese cars in America were mostly sold in the Pacific States + Hawaii, and weren't really popular there. Suddenly though, the need for fuel efficiency propelled them to heights that they arguably have yet to come down from. A lack of an Oil Shock would secure Detroit's dominance over the domestic sales, and technological progress would help them improve further. There would likely still be a place for the best Japanese brands, like Toyota or Honda, but they would not sweep the Americans out of certain car segments like they did OTL.

  Would  the lack of the war or a general lack of Arab-Israeli conflict do more than delay the issue?  The oil embargo resulting from the Arab defeat in 73 might have pushed things forward a bit but the ME nations especially had such a dominant position that once they were willing to combine against the US political pressure they always had the potential to use such power.  IIRC the Saudis especially had managed to wrestle control from the big US oil companies a few years before and start increasing the price it was being sold at - or more importantly to them the share of the money they received.

  Japan already had very efficient and reliable cars - the lack of the latter attribute was an issue with a lot of British based producers, not sure about the US at the time.  Continued cheap oil would have given no great incentive to made US cars more efficient so its likely to be an issue sooner or later and probably sooner.  From what I recall the US car industry had rather fossilized with regular production of big flashy cars with a lot of fancy gimmicks, and planned obsolescence to prompt people to change their cars regularly.

  Mind you it should be noted that Japan was also a massive consumer of oil at the time but they were able to move a lot more quickly to make their industry as well as their cars more energy efficient.  I recall a quote that in Dec 41 Japan went to war with 6 months supply of oil - have also heard 12 or 18 months figures mentioned - but in 73 when the 1st oil shock hit they were consuming that much oil in as many hours.

  In one way it was a great tragedy that the response to the 2nd shock in 79 - probably because of the hostage crisis - was the election of Reagan and his opposition to economic reform and especially government involvement in such.  A hell of a lot of work went into developing alternatives in the period 73-80 but the return to massive use of fossil fuels and strangling of alternatives delayed their development in the US, which at the time was still the great industrial and technical centre albeit it was being challenged by Japan.  Britain had the same problem with Thatcher's gaining of power in 79.  We could have been so much further along in terms of diversifying power sources and it would probably have meant the west hadn't given up on many areas of industrial production as well as the world facing a less dire environmental issue with global warming.

[575]

Back to cars and oil supply - by 1974 SAAB had in development a steam engine developing 140hp. It just didn't make it into production but what-if SAAB had pushed on? An oddity for a niche firm but alive and kicking and perhaps showing the way into alternatives to oil and batteries!

[kyuzoaoi]

I was thinking of alternate Philippine car companies.

[stevep]

May 28, 2021 19:10:57 GMT 575 said:

Back to cars and oil supply - by 1974 SAAB had in development a steam engine developing 140hp. It just didn't make it into production but what-if SAAB had pushed on? An oddity for a niche firm but alive and kicking and perhaps showing the way into alternatives to oil and batteries!

  What was the power supply for it?  I know the earlier steamers at the start of the 20thC were coal powered which was part of the reason for their failure.  Not only did that make the fuel heavy and cumbersome but it took time to get up a head of steam so to speak before you could actually go anywhere.  Assuming the SAAB was using some other power source else I can't see it progressing otherwise even before coal becomes too unpopular for environmental reasons.

[575]

I originally found the entry on Wikipedia "steam car" -
Saab steam car and Ranotor

As a result of the 1973 oil crisis, SAAB started a project in 1974[39] codenamed ULF (short for utan luftföroreningar, Swedish for Without Air Pollution))[40] headed by Dr. Ove Platell[41] which made a prototype steam-powered car.[citation needed] The engine used an electronically controlled 28-pound multi-parallel-circuit steam generator with 1-millimeter-bore tubing and 16 gallons per hour firing rate which was intended to produce 160 hp (119 kW) of continuous power,[42] and was about the same size as a standard car battery. Lengthy start-up times were avoided by using air compressed and stored when the car was running to power the car upon starting until adequate steam pressure was built up. The engine used a conical rotary valve made from pure boron nitride. To conserve water, a hermetically sealed water system was used.

