Modern Engines Are Designed To Destroy Themselves — 1950s Iron Wasn't
Modern Engines Are Designed To Destroy Themselves — 1950s Iron Wasn't Roughly 60,000 American vintage cars from the 1940s and 1950s run daily in Havana — without a factory part, a dealer network, or a diagnostic computer, since February 7, 1962. In May 2026, Toyota announced its 270,000th recalled truck for the same bearing failure those Cuban machines have shrugged off for 65 years. This is the engineering philosophy story behind both facts, starting with Alfred Sloan's 1924 decision and ending with the Fisker Ocean bankruptcy and the John Deere copyright case. We break down what forgiveness in the design actually means, why CAFE mandates removed it, and what the pre-computer truck still represents for anyone who wants a machine they fully own. Chapters: 00:00 Havana vs. the American Dealer 04:30 Three Recall Crises and One Embargo 07:00 Alfred Sloan and the Decision That Fragility Won 13:00 The Engineering Autopsy — The Margin They Removed 19:30 Fisker, John Deere, and the Software That Owns Your Machine 22:30 The Window, the Platforms, and What Doesn't Need Permission References: Toyota V35A ~270,000 vehicles May 2026. Autoblog. https://www.autoblog.com/news/toyotas... Toyota V35A expansion Nov 2025. AutoEvolution. https://www.autoevolution.com/news/to... Toyota V35A 38,000-mile teardown. Cherish Your Car. https://www.cherishyourcar.com/toyota... GM L87 V8 recall 721,000 Apr 2025. WBIW/Reuters. https://www.wbiw.com/2025/04/30/nhtsa... GM L87 NHTSA probe Oct 2025. Autoblog. https://www.autoblog.com/news/feds-ex... Hyundai/Kia Theta II $3.1B settlement. ClassAction.org. https://www.classaction.org/blog/new-... Hyundai $147M Theta II investment. Safety Research & Strategies. https://safetyresearch.net/hyundai-ki... Cuba 60,000 vehicles. SlashGear Aug 2024. https://www.slashgear.com/1642783/cla... Kennedy embargo Feb 1962. History.com. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-h... Cuba transportation collapse 1962. historyofcuba.com. http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/... Rodriguez Cardenas Gonzalez — Havana mechanics. Garage Italia Sep 2025. https://www.garage-italia.com/en/hub/... Alfred Sloan and planned obsolescence. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned... Henry Ford resistance. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_... Harley Earl styling. CarBuzz Oct 2021. https://carbuzz.com/features/how-harl... Vance Packard The Waste Makers 1960. https://www.amazon.com/Waste-Makers-V... CAFE ~49 mpg MY 2026. USDOT Apr 2022. https://www.transportation.gov/briefi... CAFE complexity tradeoff. Farm Equipment Jan 2026. https://www.farm-equipment.com/blogs/... 0W-20 oil and tight-tolerance engines. Heavy Vehicle Inspection 2025. https://heavyvehicleinspection.com/ar... Engine bearing clearances. EnginePro. https://enginepro.com/manufacturers-t... Stovebolt 6 specifications. Restore-An-Old-Car.com. https://www.restore-an-old-car.com/st... Fisker bankruptcy 11,000 owners. Electrek May 2026. https://electrek.co/2026/05/16/fisker... Fisker 10% bricked by update. AutoEvolution May 2025. https://www.autoevolution.com/news/on... Vitalik Buterin on Fisker Jul 2024. Electrek. https://electrek.co/2026/05/16/fisker... GM John Deere software copyright. CBC Radio. https://amp.cbc.ca/radio/day6/right-t...
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