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It's that time of the year again, when the US demonstrates its organisational skills by staging its two major motor shows (in Los Angeles and Detroit) at the same time. But more significantly, the world's second largest vehicle-producing nation has blown untold millions of dollars going concept car crazy.

By Mike Rutherford

07th January 2004

On a personal level, I love it. Some of the happiest working hours of my life have been spent trawling around the stands at the LA Convention Center and Cobo Hall, Detroit, in early January. But looking at the bigger picture, some American auto manufacturers are undoubtedly barking up the wrong tree. Why? Because their product quality is at best so-so, and at worst lousy.

Perhaps it's time they should hold back on building entertaining, headline-grabbing, but often irrelevant prototypes and concentrate instead on more important day-to-day matters - such as whether their vehicles start up in the morning, have bits that fall off or conk out mid-journey. It's a real problem for companies such as GM, which dominates the 'least reliable' vehicle league, according to the respected Consumers Union of New York. There are 35 models in this list of shame, and nearly half of them are from the GM stable. Good ol' boy pick-ups such as the GMC Sonoma can perhaps be forgiven for being more unreliable than most. But it's not acceptable that the Corvette and Hummer H2 are in that category, particularly as they're supposed to be premium products.

Ford has a similar - if less serious -dilemma due to the appearance of its upmarket Expedition 4x4 and Lincoln Navigator in the least reliable table. And Chrysler does not escape, either, because its Jeep Grand Cherokee is in there, too. True, British, Japanese and Swedish firms get bad marks from the Consumers Union, as well. And the Germans - in particular VW and Mercedes (which is part of DaimlerChrysler) - are nearly as bad as the Americans. But I'll save it until another day to explain why German firms don't make their cars anything like as well as they used to. And I'm not excusing UK companies Jaguar and Land Rover, which get two mentions apiece - despite their high prices and premium product reputation.

But I come back to the US companies and in particular GM, which is by far the poorest in the States at building dependable cars. Indeed, given that the car giant has dominated the CU list, it could be argued that it is the worst company on the planet when it comes to building motors that start and run properly. In short, the world's largest auto manufacturer has to make the matter its top priority, even if that means cutting back on concepts, most of which won't go into production, anyway. The company also needs to ask itself why Japanese firms occupy 31 out of the 32 places in the CU's 'most reliable' table. It's confirmation that Toyota/Lexus is as good as GM is bad. Honda, Nissan, Mazda and Mitsubishi also do well, but significantly Suzuki and Subaru (both firms with GM interests) do not. Bizarrely, the one non-Japanese outfit to win a 'most reliable' badge was Buick - which does belong to GM. So you see, it is only a matter of trying.

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