Bruce to the rescue
TODAY, the weird similarity between the worst financial crisis in 100 years and the US auto industry and Bruce Willis.
TODAY, the weird similarity between the worst financial crisis in 100 years and the US auto industry and Bruce Willis.
The US government is now spending over $1 trillion to help its banking industry to a new model. Basically it has concentrated US banking into the hands of three companies.
Sound familiar?
In 1979 the US auto industry was haemorrhaging. Ford, GM and Chrysler were losing $5 billion (which was a lot of money then). So Chrysler-boss-come-industry-rock-star Lee Iacocca did what any true capitalist would do, and went to the government for help. It gave him $1 billion in loan guarantees.
Ford and GM thought this looked a much easier way to make money than building cars so, because 1980 was an election year, Jimmy Carter effectively handed the Big Three a couple of billion dollars in aid, tax breaks and lower regulation.
Things only got better from there with the election of Ronald Reagan, who rolled back more than 100 regulations and tried to halt the unfair competition from the Japanese auto makers.
Given these were the people who snuck up on Pearl Harbour in the last big show, no one in the US auto industry or government was surprised by their nasty trick of selling well-built cars, full of options, that used nearly no petrol for a reasonable price.
Let's take a pause here. This is the same industry and government that worked so well together during the 1960s, 70s and 80s to delay the introduction of seatbelts and airbags and fought emission controls.
It's also the same global industry that has seen off Auto Union, DAF, Glas, Iso, NSU, Oldsmobile, Panhard, Plymouth, AMC, Simca, Wartburg, Alvis, Austin, Austin-Healey, Hillman, Humber, Jensen, MG, Morris, Reliant, Riley, Rover, Singer, Sunbeam, Triumph, Vanden Plas and Wolseley without the world as we know it or the industry itself dying.
Now we are in 2008.
The Big Three look at US auto sales this year being nearly three million units below where they should be and those pesky Japanese still selling more cars than they do and decide its time for government action again.
Of course they need it.
Due to no fault of their own, both Ford and GM are likely to run out of cash in the next 10 months and we suspect Chrysler is in a worse position but we don't really know, because it is a private company.
At a time when the world economy and the car industry are heading towards Armageddon we need a true leader to rescue us.
And of course Bruce Willis is the man.
In 1998 he saved the world by deflecting an asteroid on a collision course with earth. Right at the moment, though, it looks like Bruce needs a bit of help from us.
The hair-challenged, West German-born actor, singer and bar tender has Bonhams & Butterfield selling six of his muscle cars in two weeks' time.
Bruce is looking for $90,000 for a 1957 164kW Chevrolet Corvette Convertible his then wife Demi Moore gave him.
After giving him the car Demi gave Bruce the flick for a younger man. Women are so fickle, aren't they?
For $150,000 you can pick up his 325kW 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Roadster, for $50,000 a 246kW 1968 Pontiac Firebird 400 convertible and, best of all, the car that made Steve McQueen and San Francisco famous -- a 425kW 1968 Shelby Mustang GT 500 Convertible.
LORD Paul Vestey, the 100th-richest person in Britain (down to his last $2 billion), will not be trying to sell his Ferrari 275 GTB/C when he competes with 299 other punters such as Jim Richards and Rex Broadbent in the Classic Adelaide Rally next month.
Vesto, as we all called him when he worked on the family meat farms in the Northern Territory, has had a serious racing career and is one of the world's great classic collectors. His Ferrari won its class in Le Mans in 1966 with Piers Courage at the wheel, and Vesto went on to do well in 1967 at both Monza and the Nurburgring 1000km.
Vesto loves the car so much he's bought it twice.