The sight of General Motors floundering around for a bailout is testimony to the great lesson of history - that nothing is permanent, not nations, not governments, not companies.

So it may be with GM. Take Certainly the two big British car companies - Austin and Morris - which went of business. They were so ubiquitous when I was growing up in England, it hardly seems possible.

But out of all the great British car makers that existed in 1950 when I was born, there is only one that is still British and that is the idiosyncratic Morgan. All the others - Bentley, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mini, Rolls-Royce - are subsidiaries of German or Indian companies or out of business. Quite a change in just my lifetime.

Now think back to the 1950s and 1960s in this country. The nation was exploding with a growing network of national roads, suburban housing developments and shopping malls.

GM ruled back then. It cars and trucks were on the cutting edge in both technology and fashion. Indeed, my colleague Doug Fellow recently brought in a Chevron brochure from 1962 outlining "Scenicland, USA" which detailed sightseeing trips around the great natural sights of the West, from Texas up to Montana, complete with evocative color photos of dramatic landscapes and pictures of happy families picnicking beside enormous cars.

And as an economic powerhouse, it was said that if GM sneezed, the nation would catch a cold.

Not now.

Now the formerly great company is desperate for cash to stay afloat in one of the worst markets ever for the auto industry. For years it, like many other auto companies, rode the SUV gravy train which paid back fantastic profits even as they rode on the borrowed time of cheap gas prices.

That ended when prices soared at the beginning of the year, the economy stalled and auto sales went flat.

Now, apart from seeking a merger with Chrysler and financial aid from the government, GM has announced it is cutting back on all extraneous spending and even talking to arch rival Toyota about possible help.

Will GM survive? Of course it will in the short term. It is an enormous, multinational company and even if it is forced to declare bankruptcy as some have suggested, it will still survive after reorganizing itself.

Chrysler? I think all bets are off. (But it might interesting to bet how much CEO Bob Nardelli walks away with if it is bought out by GM! Remember the $210 million he pulled out of Home Depot after being fired? I bet many of the folks working on the shop floor could use a tiny bit of that money to alleviate real financial problems.)

The question is: Will the American auto industry follow the British model and fade away? Or will it follow the French, German and Italian models and rejuvenate itself?

Time will tell.

- Peter C.T. Elsworth