The malaise era was a period in the U.S. automotive industry from roughly the early 1970s to the early to mid 1980s, characterized by malaise, i.e., poor products and a generalized industry unease. Around this time, the U.S. federal government introduced, in quick succession, a triumvirate of increasingly strict and comprehensive emissions, fuel efficiency and safety standards, — severely challenging the industry's ability to adapt, requiring massive diversion of spending and leading to a marked drop in vehicle performance, ambitious product downsizing and ill-resolved styling adaptations.
Background Following decades where the U.S. automotive industry had been almost completely unregulated by government mandates and could prioritize unrestrained horsepower, size and styling, the malaise era arose after the Clean Air Act of 1963 began to codify a legislative response to serious national car-generated air quality concerns, and Ralph Nader's 1965 Unsafe at Any Speed galvanized attention on U.S. automotive safety issues, calling for a range of safety features from critical occupant protection to car bumpers that could enable low-speed impact without damage to safety systems. With an average fuel consumption across passenger cars from 1969-1974 of 13.5 mpg‑US (17.4 L/100 km), the period coincided with the industry's dependence on inexpensive foreign oil and spiking international fuel prices, culminating with the 1973 oil crisis. In response, the U.S. federal government introduced successively more comprehensive emissions, fuel efficiency and safety standards. These required huge automotive engineering investments in effectively new disciplines, testing the industry's ability to adapt. As a hallmark of the era, with automotive design budgets dominated by huge pragmatic investments in fuel efficiency, emissions controls and safety programs, the engine power of prominent sports and muscle cars of 1960s was decimated. Manufacturers often relied heavily on badge engineering, and expedient styling tropes, in marked contrast to prior decades of unbound automotive power and styling. The era also highlighted the U.S. automotive industry's vulnerability to penetration by foreign manufacturers versed in the design of more space and fuel-efficient designs. When Ford introduced the Granada in North America in 1975, its advertising emphasized the padded vinyl roofing, opera windows, tufted velour interiors with imitation wood accents and stand up hood ornaments of its ostensible luxury. The engineering used a platform dating to the austere 1961 Falcon and offered a power-to-weight ratio of 48.46 lbs per hp, and a breathtakingly slow 0-60 time of 23.15 seconds.
Etymology The term malaise era has been widely used in an automotive context by news agencies and automotive sites, including Car and Driver, Consumer Guide, Forbes, Fox News, Hagerty, Hemmings Motor News, Motor Trend, Popular Mechanics, Road & Track, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times. One of the first known usages of the term in an automotive context was by Jacob M. Schlesinger in The Wall Street Journal in December 1988. In an article discussing the increasing diversification of body styles of American vehicles in the late 1980s, Schlesinger wrote: "Car designers are also getting freer rein. In the malaise era, there was little variation. Virtually all cars adopted the same simple, square, chromeless, earthtone look. ... But no more. Competition in the auto industry is far keener now, and the car companies are doing more to exploit small niches, apply new technologies and stand out through design." The term was later used frequently by Murilee Martin, writing for the website Jalopnik in 2007. The term recalls President Jimmy Carter's 1979 Malaise Speech, in which he discussed the oil crisis following that year's Iranian Revolution and a wider "crisis of confidence" within the United States that had marked the late 1960s and 1970s. Outside of the discussion of automobiles, the term malaise era was earlier used by Texas Senator Phil Gramm in 1986, discussing John Evans' race against Steve Symms in the 1986 Idaho Senate election, and by Vice President George H. W. Bush in May 1988, challenging the policies of his Democratic opponents in the 1988 presidential election, for which he was the Republican nominee. Writing for Jalopnik, writer Phil Greden, opined that era spanned from 1975 with U.S. government bumper regulations; to 1983, when the Ford Mustang saw a significant performance increase after almost a decade of low performance.
Government mandates
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