Nissan Invests $2 Billion Into Mexican Plant

That's a good question, i'd love a bare shell to put my old SR20DE in!

I must tell you that the currently built Tsuru, is not what it used to be when it was a freshly new car. It has been decontented to the max, the metal sheet is thiner than a can of soda.... and I can go on with all that has been removed/cheapened

@brokeguy The guys on sr20forum used to always day dream about this. Take a US titled B13 down there, swap plates, and drive back with a Tsuru. Just hope they don't want to match the VIN with your registration/insurance. Or find some shady auto shop (not hard to find I'm sure) to cut out and reattach your VIN plates. All you really accomplish is getting a fresh shell (which is not insignificant, i know). I want to say there's a sr20 powered model down there too (or there was). GSR? in that case you could buy a newer used B13 SE-R!

@cacon I'd still want one, it's difficult to find an old one that hasn't been crashed or all riced-out and used up.

There's more to the logic than avoiding shipping things from the Yen zone. It is just plain economically more advantageous for Nissan, and others, to build in Mexico. This is something that the US automakers realized decades ago when they started building them in Mexico. Now the foreigners and transplants also see the wisdom of investing in Mexico, as opposed to investing in the US, and are going full-throttle to get up to speed. Mazda announced they would also open a new plant in Mexico. It would have been nice if Nissan and others were to expand their operations in America thus creating more jobs for Americans, but with the current US economic policies and tax code, it is just not financially feasible to do so. The name of the game is profitability and making profits is severely punished in America, as is being successful and making lots of money.

@highdesertcat So what is the strategy here, then? To build plant after plant all over a continent while chasing some monetary figure? I still don't see the logic in Hyundai, Toyota, or Nissan building plants in the South, particularly when they aren't that far away from facilities in Mexico. And these plants were built after NAFTA was instituted. In the US, you still deal with OSHA, EPA and other regulations the Mexicans don't have. Which leads me to wonder: If the Toyota and Nissan plants in the South are under-utilized, how long until they're no longer economical to run? The D3 have gotten rid of some of their overcapacity, but these folks are only compounding their situation.

@highdesertcat "The name of the game is profitability and making profits is severely punished in America, as is being successful and making lots of money." Haha, you wrote that with a straight face??

@highdesertcat The average commenter here has the political and economic awareness of a two year old, and "information" gathered exclusively from Faux News.