The global automobile

Ten years ago, when Spectrum published a special issue on the automobile, it was not obvious that the automotive industry was on the brink of a major transformation. Carmakers in the United States were concentrating on producing downsized cars that conformed to Government mandates for fuel economy and exhaust emissions. Japanese inroads on car sales in the United States were climbing, but were not viewed as a serious threat other than to small, relatively low-priced models.