Americans who like American cars also like V-8’s. The evidence is undeniable. No less an oracle than the Wall Street Journal proclaimed it in a recent article. That article revealed important aspects of the America character, especially among those with conservative social leanings.
A Corporate Error
The premise of the article was that the 2025 Ram truck introduced a marvelous six-cylinder engine that was more economical, powerful, smoother and quieter than its previous V-8. Stellantis, the multi-national automobile company that builds the Ram, even went back into the annals of automotive history to name the new engine the “Hurricane,” after a legendary Jeep engine used from 1950 until 1971.
No one can doubt that the old V-8 was obsolete. In its basic form, it dates back to about 1990 and shares engineering elements with engines going back to the fifties. Nonetheless, sales went down a lot. Corporate analysis showed that forty percent of American truck buyers refused even to consider the new Ram, limiting their choices to the Ford F-series and the Chevrolet Silverado.
Amazingly, in 2026, Ram made the old engine an option that cost $1,200 more than the same truck with the new, supposedly better engine. Ram truck sales are up twenty-two percent during a year when the whole industry is declining.
“I Want What I Want”
At this point, some readers may think that they received an email from Motor Trend or Car and Driver by accident. However, the importance of this article is what it reveals about many Americans and their attitudes toward “progress.” In light of a political situation where the great questions concern rifts between conservatives and progressives, these tendencies are well worth considering.
Sometime in the mid to late-nineteenth century, the famous Chicago merchant, Marshall Field, instructed his clerks, “Give the lady what she wants!” The phrase has been repeated in marketing classes and sales seminars ever since. That attitude is an important part of the American psyche. The typical American consumer has seldom been swayed by statistics and scientific evaluations proving that one product is better than another. They want what they want, and what they want is whatever makes them feel better.
This impulse is not always a virtuous one. It can inspire the arch-vice, pride. It encourages a lack of thrift. However, when kept under control, it can also yield great happiness. Thus, a powerful vehicle can serve as a motive to be a symbol of richly deserved success for all to see.
A Cultural Mésalliance
For many Americans, that motive is still out there. It often finds its modern expression in V-8-powered pickup trucks.
Perhaps Carlos Taveras, the CEO of automaker Stellantis from 2021 to 2024, was absent the day they taught Marshall Field’s maxim. Perhaps they didn’t teach it at the Lycée français Charles-Lepierre in Lisbon or the École Centrale Paris, where he went to school. Maybe he didn’t understand that the admonition applies to men as much as it does to ladies. That is unfortunate, because not following it caused him to make a massive error, deciding to make the high-end option in the Ram pickup a six-cylinder engine.
The Portuguese executive ran a multi-faceted corporate empire. It markets its automobiles under fourteen different brand names. Among those products are Chrysler and Dodge automobiles, Ram Trucks, and Jeeps. He spent his early career at Renault, which Stellantis also owns.
This may be a case where experience in one context can be a detriment in another. Most Americans, especially the pickup truck men, wouldn’t touch a Renault with a ten-foot pole. Renault made two attempts to break into the American market with small cars, failing both times. Business analysts at the time said that the Renault did not have enough power to handle American expressways, or the American desire for space in the passenger compartment and trunk. That was true, as far as it went, but the real reason was that Renaults looked cheap and drew ridicule from the owner’s friends. It just didn’t feel good to drive a Renault.
Rejecting the “New and Improved”
Many might say that modern cars have more in common with Renaults than they do with expectations of motoring pleasure. Modern cars have screens instead of gauges, radios and levers to regulate the heaters and air conditioners. They have sensors that warn you when you are about to cross the centerline on the road, get too close to another car or forget to buckle your seatbelt. Those who treat their cars as tools that get them where they need to go might think the gadgetry is fine. On the other hand, those who enjoy driving and have been doing it for decades feel like some stowaway computer they don’t even want thinks it knows more than they do.
Nobody wants to be told how to do something they think they can do better on their own. Perhaps that is more true of Americans than the Europeans who run Stellantis.
The word Stellantis means “to brighten with stars.” It has not lived up to its name. It was founded in January 2021. Its stock has been on a roller-coaster ever since. Starting at about $12 US per share, it hit a high of just over $29 but has been in steady decline ever since. When the Italian Antonio Filosa replaced Mr. Tavares, the stock was standing at about $11. Disastrous as that price was then, it would look pretty good today. Its current values range between $5 and $6. The firm’s future is far from guaranteed.
On the other hand, the American spirit that seizes opportunities and embraces self-direction will endure. It is the reason that most Americans still reject socialism, when much of the rest of the world embraces it. It is the reason that Americans give a cold stare to socialists who try to sell dependency and then ask why they are voting against their own interests. The same spirit that encourages some to buy V-8 trucks is the one that will prevent the United States from embracing Marxism. Right now, too many in the American government, media and business are working to breed those traits out. Hopefully, all three will abandon that misbegotten effort before it is too late.
Photo Credit: © zorandim75 – stock.adobe.com
First Published on TFP.org