Last week’s program was presented by fellow Rotarian, Billy Herold.  Billy spoke to the club about the car industry and how it has changed through the years.  In 1976 Billy started a Ford dealership.  Billy has been in the car sales business ever since.  America has a love affair with cars.  It is an extension of the driver whether it be a fast car, a convertible, a truck, etc.  In the 1960’s it was “muscle cars”, you could fill up your car with gas for $7.  The 1970’s saw the move from muscle cars to luxury cars with big engines.  GM, Ford and Chrysler were “the big 3” and sold 13 million cars in a year.  Due to gas shortages the big 3 had to start building more fuel efficient cars.  The speed limit was lowered form 70 mph to 55 mph.  The 1970’s had a big transition as they realized they couldn’t keep building these gas guzzling cars.  It was at this time the car industry started getting into 4 cylinder engines.  Japan had been building 4 cylinder cars since WWII so they were ahead of the game and started importing to the U.S.  The Chevy Citation was the 1^st  4 cylinder, front wheel drive car to get over 30MPG, it also had 11 recalls.  In 1978 the “mini-van” came out and by 1982-1983 dominated the market.  The 1980’s the dominant cars were the Chevettes and the Vega.  In the 1990’s the big push was for quality and a big change to the SUV’s.  The Tahoe, Yukon and Escalade were hot…they couldn’t build them fast enough.  Trucks were becoming more popular, not just for farmers anymore!  The 2000’s showed a market shift again with all the crossovers, Traverse, Explorer, Enclave, Acadia.  Now there is a great emphasis on what’s inside the car…gadgets, TV’s, Nav system, wi-fi, sensors that tell you the air pressure in your tires, etc.  The next years will move more towards self-driving cars but Billy believes that the Hybrid cars will be on the way out.  Will cars float one day???...Probably!