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Automotive Car Motorcycles

Cars are not merely continually perfected mechanical contrivances; since the 1920s nearly all have been mass-produced to meet a market, so marketing plans and manufacture to meet them have often dominated automobile design. It was Alfred P. Sloan who established the idea of different makes of cars produced by one firm, so that buyers could "move up" as their fortunes improved. The makes shared parts with one another so that the larger production volume resulted in lower costs for each price range. For example, in the 1950s, Chevrolet shared hood, doors, roof, and windows with Pontiac; the LaSalle of the 1930s, sold by Cadillac, used the cheaper mechanical parts made by the Oldsmobile division.
He also conceived of the notion of the yearly model change-over, which became a three-year cycle. In the second year of the cycle, the superficial appearance of the cars changed incidentally; for the third, major changes took place, e.g., the fender dies for the 1957 Chevrolet had to be modified to produce thin, pointed fins and squarish headlamp housings. In the next cycle, the doors, roof, trunk, and often the suspension would have to be redesigned. Factories and the yearly work schedule had to be specialized to accommodate these changeovers.
Such a patterns became dominant for the Big Three automakers in the US, though European firms neither amalgamated nor could afford the changeover. After the 1950s, when American firms tackled the technical problems of high-compression V-8 engines, automatic transmissions, and air conditioners, investment shifted to meeting the market for non-technical matters. This was criticized as "planned obsolescence," although by this it was meant that the car would simply be made to go out of style rather than really being technically surpassed. For example, only those few American cars of the 1960s with front-wheel drive or a rear engine had a fully independent rear suspension because the Hotchkiss drive was cheaper, and people were used to it. Such malinvestment left American firms unprepared for the Oil Crisis of the 1970s and the rise of imported luxury cars in the 1980s.