Muscle memory
Somewhere on I-69 around Auburn, Indiana, as we motored southward to see the kids, the odometer on our 8-year-old Impala registered 100,000.
Big deal, you might say. So what?, you might ask. And I would agree that getting 100,000 miles out of a car these days is hardly noteworthy. They do it without even breaking a sweat.
Keep in mind, however, that I’m old enough to remember when coaxing 100,000 out of a Detroit-made rust-bucket was cause for celebration. In fact, the odometers only went to 99,999; past that, it “rolled over,” back to 00,001. It’s muscle memory that makes me sit up and take notice at 100,000 miles.
So, what changed? As a son of Detroit, it hurts me to say this but the answer is foreign imports - Hondas, Toyota, Volkswagens, etc. It took the automakers overseas to show American car-buyers that planned obsolescence and slipshod manufacturing weren’t the only possibilities.
Fortunately, the Big Three took the lesson.
