Ach Du Lieber!

Kevin from Portland e-mails with more on Kraut cars:

I just have to chime in on the auto thread. Back in the 90s, I worked at Chrysler in the electronics division in Huntsville, Alabama. This was before Quisling Bob Eaton sold out one of the more innovative auto companies in the country, but that's another story. Anyway, we would regularly do competitive analysis on the various competitive brands. The one I remember best is when we looked at Mercedes and Lexus, with a Camry thrown in. We all loved the Camry, thought it was a genuinely great car, with good finish, performance, and comfort; good value for the money. The Lexus, we just laughed at. Stodgy, even with a V8, not finished nearly as well as the Camry, which is interesting because the Lexus is nothing more than a Camry. Everything under the skin is Camry. They just drop a new skin over it, plunk some doodads inside and add $40000 to the price tag. We knew the Japanese execs had to be roaring with laughter that Americans were paying all of that money just for the little hood ornament.

The Mercedes was just pathetic. We pulled out the radio and stereo, and, swear to God, the wire harness, amp, radio must have weighed around 50 pounds. It looked like the comm gear pulled from some panzer. There was nothing new in it. The finish wasn't all that great either. This was 10 years before the public woke up and started telling JD Powers what they really thought about the car they just paid $60000 for.

Then the Germans marched into Chrysler, and the good days were gone...sort of like that old famous photo of the weeping Frenchman taken when the Germans were marching through Paris. I left soon after that.