Automotive PODs/alternate cars

  Would  the lack of the war or a general lack of Arab-Israeli conflict do more than delay the issue?  The oil embargo resulting from the Arab defeat in 73 might have pushed things forward a bit but the ME nations especially had such a dominant position that once they were willing to combine against the US political pressure they always had the potential to use such power.  IIRC the Saudis especially had managed to wrestle control from the big US oil companies a few years before and start increasing the price it was being sold at - or more importantly to them the share of the money they received.

  Japan already had very efficient and reliable cars - the lack of the latter attribute was an issue with a lot of British based producers, not sure about the US at the time.  Continued cheap oil would have given no great incentive to made US cars more efficient so its likely to be an issue sooner or later and probably sooner.  From what I recall the US car industry had rather fossilized with regular production of big flashy cars with a lot of fancy gimmicks, and planned obsolescence to prompt people to change their cars regularly.

  Mind you it should be noted that Japan was also a massive consumer of oil at the time but they were able to move a lot more quickly to make their industry as well as their cars more energy efficient.  I recall a quote that in Dec 41 Japan went to war with 6 months supply of oil - have also heard 12 or 18 months figures mentioned - but in 73 when the 1st oil shock hit they were consuming that much oil in as many hours.

  In one way it was a great tragedy that the response to the 2nd shock in 79 - probably because of the hostage crisis - was the election of Reagan and his opposition to economic reform and especially government involvement in such.  A hell of a lot of work went into developing alternatives in the period 73-80 but the return to massive use of fossil fuels and strangling of alternatives delayed their development in the US, which at the time was still the great industrial and technical centre albeit it was being challenged by Japan.  Britain had the same problem with Thatcher's gaining of power in 79.  We could have been so much further along in terms of diversifying power sources and it would probably have meant the west hadn't given up on many areas of industrial production as well as the world facing a less dire environmental issue with global warming.

When I graduated from college a friend and I had a car-wash business for a while.   We did all kinds of cars, but Audis, Mercedes, Cadillacs, etc. were definitely on the list.  One of our customers was a VP (at the time) of one of the local grocery chains, and his commute was over 100 miles each day (he lived more than 50 miles from company HQ).

He had a Benz, but gave it to his wife and bought one of the then-new Infinity Q45s.   That Q45 was every bit as much a luxury car as the Benz was.   Just like Mercedes, Infinity put the same quality carpet in the trunk that they put in the interior.    That carpeting was so thick, when we would vacuum the interior or trunk, dirt never got down in carpet, it just sat on top.   I drove the Q on several occasions, and it was an incredible machine.  I think the success of Lexus was more tied to the popularity of Toyota in the US, Toyota selling more cars at the time than Datsun/Nissan.   To push Infinity, you might have to make Datsun/Nissan more popular in the US.   That might take better quality than Honda or Toyota from them...

Incidentally, one of my favorite automotive 'what ifs' is the 1954 Oldsmobile F88.   Designed under Harley Earl, GM's genius of automotive styling, it was a contemporary of the first generation Chevrolet Corvette.  

Harley Earl believe the F88 would have outsold the Corvette.  But Chevrolet convinced the board to kill the project, as initial Corvette sells were weak and Chevy was trying to protect its newborn.    But the F88 had a tremendous advantage over the Corvette; instead of the anemic Blue Flame straight 6, the F88 was powered by the hulking, green Rocket 88 V-8 from the Olds 88. 

I think V-8 power in that small, 2-seat body would have killed Chevy's Corvette in its cradle.   So take the Corvette's lineage, and reputation and apply it to an Oldsmobile.  

Sadly, only one survives; there may have been a second, rumors say it was destroyed in a fire. The sole example left got away from GM (the rumor was after it was cancelled, Harley Earl gave it to a friend) and was in private hands for decades.  It sold at the Barrett-Jackson auction several years ago for $3 million.   The guy who bought it owns a car museum in Colorado.

My thoughts,