How much of an indicator of the health of a nation is its motor industry?

[forddeliveryboy]

The long, dark Winter has finally started attacking the brain cells and instead of working out how I can collect boughtedwheelz, other ebay tat and chod all in one grand day out with a sack-trolleyed container of veg (but does Virgin East Coast/The Underground see that as terroriz-luggage?), I've succumbed to daft musing such as this. 

 

A few hours of sun almost cured me, but thoughts persisted through the long evening, once the children were in bed - is a country with its own, thriving motor industry with competing brands an indicator that a nation's health is pretty good? Could you predict the end of the USA's global dominance back in the general crapness of its 1980s motor industry products, or could you have said the USSR was bound to fail but may rise again with examination of 1980s Ladas?

 

I don't know whether this would be of any use with respect to Cuba or Switzerland - it's p'rhaps all total bollox - but is the French malaise in any way indicated by its total lack of anything exciting or stylish coming from its motor industry? Does one affect the other? That countries once stifled by Russian Communism are only making others' machines (but to high standards and in massive numnbers) makes sense, where does that leave the UK?

[Junkman]

A country's well-being is directly linked to the healthiness of its car industry. Look at Somalia for example. It doesn't even have one and just look what a mess it is.

Enter North Korea, which shoddily assembled a few W124s and thus is already doing slightly better and can afford nuclear weapons.

 

So if the car industry of a country isn't doing well for whatever reason, a scrappage scheme must be introduced and big corporations must be bailed out with tax money!

 

However, there are exceptions. Switzerland and Luxembourg are doing well without making cars. Their economies are solely based on fencing and money laundry.

They also mastered the art of committing war crimes without even particiating in any, another very lucrative income source.

Alternatively you can also follow the Dutch example, who replaced its car industry with drug dealing.

[castros_bro]

You are confusing "Health" with "money".  Before Derek Obama's recent wibbleing interferences   Cuba doesn't have factories building new cars but has a vital bodging and remanufacturing of automotive bits and is a far more lovely healthy  place then Switzerland, US of A  or Essex .  Taking my pimped ride (below) , with almost too many people on board, to Matanzas for a beach day and  wind surfing then back for a sultry evening on the Malecón and a night of Club Tropicana always beats the Bavarian motor commute to Darmstadt which it replaced. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tamworthbay]

If Jeremy ©Hunt has his way there will no NHS so we will probably have to rely on our local garages to perform minor surgery, so yes a countries health may well be directly related to the state of its motor industry.

[gordonbennet]

We might be said to have thriving new car sales, however we have a company car culture which probably accounts for the vast majority of medium large and expensive car sales, and the rest increasingly on long term rent to a nation hooked on new cars financed on cheap credit by people who seem to think low interest rates are here to stay.

 

The elephant in the room is that we own so little of our nations companies and increasingly put ourselves at the mercy of foreign companies and government for everything, including power/water etc, even for prospective energy/infrastructure we look to China.

[Junkman]

Them bleedin forrinnas.

[pshome]

According to the Internet, Somalia does have a car industry producing fine vehcles like this,

 

 

That shows that Somalia is actually a very healty Nation, the high number of large freight vessels visiting their shores proofs this further.

[Lacquer Peel]

Alternatively you can also follow the Dutch example, who replaced its car industry with drug dealing.

 

Nedcar still exists, they make British* BINIs.

[Junkman]

Well, you gotta be stoned to do that, innitt?

[Lacquer Peel]

Dunno if you're trolling, but I've been to Holland a few times recently and for most people there smoking weed isn't an everyday thing, you're far more likely to see someone stoned on a UK high street, where the drug is prohibited.

[Junkman]

On a more serious note, in the wake of the VW scandal, the EUSSR seriously considers to relax diesel emissions regulations for maximum fascism:

 

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/european-commission-relax-rules-tougher-emissions-regulations

 

It's opposed by a handful of non-fascists, who sadly are merely members of the ceremonial panem et circenes sector of the Brussels Soviet:

 

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20160118IPR10327/MEPs-discuss-vetoing-plan-to-relax-diesel-car-emission-limits

 

I say we have it black on white here whose health is more important - the car industry's, or ours.

So always keep in mind, what's good for VW is good for the pension fund...

[LC Torana]

If the health of a nation is gauged by the health of it's motor industry, then Australia is £%$@!

[forddeliveryboy]

If the health of a nation is gauged by the health of it's motor industry, then Australia is £%$@!

 

Aye, but Kinetic Suspension did originate in Western Oz and is arguably the single biggest advance in suspension since that French company re-wrote the rule book in the 50s.

[gordonbennet]

Them there lucky Aussies and Kiwis get first dibs on thousands of proper Japanese used cars that have never seen any salt, they don't need a motor industry of their own.

[LC Torana]

Japanese car?

 

I'd rather take the tram.