The 10 most "american" cars ...

Woot! My Jeep made number 9.

At least we're still making something in this country, even if it is mostly 'foreign' cars...

bvibert said:

At least we're still making something in this country, even if it is mostly 'foreign' cars...

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I'm surprised by the content of some of those cars 80% +/- for the Toyota's and Honda's. I always assumed they were mostly just "assembled" in the US.

wa-loaf said:

I'm surprised by the content of some of those cars 80% +/- for the Toyota's and Honda's. I always assumed they were mostly just "assembled" in the US.

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I thought the same thing.

I remember when I was younger and growing up seeing all those "Be American, Buy American" and other such protectionist marketing things. Cars were the biggest badge of pride for any anti-import person. Ultimately, we are of course better off for trade but you couldn't convince an anti-import person about that. It is ironic that half of the most "American" cars are those that have foreign ownership yet are putting Americans to work. Gotta wonder if any of those guys gave up once foreign brands started putting America to work just as much, if not more, than the domestic car industry?

riverc0il said:

I remember when I was younger and growing up seeing all those "Be American, Buy American" and other such protectionist marketing things. Cars were the biggest badge of pride for any anti-import person. Ultimately, we are of course better off for trade but you couldn't convince an anti-import person about that. It is ironic that half of the most "American" cars are those that have foreign ownership yet are putting Americans to work. Gotta wonder if any of those guys gave up once foreign brands started putting America to work just as much, if not more, than the domestic car industry?

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Are we better off? I don't think so.

tjf67 said:

Are we better off? I don't think so.

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You can think what you want.

I'd like to see it as an aggregate percent of spending per vehicle. Most of the engineering costs and other corporate overhead still resides in the traditional country of origin.

tjf67 said:

Are we better off? I don't think so.

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How do you define better off? Americans work more hours for less spending power but we have more toys, especially at the lower income levels, than ever before. The quality of our "stuff" has surely increased at a massive rate (ESPECIALLY CARS), technology is booming. You simply can not argue that as far as "tangibles" we are not much better off. You can argue intangibles but you can not measure those as that is a value statement. There is no need to argue the buying powder of the dollar has decreased but the value and quality of what the dollar buys has increased. So we have better quality stuff but we have to work harder to get it.

Better off? I certainly wouldn't want to go back 20 years in terms of economic output and the products (of high quality) that I can currently buy. Let's face it, from a car perspective, imports HELPED domestics in regards to quality by increasing the competition. Domestics were poorly run from a financial and managerial perspective as seen by the domestic bail out. But domestics and imports are now on par for quality and you have imports made in the USA and domestics made abroad. Oh my!! I don't see the problem here.

I was watching the History Channel last night; "The Story of US" about America was on. It was saying how the Civil War was the first war to utlize the new might of the industrial revolution. It got me thinking about WWII and how many of the auto makers shifted production over to military vehciles; tanks, Jeeps ect. Got me thinking...how would that be handled now?

Glenn said:

Got me thinking...how would that be handled now?

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Poorly

ctenidae said:

Poorly

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:lol:

ctenidae said:

Poorly

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There would just be Mitsubishi Corsairs fighting against Mitsubishi Zeros.

In all seriousness, we'd do fine. We maintain strategic manufacturing capabilities, there's a lot of stuff that companies aren't allowed to manufacture oversees. We still have all the technology and know-how to build the manufacturing machines, have the shop space, etc. Plus all the machining is done by computers now, so the amount of skilled machinists you need is the same if your making 25 planes a year or 250.

I do think the weapons procurement strategy in this country needs to change, though. We're building 183 F-22s over a 8 year or so production run in order to minimize total costs. But we won't need any F-22s unless we get into a war with a major country, at which point we'll need more than 183 and will no longer have the capability to build them. To me it would make more sense to just build 5-6 per year for 20 years or so. Sure, per unit costs would skyrocket, but total costs would be lower and we still have the ability to build them if needed and don't have to support a 183-plane fleet that only does training.

Anyone else find it ironic that the "most" American car just went through one of the biggest safety recalls on the planet???