INTAKE
Ward's AutoWorld, Jun 1, 2009 12:00 PM

I ABSOLUTELY SUPPORT YOUR POSITION in your article, “Forget the Past. It's Forgotten Us” (see WAW — April '09, p.40). We spend entirely too much time reflecting on the past, which does little to nothing about solving future challenges.

Now, if we can only get everyone to stop comparing 2009 CY sales to anything in the past and focus on how sales have improved month-over-month starting in January, this would be a benefit to all. The message is positive. February to March sales were up 20%!

We all need to focus on today and where we are going. So far, it's heading in the right direction.
Scott Paradise
Troy, MI

Without a doubt we have to respect and acknowledge the past. I'd hold the industry's people and accomplishments up to any other. But the real issue for the U.S. government and whether to support the industry is not what the industry has done but what the industry will do.

From mobility to economic contribution, the industry will give much to America's future. We must articulate that position and make the industry a positive part of everyone's life. If we do that, we will never be too far away from respecting the past and we will be right in the middle of appreciating the present.
Dave Andrea
Troy, MI

Your commentary talks about an uncomfortable, unpopular, rather abstract concept that's not amenable to sound-bite thinking. Once we accept it, digest it, incorporate it into our worldview, I think we'll be the better for it. I like me today much better than the man I was 40 years ago, but it's a bitter pill to swallow.

Another way of looking at the issue is to think of our country, with Detroit as its poster child, as enduring a difficult transition from teenager to adulthood, or perhaps a painful mid-life crisis.

My generation, the boomers, and our children have grown up in a country that came out of WWII almost unscathed, with its industrial strength improved by the war. Oil flowed freely, and we bestrode the world like a Colossus. Life has always been easy for us, with limitless possibilities. We thought we were rich because we were really good and really smart and really deserved what we had.

I remember my father, a child of the Depression, once remarking that I had a nice home. I said I'd earned it by working hard. He gently acknowledged that while I'd no doubt worked hard, my good fortune in being the high-IQ, first-born son of white, middle-class, college-educated Americans might also have had something to do with my success. Welcome back to the real world, America.
Bob Fankhauser
Portland, OR

THE INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY Safety is wrong to suggest weight is a negative variable in automobile safety (see WAW — March '09, pp.26).

It is a fading myth still held by a few that lighter vehicles are not as safe when, in fact, studies have proven — and federal regulators have agreed in rulemaking — that size rather than weight is a better determinant of vehicle safety. IIHS has said lighter cars are less safe. Yet, that view is too simplistic.

Smart design matched with strong, lightweight materials such as aluminum can allow designers to create a larger body, which increases the crush zone to better absorb crash energy. The all-aluminum Audi A8 is 5-star safety rated, and the all-aluminum Jaguar XJ is considered safer than its heavier steel predecessor.

As OEMs work to boost fuel economy, cut emissions and improve safety, keeping or increasing vehicle size and losing vehicle weight will continue to be an important part of the solution.
J. Stephen Larkin
President, The Aluminum Association Inc.
Arlington, Virginia

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