It is indeed a FACT that high-end car sales - sales for expensive makes and models - declined the first half of the 1990's. Sales numbers are what they are, sales numbers, and thus carry no bias.
Again, do you have those figures? B/c they weren't in any of your posts.
I was able to find Mercedes-Benz annual sales in the U.S. as reported each January of the following year:
1989 - 74,851
1990 - 76,966
1991 - 58,087
1992 - 62,832
1993 - 53,446
1994 - 72,534
As you can see, these numbers confirm the statements quoted above. (BTW the one in the Christian Science Monitor was in a news story, not an editorial.)
To get a better idea of how the auto industry was going in the early part of the 1990's, here are some quotes from newspapers at that time, in stories summarizing annual sales at the end of each year.
Wall Street Journal, January 7, 1992: "Auto Makers Hobble into the New Year with Little Hope for a Robust Recovery"
WSJ said:
For the U.S. auto market, 1991 ended with much of the gloom and uncertainty that marked the year's infancy, giving little hope for a rapid recovery in 1992.
The year that opened with fears about the recession and rumblings of a military battle with Iraq ended with fears about the continuing recession and rumblings of a trade battle with Japan.
All of the pessimism depressed sales of cars and light trucks in 1991 to 12.3 million vehicles, an 11.5% decline from a lackluster 1990, and the worst performance since 1983, when the nation was shaking off the effects of the last recession.
Domestic cars sold at a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 7.1 million vehicles for the last 10 days of December. That was the highest level since early July, when auto makers hoped the economy was on the road to recovery, and well above the domestic sales pace of 5.9 million cars for the entire month. But the numbers weren't as good as they might look.
The sales rate typically jumps in late December, and the Federal Reserve Board's sharp cut in interest rates should have exaggerated the trend. But the sales rate remained well below that of the depressed year-ago period, and left few industry officials optimistic heading into the new year.
Last year "was a dismal year for the entire industry," Chrysler Corp. President Robert A. Lutz said yesterday. "I think 1992 will be a little better than 1991, but it's unlikely that 1992 will be a whole lot better."
Wall Street Journal, January 7, 1993: "Ford Taurus dethrones Honda Accord as top-selling car in U.S. during 1992"
WSJ said:
-- Overall U.S. car and truck sales rose 4% to 12.9 million vehicles in 1992 from 12.3 million a year earlier, the second-worst year for U.S. auto sales since 1983. Question Mark for 1993 The big question now is whether 1993 will mark the beginning of a sustained recovery after several false starts in recent months.
"Clearly there's more upside potential in 1993 than there was in 1992," said J. Michael Losh, group vice president in charge of GM's North American marketing operations. A recovering economy and declining consumer debt loads all point to a rebound in U.S. vehicle sales, he said.
However, GM and most other auto makers are maintaining conservative sales forecasts. GM sees 1993 sales rising to between 13.5 million and 14 million vehicles. Maryann Keller, auto analyst at Furman Selz Inc., said combined car and truck sales could reach 13.7 million.
If those predictions hold true, it will mean another far from robust year, particularly by the standards of the mid-1980s when sales averaged about 15 million vehicles a year. Among the uncertainties: a possible increase in gasoline taxes that could drive consumers away from the larger, more powerful vehicles they have favored in recent years.
Wall Street Journal, January 6, 1994: "Late-December vehicle sales pace declined"
WSJ said:
A total of 13.9 million vehicles were sold in 1993, up 8.3% from the 12.9 million vehicles sold a year earlier. Ford and Chrysler gained a bigger share of the U.S. vehicle market last year, while GM's share dropped.
Sales were up in 1994 and 1995, down again in 1996; see below.
it is also indeed a FACT that your statement that these were boom times for car sales was wrong
US auto sales, '80-'89 = 137.4 million
US auto sales, '90-'99 = 148.8 million
You edited my quote to change its meaning, and then argued against something it never said. Here's the original statement - with the bolded part that you omitted:
Thus it is also indeed a FACT that your statement that these were boom times for car sales was wrong, as applied to this part of the decade and this segment of the market.
The numbers you keep posting don't show the first part of the decade (as separated from the rest of the decade) or the high-end segment of the market (as separated from the rest of the auto market).
However, as you can see from these newspaper stories, even if you look at the auto market as a whole, the first few years of that decade were indeed bad times, described as "a dismal year" and "a far from robust year". Sales picked up a bit in 1995, then dropped by about 2 million in 1996. There were only two years in the 1990's - 1995 and 1999 - in which industry sales reached the 15 million mark that characterized the mid 1980's; the rest of the 1990's was considered a bad time in the auto industry. The auto industry finally once again reached sustained sales of the mid 1980's (i.e. multiple consecutive years of 15+ million) during the period 1999-2007, as you can see in this chart:
So it would be more accurate to say that the boom times were the mid 1980's and the early 2000's, and the bad times were the early 1990's and the period since 2008. If you could find one chart with annual sales from 1980 to the present, that would be even more obvious than it is on this one.
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The corvette is a tough sports car to compare to others in the good ol US of A .....It holds a special place because of its history/price point/2 seats/ect......we chuckle at the cliche of the stereotypical "vette" driver....but the car remains something that 50-70 yo males aspire to own.
I've got to hand it to the Corvette. In all its versions, it has had the best "bang for the buck" at or above its price point, year after year after year.
