The Truth About Cars is a group blog, that Robert Farago founded because he felt that few were writing honestly and candidly about the automobile industry. Here’s a description from TTAC website:
The Truth About Cars provides no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners automotive reviews and industry-related editorials. Our writers call it like they see it, and pull no punches….About four years ago, Robert Farago was a freelance writer living in the UK. After Autocar blacklisted Farago for slating then Editor-In-Chief Steve Sutcliffe (for boasting about driving a Lamborghini with his eyes closed), Farago started posting rants on www.pistonheads.com. Despite (or because of) Fahrenheit 451 temp replies, he created a regular series called “The Truth About Cars.” When Farago moved to the U.S., he started TTAC.
That’s how a popular and influential blog — now a group blog — came to be: someone thought there were problems in an industry, that others (especially car magazine editors) refused to talk about. It’s not that the problems weren’t ever discussed; they weren’t discussed as honestly and thoroughly as they might have been. It’s not that problems in the automotive industry were new; they were long-standing.
Whitewater’s a small town, with nowhere near the talent that the failing American auto industry had. It’s making the same mistakes of insularity, arrogance, laughable boosterism, and ignorance of serious problems of comparative economic decline and unaddressed poverty.
At many ponts during the last twenty years, the American auto industry (especially GM and Chrysler) might have pointed to the next big thing, right up until the point that they fell apart. They’re not done falling, even now. (Farago may be right that GM and Chrysler are finished, in a year or two.)
Someone writing about the collapse of GM, even a few years ago, might have been considered nuts; how could the world’s largest automaker fail? Asking that question today, however, requires asking about Toyota, not GM.
Decline often happens slowly; it’s impact not being evident until it’s too late. I wrote something along these lines this morning, in reply to a reader’s question:
“I also don’t expect sudden change, and I never expect that what I write will alter the course of local events. On the contrary, I think that change will inevitably come to Whitewater apart from anything that anyone writes or says. I’m chronicling a course that others have set for themselves, with a few stray comments along the way, about how it might have been different.
It won’t be different; this die is cast. Like the American auto industry (about which I’ll make mention today), Whitewater’s municipal government and local elites are on a course both fixed and glacial. They won’t change, right up until everything changes around them. Even then, I doubt they’ll notice, until their noticing doesn’t matter.”
These gentlemen are sure — absolutely sure — that they’re right. I’m not convinced. It doesn’t matter that they’re absolutely sure; it certainly doesn’t matter that I’m not convinced.
Many of the men running the city will have passed from the scene — retired or moved on — before the wreck of their policies is evident to those who remain. In even a few years, the cast of leading players in Whitewater is likely to be significantly different.
Change won’t come from within, but from without. Ultimately, Whitewater will look more like America, although still a small town, and there’s simply no way to prevent that transformation. The marquee projects of today, or tomorrow, do not represent that lasting change.
We’re far from the moment when things will be different, the way the American auto industry was far from our current scene in 1990.
For America, there’s a bright future ahead. For many who work (or worked) in the current auto industry, that’s no consolation. America — free, dynamic, ambitious, open — will develop new companies and industries, including perhaps new car companies. In her long history, America has often and convincingly overcome threats, hardships, and doubts. She’ll do so many times again.
Whitewater will, too. It will happen, though, long after all the current boosterism has faded, and been forgotten.