The End of an Era (or my car died)

So as my Rov told me, baruch dayon ha’emes. My ’97 Bonneville finally died. It was a long time in coming, and it was the worst investment we ever made. The sad part is that someone in my immediate family has owned a Pontiac for the last 40 years. So goes the end of an era. I was really lucky to be able to get a 2001 Camry. Driving a Japanese car is definitely a different experience. First, even though it’s a used car, nothing rattles. It was always something I looked forward to in an American car, getting used to the sounds. Every GM I ever owned had its own unique sounds at different RPM’s, and I could tell if something was going wrong by different rattles. Not in this car, everything feels like one solid piece. It also doesn’t have unwieldy pieces of non functional molding that fall off. This falling off of pieces of car is a way us American car owners gauged how much longer our cars would last, as well as how “Yeshivish” our cars looked. It also would help us keep our wardrobes current, because you’d be likely to rip your pants on a stray bracket that used to hold on a piece of molding, so then you’d need new pants. The new shirt would come from the invariable grease stains you’d get while jumping your car because a light was left on and the battery got drained. Japanese cars tend to shut the lights out after an allotted time. GM cars as a rule also have bizarre electrical problems. My Bonneville had a short that caused the engine to die right in the middle of normal driving. I’d be halfway down the street and everything would shut off. It would refuse to start up again. My mechanic charged me $400.00 to change a module. The same problem happened a week later when I had a day off and decided to take my daughter to the Children’s Museum in Staten Island. AAA charged me for tolls, and I was panicked because I had no idea where I was specifically, and it was at that point in time when my daughter was toilet training. No bathrooms in the middle of unknown residential neighborhoods! The problem persisted so many times that my mechanic eventually ripped out many parts of the electrical system, and as a result the domino effect of things not working properly took place. (BTW, my mechanic never charged me more than the original $400.00 and worked on the problem four separate times). What finally got me in the end was the fuel and break lines corroding through. So goodbye Bonneville and hello a used car in our price range. A non-descript plain gray Toyota Camry with a plain gray interior. My wife said we should just put a black hat on it and pronounce it Jewish.
Anyway, I got to thinking about Japanese cars. Do sales drop on Pearl Harbor Day? And just how did the Japanese start making better cars than us? The obvious answer is that we bombed them! Let’s just take a look at history. Bomb the Japanese, get Honda and Toyota. Bomb Korea, get a Kia. Bomb Germany and get Audi, BMW, Volkswagen, and Mercedes-Benz. Now I finally know why we’re at war with Iraq! We need better made Iraqi cars! Now if Mr. Bush could only bomb Detroit…