Ken Salazar sets an example for sustainable practice after Colorado College

If you were to say that you were in love with your Land Rover, most students at Colorado College would be able to conceptualize the size and shape of your car. Does it make any difference that Ford owns Land Rover? Should you have said that you loved your Ford instead? 

Doesn’t quite have the same ring, does it?

Bt saying that wouldn’t be right either. The actual owner of Land Rover is Tata Motors, a huge Indian car corporation. They bought both Jaguar and Land Rover in 2008, so to correctly express your love for your Land Rover, and your daddy’s Jag, you might say: “I love my Tatas”.

Your neighbor always looks pretty charming when cruising around town with latte in hand on a Sunday afternoon in his Lamborghini, but in reality, he’s just driving an Audi. Bummer. Wait, no, Lamborghini is a subsidiary of Audi, but Audi is itself a subsidiary of Volkswagen, and has been since 1964. So, really he’s driving a VW. (It might as well have a YEM bumper sticker, placed right next to the Coexist bumper sticker, because they look so nice together.) The same metal in your neighbors Lambo could have just as easily become some sort of crude VW hippie caravan, bursting with hula hoops, glow sticks, and nitrous tanks. 

It would be obvious who would win in a race between your wealthy neighbor or a couple of Phish heads on a way to a show (that is, unless they used the nitrous tanks as rocket boosters), but there are plenty of Acura Integras that, when souped up properly, could give the Lambourghini a decent race.

What does the name of a car really mean? Rolls-Royce was originally owned by the British company that came up with the design, but Rolls Royce is now owned by BMW. Is it more British, or more German? Volvo has been Ford’s since 1999, Lexuses and Scions have always really been Toyotas. Chevy and GMC are both divisions of General Motors, as are Buick and Cadillac. Similarly, Lincolns and Mercurys are thicker, more expensive Fords. 

Jeep could now be considered Italian, as it is a division of Chrysler, which FIAT, an Italian automaker, has had a controlling share of since January 2009. Jeep would seem a little out of place in Florance, but then again so would big Dodge vans or Ram trucks, both of which now belong to FIAT as well. 

The car company Saturn was owned by General Motors since it began, and was actually started by GM in 1985 in response to the then growing number of Japanese imports. Yes, it was “A New Kind of Company,” for a while; it operated somewhat independently of GM, and had a different retailer network than GM did. But it was never entirely an independent company. If GM had a problem with what Saturn was doing or if GM was losing money on Saturn cars, they could change in one sweeping gesture what they saw fit, even if it was detrimental to Saturn.

None of this is to say that there is no difference between any of the different types of cars. But I raise the question: How much extra effort do you think Toyota puts in making Lexus’ just because they are Lexus’, and thus more expensive? Are Volvos still Volvo’s, if Ford tampers with their structure enough? Is there really that much of a difference between an Audi and a Volkswagen, other than speed?

And almost more importantly, where is your money going? If you buy a Subaru, then the money is going to Subaru division of Fuji Heavy Industries, based in Japan. Who the hell are they, and are they as trustworthy as Subaru? It seems that for all the types of different cars that exist out there, money seems to pool into a couple big pots: Toyota, Honda, General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen, etc. Is this ok? Do we want the quality of our cars to be decided by a few self-interested parties? Perhaps the people of Volvo care about the quality of their cars, but do the people of Ford feel the same passion? What if Toyota and Honda and General Motors and Ford are all really owned by “the Man,” and the whole concept of a “car company” is an illusion? 

I do not mean to instill fear that cars cleared for sale in the United States will automatically be of bad quality, or spontaneously blow up (except for the Pinto, of course) because the company who makes the car is owned by someone else, but I find it a bit unsettling that not all cars from General Motors display their true identity. They are called Cadillacs, Chevys and Buicks, all of which have been infused with their own image. Even though GM is still calling the shots, these divisions of GM are not advertised in any way as being affiliated with General Motors. Scion has always been advertised as being sleek, technological cars that appeal to the 2000 generation of Twitterers and people who have Facebook accounts. The people paying for the advertisements however, have always been affiliated with Toyota, and are the ones profiting. 

To be fair, the issue of different car brands could be likened to Hostess cakes. Zebra cakes are definitely not the same thing as Twinkies, never will be, and deserve to have a more descriptive name than just “Black and White Hostess Cakes”. However, car companies have different names both for each individual car, and for each line of cars, an example being the “Denali” series of GMC SUVs and trucks. I question the necessity of needing a third name to distinguish the car, a name that does more to confuse than it does to aid the consumer in picking one out. There are a couple exceptions, BMW’s have always been BMW’s, and when you buy one, your money is ending up at their space station style headquarters in Munich, Germany. Check it out if you get the chance, it looks more than likely to blast off at the first sign of the apocalypse. 

Things get more complicated however, when you are writing a check to a company that takes orders from another company: who are you really paying? When I write a check to a company, in a way I am congratulating them by giving them my business. I want the people who make the car to receive the benefits, not some random businessman with a nice tie who might care more about the profitability of the car than about its quality. I already distrust car companies, but that shred of trust disappeared when I realized that the people pulling the present-day financial strings of these companies aren’t the people who started the company because they wanted to make great cars. 

One day I will buy a car, and that day might come soon. But I will be more suspicious than I already am of car salesmen and the car buying process, and will possibly end up buying a horse and buggy from the Amish couple down the street. Or maybe just a bicycle.