WSJ: The Great American Car Hunt
With governments everywhere becom ing investors in their native auto industries, the question of what exactly is a native auto industry is suddenly big news. Veteran Wall Street Journal writer Joseph White has taken up the question: What is an American Car? [sub]. The Journal has a fun “ Where is this Car Made” quiz to test your knowledge. What could be more American than a Mexican built Escalade, Dodge Ram, Silverado or F150? Is an Ohio built Honda Accord Japanese? What to make of a Mexican built Ford Fusion with a Mazda based design? Is Canada the 51st state or not? Coherent people everywhere have noticed that “the Detroit companies wave the Stars and Stripes when they advertise their wares or look for loans in Washington, but when they talk to investors or the business press, they stress their aggressive efforts to promote ‘global sourcing,’a code for, ‘Buy More Parts from China and Mexico.'” Such Detroit double-speak has a long and ignominious history.
“During the 1980s and 1990s, Chrysler was the most flag-waving, red-white-and-blue American car company among Detroit’s Big Three. Company Chairman Lee Iacocca was a clear, loud voice accusing Japan’s government and auto makers of unfair trade practices.” Meanwhile, Chrysler was importing complete Mitsubishis to sell under its own name, buying four-banger mills from Volkswagen and installing Mitsubishi V-6 engines in scads of minivans; and then topped off the flag waving by selling out to Daimler-Benz.
But more importantly, customers largely don’t care about domestic content. “A 2001 study by NHTSA found that more than 75% of 646 people surveyed weren’t aware of the existence of the domestic content information, and only 5% of those surveyed said the disclosures — usually on a window sticker — affected their decision ‘to any degree whatsoever.'”
That 5% who did care may well have been the minority of Japanese branded car buyers who cherry pick Japanese built units off the dealer’s lot. These are strange times indeed. Just think, next year you may be able to buy a new Dodge – designed by Fiat, built in Turkey and financed by the US Department of the Treasury. If the taxpayer holds the paper, is it American? Does it matter?
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