Back in the glory days of Mercedes, they proudly advertised how their pull-style door handles were a safety feature intended to make it easier for rescuers to open doors from the outside: http://oudemercedesbrochures.nl/Images/W126/USA_1990/016.jpg

Alas, “build the best car you can” wasn’t compatible with long-term viability. Something engineering-driven companies seem to keep encountering.

The whole brochure is an neat time capsule to browse through: http://oudemercedesbrochures.nl/W126_USA1990.html

When I was in human computer interaction class in the 90s, one self-stated German student was fixated on how German car handles have a ring shape to help with opening car doors in emergencies.

It was kind of shocking because he was just going full zealot, in a class in Oregon United States.

The attitude was really toxic to the class. The student was trying to drum up philosophical support for all or nothing thinking, as I look back. A way to kind of circumvent a more nuanced judgment, which I think the teacher intended to convey as the whole point of the class.

And the teacher did not like it at all, and she kicked him out. It was an educational moment for me, to see clashing philosophies and power all mixed in the same adult circumstance.

> Alas, “build the best car you can” wasn’t compatible with long-term viability. Something engineering-driven companies seem to keep encountering.

Is it actually incompatible with long term viability? Or does it just create an unstable state where the temptation to gut the reputation for immediate profit grows as the size of that profit grows?