Uh oh! Bad news!
Apr 24 2007From an email alert this morning:
Toyota Motor quarterly worldwide sales top General Motors for the first time.
Hide the women and children! To the storm cellar, pronto! The Japs have sold 90,000 more cars than the, (quick - what’s a light-hearted pejorative for Detroit natives?) the Detroit guys!
…
Hey, wait a minute - so what? That little statistic is even less important than the dates and times at which the Dow Jones Industrials crossed each of the 1,000 point barriers, that is, “not at all”.
Given the fine mess that’s characterized GM these past few years, including poor results, billions of dollars in losses, junk bond ratings on its corporate debt, the jettisoning of the majority of its GMAC finance arm to Cerberus, the bankruptcy of Delphi, which it tried (and failed) to hive off as a separate, self-sustaining entity, and the battles with Jerry York, Kirk Kerkorian, and Tracinda, the fact that Toyota has passed them in sales is neither surprising nor particularly newsworthy.
They’re rather lucky to still be ahead of Ford, itself a company that is, as Monty Python might say “not at all well”.
Xenophobes and Detroit residents may mark this day as one that will live in infamy. More rational sorts will simply see it as the logical end to a progression that Toyota began, 20 years ago, when they started making cars better than General Motors was able or willing to do. Given that my last four vehicles have been made by Toyota, perhaps my objectivity isn’t perfect in this matter.
[...] Coincidence? You decide. [...]
