This past summer at the Washington, DC get-together we were allowed another opportunity to view a private car collection of 1948 Tucker Automobiles. After the tour, the owner of the Tucker collection, thanked me for organizing the DeLoreans and proceeded to show me some pictures of my DeLorean that he took on a previous visit. The Tucker owner was impressed with the DeLorean car and the features of the car beneath the surface, specifically the chassis, rear mounted engine, the operating mechanism and function of the gullwing doors, and the placement of the interior cabin ergonomics, and the large amount of legroom. He was interested in sharing his comparison of the two cars and their place in automobiledom, way ahead of the market and a significant step ahead of the current 1948 & 1981 technical advancements. Additional speculation about the 1948 & 1981 legislative persuasions, economic stability of the automobile manufacturing industry, and the trend of the car companies to hire lobbyist to lobby the manufactures point. We discussed the current SUV market dominance and consumer trend of the "truck chassis underneath a stationwagon body." He described how unsafe cars and specifically some SUV's are allowed to enter the marketplace to consumers, and how a paradigm shift in the process of automobile consumerism such as the DMC or Tucker could actually benefit the consumer, better known as significant leaps in advancement are quickly discounted and placed on the shelf. If anyone has seen the Frontline SUV story on public television, FRONTLINE Bulletin http://www.pbs.org/frontline/ - This Week: "Rollover: The Hidden History of the SUV," - Inside Frontline: Behind the scenes with producer Marc Shaffer - Live Discussion: Chat with the producer on Fri. at 11am ET Consider these statistics: - During the same ten years in which Ford-Firestone rollover crashes caused some 300 deaths, more than 12,000 people died in SUV rollovers unrelated to tire failure. - There will be an estimated 70,000 SUV rollovers in 2002, in which 2000 people will die. - 1 out of 4 new vehicles sold in the U.S. is an SUV. They are the most popular (and profitable) vehicles in America. Now, if you find these numbers surprising -- and disturbing -- consider that automakers and government regulators have long known about the high rollover tendency of SUVs. ... FRONTLINE investigates "the hidden history of the SUV" and examines how politicians and regulators in Washington, from the early 1980s to today, have given the auto industry a free pass on SUVs despite the serious safety risks they pose. Should they have done more to inform and protect the public? We hope you'll join us on Thursday night for this important report. On our website following the broadcast -- at http://www.pbs.org/frontline/ -- you'll find an overview of the SUV's political and legal history, including the most recent developments; extended interviews with former top regulators (from opposing political camps) and other auto-safety experts; and, in a special web-exclusive, we're offering never-before-broadcast audio excerpts from an Oval Office meeting between Richard Nixon and the top executives of Ford Motor Co. in 1971. More on this below, in a behind-the-scenes Q&A with producer Marc Shaffer. Frontline went into detail describing the terrible state that the US car manufacturing industry was in during the early 1980's. The major manufactures (big 4) "were skidding on an ice patch towards a brick wall." "The US car manufacturing industry was heading towards bankruptcy in the early 1980's due to their refusal to accept the fact that they were building out of date cars, for out of date customers. The US car industry was taken over by the regrouped European manufactures and the Japanese automakers." There were further reports on the C. A. F. E. (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) requirements and how the major car companies, "With the help of lobbyist, the President and Vice President of the United States and legislative persuasion, were able to get around the CAFE requirements, market THEN develop a hybrid car attached to a truck chassis." Best Wishes, Michael