When the US city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy earlier this summer, it had many people in the immediate area worried and that fear has since spread throughout the nation and even the wider world in many instances. The city famous for Motown and muscle cars has an estimated level of $18bn worth of debt and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said that the city is “basically broke.”
The question on the lips of the motoring industry, however, which has close connections with “Motor City” of course, is over the future of American motoring with manufacturers moving out of the area and jobs being cut. While there are still tons of cars for sale in Rio Grande Valley and the rest of America, the market in Detroit is long gone.
It isn’t all doom and gloom for Detroit-based motoring fans, however, as the organisers of the 2014 North American International Auto Show – based in Detroit – say that the event will go ahead as planned bringing the opportunity back for the die-hard motoring fans to cling onto their motoring heritage.
This is a great sign, not only for Detroit, but also for American motoring in general. The market is at risk of falling behind the likes of Japan, Germany, Britain and Italy in terms of the global superpowers in car production. For decades now, the American market has been filled with muscle cars and a the nation as a whole are famous for their love of motor sport with cars racing around circuits at incredible speeds with engines made in the good old US of A.
In recent years, the American-made cars such as the Cadillac, Dodge and Ford have started to fall behind against the Japanese in particular, including the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic, with the Japanese taking a much more comfort and performance-based approach to their cars. The American heritage in motoring suggests that they need to stick with what they know, creating some amazing muscle cars with hundreds of torques, millions of horse power and ridiculous speeds.
The evidence is there that the market will pick up, predominantly around used models it must be said, but it will take time. In the short term, the American motoring industry has taken a dent but like all things American, it’s sure to dust itself off and come back stronger.
