Headscratchers / Gung Ho

• It was established partway through the movie that the workers only manage to almost reach the goal by neglecting their home lives and courting injury on the job. What happens when they let the fever pitch die down and production goes back down?
  • The factory workers aren't going to be expected to maintain that output. Breaking the record was just a stunt to prove that the Americans could work hard when necessary. In the end, the two sides have agreed to compromise on each other's different cultural styles of work.
  • It might not even be desirable for them to maintain it: 15,000 x 12 = 180,000 cars. Even if you knock off a few thousand for Christmas and model-year changeover, that's a lot of a single model to try and sell.
    • The factory actually made 2 models: a subcompact (Fiat 147/Spazio) and a compact (Fiat Regata). The Civic and Accord by Honda, made in a plant in the USA and similarly-sized, sold nearly half a million units stateside in 1986. In fact, most Japanese brands active in those segments in 1986 America sold more than 180k units in both. So, the workers might be actually producing fewer cars than necessary.