The project was cancelled and the project engineer, Ove Platell, started a company named Ranotor, with his son Peter Platell to continue its development. Ranotor is developing a steam hybrid that uses the exhaust heat from an ordinary petrol engine to power a small steam engine, with the aim of reducing fuel consumption by 20%.[41] In 2008, truck manufacturers Scania and Volvo were said to be interested in the project.[43]

which unfortunately doesn't state the powersource though this
www.saab92x.com/viewtopic.php?id=19197
mention a small liquid fuel burner.
I also found a pdf www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi2uvOD9e7wAhUD5OAKHekgBLU4HhAWMAN6BAgUEAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.diva-portal.org%2Fsmash%2Fget%2Fdiva2%3A844948%2FFULLTEXT01.pdf&usg=AOvVaw16jc4A3InJ6-FszWXvy9bCconcerning the development of a steam addon to a truck diesel. Seems in Sweden there is running hybrid electricsteam - naturalgas garbage truck Volvo FL sopbil as mentioned in the pdf. More on the Volvo FL electric here www.volvotrucks.com/en-en/tools/search-result.html?fulltext=volvo%20fl%20electric&offset=0
With the steamengine being the size of a regular car battery there should be room in the SAAB for it almost regardless of which type of small car engine used.

[stevep]

May 29, 2021 12:43:33 GMT 575 said:

I originally found the entry on Wikipedia "steam car" -
Saab steam car and Ranotor

As a result of the 1973 oil crisis, SAAB started a project in 1974[39] codenamed ULF (short for utan luftföroreningar, Swedish for Without Air Pollution))[40] headed by Dr. Ove Platell[41] which made a prototype steam-powered car.[citation needed] The engine used an electronically controlled 28-pound multi-parallel-circuit steam generator with 1-millimeter-bore tubing and 16 gallons per hour firing rate which was intended to produce 160 hp (119 kW) of continuous power,[42] and was about the same size as a standard car battery. Lengthy start-up times were avoided by using air compressed and stored when the car was running to power the car upon starting until adequate steam pressure was built up. The engine used a conical rotary valve made from pure boron nitride. To conserve water, a hermetically sealed water system was used.

The project was cancelled and the project engineer, Ove Platell, started a company named Ranotor, with his son Peter Platell to continue its development. Ranotor is developing a steam hybrid that uses the exhaust heat from an ordinary petrol engine to power a small steam engine, with the aim of reducing fuel consumption by 20%.[41] In 2008, truck manufacturers Scania and Volvo were said to be interested in the project.[43]

which unfortunately doesn't state the powersource though this
www.saab92x.com/viewtopic.php?id=19197
mention a small liquid fuel burner.
I also found a pdf www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi2uvOD9e7wAhUD5OAKHekgBLU4HhAWMAN6BAgUEAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.diva-portal.org%2Fsmash%2Fget%2Fdiva2%3A844948%2FFULLTEXT01.pdf&usg=AOvVaw16jc4A3InJ6-FszWXvy9bCconcerning the development of a steam addon to a truck diesel. Seems in Sweden there is running hybrid electricsteam - naturalgas garbage truck Volvo FL sopbil as mentioned in the pdf. More on the Volvo FL electric here www.volvotrucks.com/en-en/tools/search-result.html?fulltext=volvo%20fl%20electric&offset=0
With the steamengine being the size of a regular car battery there should be room in the SAAB for it almost regardless of which type of small car engine used.

  Many thanks.  Sounds like there's still some work going on with it. 

[1bigrich]

May 27, 2021 17:38:46 GMT redrobin65 said:

Another is if the roles of the various Japanese luxury brands were reversed, with Infiniti or Acura being able to properly and consistently compete with German brands while Lexus is the also-ran. 

