Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Copy-Cat Cars

Have you ever notice how much cars these days all look so much alike?
I think anymore there's just one company who designs car bodies, and all the makers do all their business with this one company.

You'll notice there'll be three or four cars parked side-by-side: a Honda, a Ford, a Chevrolet, a Lexus, a Mercedes
...and, unless you look at the front logo, you can't hardly tell one apart from the other.

It's like that long-standing joke: "How does one tell a Lexus from a Honda? By the sticker price."

You know, in the late-1950s/early-1960s Mack had a really classy truck rolling on the highways---the G Model (which, personally, I think was the best-looking truck Mack ever made).
But, as the story goes, the truck maker Kenworth had a cabover model which looked somewhat similar. And they threatened to sue Mack for design plagiarism if they continued manufacturing their G Model. Hence, the G's were only in production for just under 2 years.

These days I don't think it would even be possible for any of the automakers to even attempt such a suit.
They'd only end up suing each other indefinitely.

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