Re: The Demise of the Independents

Posted by Dan On 2017/4/3 20:13:50

When all is said and done, the demise of the independents comes down to a three word phrase:

Economy of scale.

The Big 3 became dominant in the industry by the 1950s. And the independents, try though they might, simply could not compete.

Would the merger proposed by George Mason and others have worked? Maybe. We'll never know. I suspect that even if that merger HAD occurred, the organization might have lacked the enormous amount of capital needed to compete with the Big 3.

Having said that, their efforts TO compete and differentiate themselves from Ford, GM, and Chrysler are interesting to me, and I never tire of learning more about them!