Detroit Big 3’s future plans don’t align with NASCAR

In secure conference rooms, engineering centers and design studios across metro Detroit, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors are working to create a new generation of fuel-efficient vehicles without repeating the mistakes that crippled them when oil prices and emissions regulations shook their world in the 1970s and '80s.

They are honing new technologies, refining designs and scouring the Earth for fun, fuel-efficient cars they can build or sell in North America. From Chevrolet Corvettes and Ford F-150s to small cars engineered in Europe and Asia, every vehicle is being rethought as fuel prices skyrocket and new fuel-economy rules loom.

Haunting their efforts is the ghost of failures past. Detroit's automakers reduced emissions and fuel consumption in the '70s and '80s, but at the cost of style, performance, quality and reliability — the things that make a car desirable.

The things that keep a car company in business. More at Detroit Free Press

[Editor's Note: If you read the full article it's clear the manufacturers, to survive, plan to build fun, small, fuel efficient cars going forward, pretty much getting out of the muscle car business. How does that fit in with NASCAR's big gas guzzling V8s with 1950's carburetors and almost zero technology? It doesn't]