On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors: John Z. De Lorean's Look Inside the Automotive Giant Hardcover – 1 Dec. 1979

DeLorean's account of GM shows how GM had departed from Sloan's masterplan less than a decade after the grand architect of the then largest company in the world passed away. While My Years with General Motors was still seen as a bible internally (it is an excellent book) it left enough room for interpretation that none of the principles were really lived and applied.Some of the main troubles of the company, as described by John Z. DeLorean are dealer problems (the dealer body previously having been a main strength of GM), the lack of market initiative (GM lapsed into a reactive state, where it would simply follow successful segment moves of its competitors), the lack of initiative internally and a terminal case of groupthink and self selection of a certain type of executive. Add to that a very disfunctional relationship with labour, press (the handling of Ralph Nader after his publication of Unsafe at Any Speed brought about most of the negative impact, much more so than the book itself) and the impression that customers are gullible and a scene for the slow and relentless decline of the decades later is set.In many ways it shows how Sloan's principles derailed just like some of the fundamental guidelines of Henry Ford (as set out in My Life and Work - An Autobiography of Henry Ford, to what extent they were applied for real is another question) were not at all evident by the time A Savage Factory: An Eyewitness Account of the Auto Industry's Self-Destruction was written (about Ford labour practices in the 1970s).It is also a more in-depth (if limited only to GM) view of the system losing accountability and the managerial class self perpetuating in the US automotive industry that was shown by Brock Yates' The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry a couple of years after this was published.John Z. Delorean was generally discredited in later times (not all of it justified) but this was written at the height of his powers (shortly after he left GM) and is a book of good insight, not too self congratulating even. The fact that he delayed its publication (it appeared with Patrick Wright as the author) by 6 years is less of a problem now than it was (for being up to date) at the time of publication - a reader of today is more likely to read it as a historical footnote, showing why the development of the US automotive industry took a turn for the worse over the past 4 or 5 decades and for that this is one of the better books out there.

An excellent insight into both the crazy systems inside GM in the 60's & 70's and into the brilliant John Z Delorean. A compelling read - and well written. I read straight after Lee Iaccoca's autobiography which is written in similar descriptive style on the same era on the US automotive industy but of course focussed on Ford and Chrysler. Read both and you will understand why the US motor industy fell from grace.