I've been neglecting you. I'm sorry. Work's been a bear and all that. But here'a a perhaps marginally entertaining question.
We've all been reading about the Big Three automakers recently. Well, more accurately perhaps, it's the only three nowadays. But once upon a time, many years ago (more than thirty), there was a group sometimes referred to as the Big Five. Here's the question:
Who were the other two? One's pretty easy, the other maybe not so much.
Iz out!
2 months ago
12 comments:
Who were the other two? Honda and Toyota, of course!
What? What?
;-p
One would have been AMC. The first car I owned that I actually paid for was a Rambler.
Danged if I can think of the other. Unless it's longer ago and they were Willys and Packard.
[Guessing that Jeff knows]
Yeah, AMC was the easy one. We actually once had a Rambler when I was a kid.
Truth be told, I didn't think Willys and Packard were independent companies (except maybe very early on). But still, this phrase I remember from the 70s before the demise of AMC (and I think the other company actually outlasted AMC for cars).
My first guess would be Jeep, before they were/weren't AMC/Chrysler.
Actually, I thought that Dodge and Chrysler were separate brands at first.
(w/v - "snessu" - not the correct answer to this question)
Is the other one you're thinking of International?
And, I must say, out of the big three only Ford's showing any balls. I've been a Ford guy for a long time and though I'm driving a Dodge right now, I'm thinking I might have to switch back when the time comes (many, many moons from now).
That would be the one. In addition to the bigger trucks and such, they did a pretty good business in Scouts and Travelalls into the 70s before pulling out of the passenger vehicle market.
I did learn a little more while looking these up. I hadn't known that Willys-Overland merged with Kaiser before being bought by AMC, nor that Studebaker and Packard had merged before going out of business.
Ken, truly, I had no idea! I'm funny that way about cars.
But I do know that International Harvester once manufactured military weapons; I've fired an M1 Garand with that stamped on the receiver.
The Big Five were, much more recently, also the leading investment banks, all of which either went under (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers), got gobbled up (Merill Lynch, Morgan Stanley), or changed form (Goldman Sachs).
Yeppers. My dad had a Scout when we lived in Montana. I always wanted one. Almost bought one in Arizona, but just couldn't pull the trigger on it. Hilly southern Arizona is a mecca for all those old 4x4s.
*foreheadhand* I can't believe I missed that one! I've always wnated a Scout (Southern Oregon also being an old 4x4 Mecca), and I went to college in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, where there was an IH factory.
WV: waysip -- when pretend to just be taking a "sip" of a drink, but are really sucking down a huge amount of it.
I'm embarrassed not to have thought of IH too. Those old cornbinders still outperform purt' near anything on the road (or off it, for that matter). Of course, you have to measure their mileage in gallons to the mile, but still...
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