America is at risk of becoming an automotive backwater

For decades, America's auto industry was the envy of the world, driven by mass production, the rise of Detroit's Big Three automakers, and the iconic stylings of the 1950s and '60s.

Then, through a series of blunders and missteps, things started to unravel. There was the fuel crisis of the 1970s, which led to an influx of Japanese imports that bested Detroit in fuel savings and reliability. And then there were various global financial collapses throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, and a significant decline in automotive quality as the Big Three continued to push bigger and more expensive vehicles, at the expense of road safety and global …

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