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Decide whether these sentences are TRUE or FALSE. Then look in the
text and see if your predictions were correct.
1. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler are known as the Big Three in
American car manufacturing.
2. New York is known as Motown or Motor City.
3. In 1979, the Big Three sold 90% of all new vehicles sold in the US.
4. By October 2005, only 50% of new vehicles sold in the US were made
by the Big Three.
5. Now, 40% of trucks sold in the US are made by foreign manufacturers.
6. Hyundai, Toyota and Honda are Japanese car manufacturers.
by Paul Harris
John McVeigh left Glasgow in Scotland at the age of 21 and ended up in Detroit,
lured by the factories producing the cars that defined US life in the 20th century. He
started on the factory floor and when he retired in 1989 he was part of the
management. But after a week in which Ford laid off 30,000 workers and shut 14
factories, McVeigh knows his story is now part of history, a way of life his
grandchildren will never know. ‘You can't do what I did now. It just could not happen
again,’ he said.
The statistics tell a bleak story of economic disaster. The Big Three – Ford, General
Motors (GM) and Chrysler – have declining market share, crippling pension costs
and a product line reliant on deep discounts to sell. Chrysler has been taken over by
the Germans and GM posted an $8.6 billion loss last week, its biggest since 1992.
Ford has been losing market share for ten years. Last week's news was so bad few
people noticed DaimlerChrysler quietly announcing it too was axing 6,000 staff.
Meanwhile foreign firms have been invading.
In 1979, the Big Three sold nearly nine out of every ten new vehicles on US roads.
By 2004, as European and Asian firms ate away at their market, only about 50% of
new cars were sold by US producers. By October 2005, cars made by the Big Three
only accounted for about 40% of the US market. Toyota, Honda and Korean Hyundai
had all made inroads. Even that US archetype, the truck, saw 30% of its market go to
foreigners.
The US car industry is moving into terminal decline. A fundamental part of America
has died as well. Nothing came to symbolize the American century more than the
American car. It began with Henry Ford and the Model T and went right through the
tail-finned monsters of the 1950s and hot rods of the 1970s. American cars were
about freedom, sexual liberation and confident patriotism. The car gave birth to other
US icons: the motel, advertising billboard and diner. They were all children of the
road.
Of course, Americans still buy cars by the millions, whether they are in gridlocked LA
or in the middle of Kansas, miles from the nearest town. But what does it mean when
a country's cultural heart is now made in Japan? Or Korea? Or Germany?
The story of the American car began at the start of the 20th century in Detroit, when
Henry Ford, born on a Michigan farm, mass-produced the Model T. He changed not
only his own life from rural poverty to urban riches, but the country's too. America
went from a farming-based society to an industrialized giant where the new cultural
hero was the big city capitalist. The new frontier was not out on the open range, it
was on urban streets, and the new horse was a car. Detroit became Motown – Motor
City. Car advertisements featured open roads, blue skies and square-jawed fathers
driving wives and children along new interstate highways. American cars were the
best in the world because America was the best in the world.
Americans still need their cars, but they no longer really love them. Chrysler was
taken over by Germany's Daimler. Japanese firms, such as Toyota and Honda, are
opening plants as Ford shuts down. Cars are not big business. Ford as a company is
worth about $15 billion; Google $129 billion. US car design and production values
have also been criticized. For years American cars have been outperformed by their
European and Asian competitors. Many US cars now copy modest European and
Japanese designs and avoid brash concepts. Future cars will also be more fuel-
efficient and aware of green issues.
The Hollywood car of choice now is no longer a Fender Ford or a Buick Electra. It is
the Toyota Prius, an energy-efficient car driven by Cameron Diaz and Leonardo
DiCaprio. Latham says his students no longer see their cars as an essential
expression of themselves. They boast of iPods or computer games, not their
‘wheels’. ‘Cars have become functional. They are not statements any more.
Electronics are,’ he said. The age of the American car is passing into nostalgia.
Latham once studied road movies from the early 1990s in which old American cars
were nostalgically treated. The most famous was Thelma and Louise, in which two
women find freedom in an open-top T-Bird. At the end, they hold hands and drive off
a cliff.
It is a fitting image for the death of a slice of the American Dream. After decades of
the car being so much more than just a mode of transport – symbolizing industry, art,
freedom, sex, a triumphant America – it has now become simply a way of getting
from A to B.
1. ____________ a loss
2. ____________ inroads into a market
3. ____________ a market share
4. ____________ birth to
5. ____________ another company
6. ____________ a new plant
7. ____________ down an old plant
8. ____________ workers/staff
1. account _______
2. reliant _______
3. eat away _______
4. aware _______
5. boast _______
6. _______ the start of the 20th century
7. love affair _______ the car
8. mode _______ transport
1. life a of way
2. market a share declining
3. farming a society based
4. the in the world best
5. fuel much efficient more
6. B from to way A a of getting
What are the most important features to consider when buying a new
car?
1 Key Words
1. axe
2. decline
3. Wheels
4. bleak
5. trigger
6. vulnerable
7. Nostalgia
8. grid-locked
9. gas-guzzler
10. brash
3 Comprehension Check
1. b; 2. b; 3. c; 4. a:
4 Vocabulary 1 Collocations
1. post
2. make
3. lose
4. give
5. take over (outperform)
6. open
7. shut
8. lay off/axe
5 Vocabulary 2 Prepositions
1. for
2. on
3. at
4. of
5. of (about)
6. at
7. with
8. of
6 Vocabulary 3 Chunks
1. a way of life
2. a declining market share
3. a farming-based society
4. the best in the world