> How similar is the culture today compared to 75+ years ago?

Doesn’t matter. “We did this before and must do it again” is a powerful call to action. That cultural capital spins up the bureaucratic flywheel.

I first heard the song "We Did It Before and We Can Do It Again" on some old Looney Tunes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veYIbxaU0A8

As a local, I don't know the exact differences in culture today compared to 75 years ago. Though after hearing enough ranting from workers, line bosses, and industrial engineers about exciting topics like quality control, line efficiency, production planning since I was young... I personally think the culture is pretty valuable, especially given the size of the manufacturing workforce.

I think a more pressing question is if any workers will want to come in if GM and Ford commit to this.

On the surface it’s very different. But in practice it’s surprisingly close as successfully running any truly large scale manufacturing means direction flows down from the top and innovation flows up from the bottom. Automation may be replacing a lot of labor, but cars are also vastly more complex and have far tighter tolerances.