Oh - Charlie,

This is great view of the mistaken common mythology. There were a huge
number of individual vehicle that did just that and as early as 1970. I
had two in my own lab.

I drove and tested that car and the CVCC Vega too. The Nova was not
production feasable at that time (the opinion of a famous think tank),
and Honda would license the CVCC design for about ~100$/per vehicle (not
including the increased manufacturing cost (remember - this was a 2k$
base vehicle).

There were two stoppers.
Reliability was a big issue. This was the time when California was also
instituting legislation that no vehicle could require maintenance other
than lubrication at less than 50k miles. (We had one vehicle - a joke -
with the hood BOLTED down and the sticker off the back of a television
that said "No User Servicable Parts Inside".)
Manufacturability was another serious issue. Variations that the
assembly lines produced in those days was a problem. A family of I4
engines was bad enough that, though rated and sold as 90+hp actually
were anywhere between 85 and 98 as measured.

Everybody tends to forget that Germany and Japan both had all brand new
factories that (by enlarge) we paid for in the late fourties, but the US
plants all got seriously beat up making the hardware to win that war.

The thing that really gave the american market away was shortsighted
corporate management. For reasons I will not expand, I grew up with
little European cars. Whe the US tried to get into this market they
decided that little cars were inexpesive cars and inexpensive cars could
be cheap - not just cost, but quality as well. I bought my first new
American Car in 1973 and was treated so badly when I complained about
the shabby quality (not quite a quote - You bought a cheap car, What did
you expect?) I have never purchased another car from that manufacturer.





Charlie Morgan wrote:
On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 23:43:21 -0500, "Garland Gray II" wrote:


That's my point. It was misguided --inefficient-- to force manufacturers to
meet standards before the technology was developed. And I don't think for a
moment that the stiff initial regs caused the technology to be developed any
sooner.
Furthermore, it was counterproductive to prevent (which the feds did) the
major car makers from pooling their resources to develop this technology.
Anti trust laws, you know.



In the early 70's, US automakers whined that the proposed government timetable
was too short, and the standards too high. They complained they would need at
least 7 years to create the technology to meet the proposed standards. Honda of
Japan bought a brand new Chevy Nova off of a dealers lot, shipped it to Japan,
and 6 months later delivered it to Washington, DC, modified to EXCEED the
proposed standards.

CWM


"James Sweet" wrote in message
news:ah1bh.10103$7a2.1829@trndny06...


Well regardless, the technology caught up and cars get roughly double the
fuel economy as they got in the 70s, have much cleaner emissions, and many
are far more powerful too.