. auto industry. For example, during the 1960s and 1970s American culture was affected by fuel shortages and a flurry of foreign made imports. Both of these social changes had an effect on the automobile industry, and industry that tries to define American culture at the same time it attempt to fulfill the demands of that culture, “When import cars first appeared on these shores in the 1950s, they were quickly repulsed by Detroit. But in the 1960s, when the Japanese moved in, they came to stay, and put the Big Three on the defensive for a generation. Their success had as much to do with changing social values as it did with the appeal of their motor vehicles. The mass market was breaking down, everybody wanted to ‘do their own thing,’ as the phrase of the day had it, and soaring inflation and gasoline shortages in the 1970s and early 1980s only accented the consumer trend to the different” (Bohon 6).
World War II probably had as great an impact on American culture and the U.S. auto industry as did either o
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