When I started covering the auto industry in the late '90s, the idea of a 16 million light-vehicle U.S. market held considerable mystique.
The sales tally had topped 16 million once—in 1986. That was the Reagan era, the go-go '80s. In 1986, Ford's Taurus sedan—the car that inspired Boeing's Alan Mulally—cracked the top 10 for the first time.
In some ways, it reminds Jeff Schuster, vice president of automotive research at GlobalData, of today's post-COVID-19 market: Solid growth following a deep recessionary trough.
"I think you can probably find more parallels to that period, to where we are now than might be on the surface," he told me on the Daily Drive podcast. "Certainly coming out of the deep recession in the early '80s—heyday in the economy, as well as the way the markets were behaving—and the auto industry kind of coming along for that ride in '86."
I was in high school in 1986, and stock market watchers were wondering if the Dow Jones Industrial Average could actually top 2,000. And early in 1987, it did. Today it's more than 43,000.
Auto sales have not grown at that same rate.
But after reaching that milestone in 1986, sales slipped and bounced around in the 15 millions—not reaching 16 million again until 1999.