Will the Big 3's future be its past?

As Big 3 execs continue to beg for their place at the bailout trough after running their companies into the ground, I can't help but think about my own car purchases and whether my actions are indicative of some future trend.

In 1997 I bought a Ford F-150. I'd just moved to Maryland from New York the year before and the Geo Prizm from my college days was on its last legs. Considering I'd recently accepted a job as a public school teacher and was actually making less than people collecting unemployment, I didn't have much to spend on a new car. So thankfully I didn't need much -- manual everything was just fine for me as long as the vehicle had air conditioning -- and I managed to get this new ride on the road for under $14,400.

Fast forward to 2007. I was no longer a 23-year-old punk. That's right, I was at that point a 33-year-old punk whose pregnant wife insisted that we upgrade the pickup to one with an extended cab, primarily so I could more safely transport our forthcoming addition to the family and comfortably seat three.

Suffice to say, selling a reliable truck that had been paid off for six years was a bit discomfiting, but there was no point (much less room) to keep it. It actually had just under 80,000 miles when I sold it to a girl in her early 20s who was looking for an economical way to transport her horse. I bet that truck's still running like a champ.

Although I couldn't have asked for a better truck, I couldn't bring myself to buy another F-150 despite the 0% interest offer. The design in 2007 was quite unappealing to me, and, free market advocate and all, I've never really been much the "buy American"-as-the-rule type. So I settled on the Toyota Tundra, which gave me a couple fits early on with some quirky clock and tailgate lock malfunctions, but (knock wood) has nevertheless been growing on me of late. The engine torque and overall power is unmatched, and there's more than enough leg room in the back.

However, after five years of dealing with endless electrical issues with my wife's Chevy Tahoe, I'm pessimistically awaiting similar problems with the Tundra. Nothing against Toyota, but given that today's cars seem to be more hard drive than hardware, electrical issues just seem to be the norm.

Ironically, although technological innovation is largely responsible for the standard of living most of us enjoy, I often wonder if rapid computerization in the manufacturing world isn't doing just as much harm as it is good, in at least some regard. Consider this: Seven years ago my wife and I bought an early '80s-model refrigerator and turned it into a kegerator, and that thing's still kicking on its original motor today; in 2003 we bought a computer known as a "refrigerator" that fried up and died after only three months. If it didn't literally have a meltdown, the ice cream in the freezer did.

Which brings me to my point. I'm wondering how many people are out there like me -- people who appreciate how efficiently freedom, competition, and innovation are integrated by intelligent humans to provide an infinite supply of goods to the market, but who simultaneously recognize that simple can often be much better than complex. The beauty of free market capitalism is that there's something for everyone. The guy who wants his camera to keep time, track appointments, and adjust for 150 varieties of shade and light will be served just as readily as the guy who just wants to point and click.

As a software tester by day -- not to mention blogger by night (and maybe some lunch breaks) -- I obviously appreciate computers. I'm just not so sure how much I care that they're in my cars, too. I suppose that's why I told the Ford salesman eleven years ago that I was simply looking for a car with "a stick shift and a/c." The manual windows and locks could be a pain when I had to lean all the way across the front seat to let someone in the passenger side, but they always worked. And I think that's part of the reason I bought a 1970 Chevelle a couple months ago. Aside from the sheer coolness of owning an old American muscle car, what you see is what you get. There's plenty of room to work under the hood -- a benefit to someone like me who's trying to learn more about vehicle maintenance -- and when a part goes, you don't need to hook the car up to an expensive computer system just to diagnose the problem.

With the American auto industry's heyday behind it, I've been thinking lately that its future might actually be its past. Instead of shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for streamlined products that nowadays seem to live up to their warranty but rarely much longer, will we increasingly go the foreign route when buying new cars but stick with American manufacturers when buying used? If companies like GM and Ford face significant downsizing, decreased output, or even outright extinction, I can see nostalgia rearing its head in a big way among motorheads everywhere, with guys (especially) buying up 20-, 30-, 40-year old cars and trucks and restoring them.

I'm not much of a prognosticator and I'm pretty much just thinking out loud here. All I really know for sure is that there's no amount of taxpayer subsidy that can rescue an unprofitable company that's being outhustled and outperformed in the marketplace. Subsidizing something results in getting more of it, so subsidizing problems is not the answer to eliminating them. If American automakers really want to be saved, they might want to simplify things themselves and embrace a good old American attribute they seem to have forgotten: hard work.

How's that for nostalgia?