Today we have this story for you about cars-- American cars. And like most stories about American cars lately, it 's more tragedy than comedy, though there is some comedy in there, too. It 's the story of a factory in California that captures pretty much everything that 's gone wrong in the American car business in the last 30 years. And at the heart of the story is the question, why are American cars still not as good as foreign cars?
Come with me for just a half minute to the Detroit Auto Show, OK? David Champion is one of the umpires who calls strikes and fouls in the car business. He 's the senior director of Consumer Reports auto test division. He says that Ford has actually been improving for the last six or seven years, but Chrysler 's still in the dumps, the worst of all the car makers they study, and as for America 's biggest car maker, GM?
David Champion
The big Achilles ' heel with GM is their reliability. You look at things like the Cadillac CTS-- a fabulous car, I 'd take a …show more content…
General Motors and the UAW are secretive cultures, but as you 'll hear, people were blunt when they talked to Frank-- blunt in a way that you rarely hear with auto executives and UAW reps when they 're being interviewed by the press. Act one of our show is about the rise of NUMMI, act two is about what prevented GM from learning from NUMMI.
From WBEZ Chicago, it 's This American Life, distributed by Public Radio International. I 'm Ira Glass. Our show today produced with our colleagues at NPR News. And now it is my pleasure to turn the story over to NPR automotive correspondent, Frank Langfitt.
Act One.
Frank
Come with me for just a half minute to the Detroit Auto Show, OK? David Champion is one of the umpires who calls strikes and fouls in the car business. He 's the senior director of Consumer Reports auto test division. He says that Ford has actually been improving for the last six or seven years, but Chrysler 's still in the dumps, the worst of all the car makers they study, and as for America 's biggest car maker, GM?
David Champion
The big Achilles ' heel with GM is their reliability. You look at things like the Cadillac CTS-- a fabulous car, I 'd take a …show more content…
General Motors and the UAW are secretive cultures, but as you 'll hear, people were blunt when they talked to Frank-- blunt in a way that you rarely hear with auto executives and UAW reps when they 're being interviewed by the press. Act one of our show is about the rise of NUMMI, act two is about what prevented GM from learning from NUMMI.
From WBEZ Chicago, it 's This American Life, distributed by Public Radio International. I 'm Ira Glass. Our show today produced with our colleagues at NPR News. And now it is my pleasure to turn the story over to NPR automotive correspondent, Frank Langfitt.
Act One.
Frank