Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat, Alfa, MG, Triumph and many others failed to remain
successful in the U.S. market for a variety of reasons, but they can all be
boiled down to sales numbers or lack thereof.
Take a more recent example, Sterling aka Rover. The Sterling 825SL was
introduced a year after the Acura Legend (88 vs. 87) and was very much a
sister car to the Legend. However, the pieces of the car that Rover
designed or altered for the Sterling were problematic. They changed the
front suspension from a double A-arm setup to a single arrangement. I
always wondered why my front rotors were always warping. I think I had 4
AM/FM cassette decks, and there were other issues.
The early cars were more trouble-prone, and by their demise the cars were
good solid cars, but the damage had been done. People were reluctant to buy
a British car with quality problems - sound familiar? - when they could buy
the Japanese version and drive the thing forever.
The American market was used to 3yr/36K bumper-to-bumper warranties if not
greater, and the European market at the time did not have anything beyond
2yr/24k. I don't know if our European brethren don't mind fiddling with
their cars more than we Yanks do, but reliability certainly played a major
factor in many of our favorite marques demise.
There are certainly many other factors that played into things... styling,
much different driving environment, and our desire for large cars with large
engines. Europe remains a vastly different car market today. They
typically drive smaller cars, a Jetta is a big car over there,
diesel-powered cars enjoy a majority of the market, and the market itself is
far more segmented. I wish we had the offerings that the Europeans have,
but that will probably never happen.
I still miss my 825, I drove it for over 100k miles before letting it go for
pennies on the dollar. It looked a whole lot better inside and out than the
Acura too.
R. Ashford Little II
'70 TR6
CC54994
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