When I graduated from college a friend and I had a car-wash business for a while.   We did all kinds of cars, but Audis, Mercedes, Cadillacs, etc. were definitely on the list.  One of our customers was a VP (at the time) of one of the local grocery chains, and his commute was over 100 miles each day (he lived more than 50 miles from company HQ).

He had a Benz, but gave it to his wife and bought one of the then-new Infinity Q45s.   That Q45 was every bit as much a luxury car as the Benz was.   Just like Mercedes, Infinity put the same quality carpet in the trunk that they put in the interior.    That carpeting was so thick, when we would vacuum the interior or trunk, dirt never got down in carpet, it just sat on top.   I drove the Q on several occasions, and it was an incredible machine.  I think the success of Lexus was more tied to the popularity of Toyota in the US, Toyota selling more cars at the time than Datsun/Nissan.   To push Infinity, you might have to make Datsun/Nissan more popular in the US.   That might take better quality than Honda or Toyota from them...

Incidentally, one of my favorite automotive 'what ifs' is the 1954 Oldsmobile F88.   Designed under Harley Earl, GM's genius of automotive styling, it was a contemporary of the first generation Chevrolet Corvette.  

Harley Earl believe the F88 would have outsold the Corvette.  But Chevrolet convinced the board to kill the project, as initial Corvette sells were weak and Chevy was trying to protect its newborn.    But the F88 had a tremendous advantage over the Corvette; instead of the anemic Blue Flame straight 6, the F88 was powered by the hulking, green Rocket 88 V-8 from the Olds 88. 

I think V-8 power in that small, 2-seat body would have killed Chevy's Corvette in its cradle.   So take the Corvette's lineage, and reputation and apply it to an Oldsmobile.  

Sadly, only one survives; there may have been a second, rumors say it was destroyed in a fire. The sole example left got away from GM (the rumor was after it was cancelled, Harley Earl gave it to a friend) and was in private hands for decades.  It sold at the Barrett-Jackson auction several years ago for $3 million.   The guy who bought it owns a car museum in Colorado.

My thoughts,

[gillan1220]

May 29, 2021 2:12:11 GMT kyuzoaoi said:

I was thinking of alternate Philippine car companies.

What about Anfra and Delta Mini Cruiser?

〈insert pop-up content here〉

[575]

May 29, 2021 15:21:35 GMT gillan1220 said:

May 29, 2021 2:12:11 GMT kyuzoaoi said:

I was thinking of alternate Philippine car companies.

What about Anfra and Delta Mini Cruiser?

〈insert pop-up content here〉

YAY - slicks on a 4WD!!!

[gillan1220]

May 29, 2021 15:23:12 GMT 575 said:

May 29, 2021 15:21:35 GMT gillan1220 said:

What about Anfra and Delta Mini Cruiser?

〈insert pop-up content here〉

YAY - slicks on a 4WD!!!

Considering the some parts of the Philippines still have unpaved roads, 4WDs are actually useful.

The Delta Mini Cruiser is often mistaken as a Willy's MB. The Armed Forces used the DMC during the 1980s to the 2000s. Even then, some DMCs are still used in limited capacity among military bases such as in Fort Magsaysay and Camp Aguinaldo.

[kyuzoaoi]

I am thinking of a timeline where Francisco Motors Corporation and Sarao stopped making trash-can-tier Jeepneys and concentrated on building cars and light utility vehicles instead. They are not your usual high-end cars, though, they are in OTL "Made-in-China" quality, but at least reliable and cheap.

POD is that a pile of Sarao and FMC jeepneys in 1987 killed a lot of people in EDSA Avenue in Quezon City. Corazon Aquino was pissed at both companies and told them that either they stop building jeeps or make affordable cars instead or close shop. Both companies chose the former, and the jeepney has been relegated to local workshop manufacturers.