Letters.(Letter to the Editor)

Unsettled by UAW settlement

I'm troubled by the new UAW contracts signed with Visteon, Delphi, Ford, Chrysler and GM. In signing these deals, the car companies noted thousands of jobs would be lost in an effort to give the Detroit companies the ammunition they need to halt foreign companies' drive for more American market share.

When will it become apparent that reducing costs via the Roger Smith school of thought is not what will save Detroit? The Japanese and German manufacturers didn't get where they are by cutting costs. They're seriously challenging Detroit by designing, engineering and building better products. The free market has borne this out, and Tokyo and Stuttgart know it.

Better products will continue to push the domestics down the drain. Detroit will further reduce costs in pumping out vastly inferior products, and the UAW contracts will further reduce union members. Sorry, but the market has said so-not me.

Ward Bennett Karson, via e-mail

Another step forward for history

Thanks for the article on the new Mercedes Classic Center here in the States (Sept. 15). It's great to see acknowledgement of the increasing interest in restoring historic/classic automobiles. Mention was made of the automobile restoration program at McPherson College in Kansas. There is another institution in the country that offers such training, and it's near Detroit: the Automobile Restoration and Fabrication Program at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor (wccnet.org). It offers options from a certificate through an associate's degree in Automobile Restoration, and contact is made with professional restorers in the area, many of whom have multiple concours winners to their credit.