QOTD: Is One Automaker Enough in Your Life?

Early on in the film Gran Torino, which I’ll admit is a guilty pleasure of mine, we see the curmudgeonly Walt Kowalski watch grimly as his no-good, ungrateful son drives his family away from his decaying Detroit home in a brand new Toyota Land Cruiser.

It’s 2008, and the financial crisis is threatening the very existence of the American auto industry. Meanwhile, we see in Walt’s driveway the evidence of a lifelong allegiance to the Ford Motor Company — a 1972 Ford F-100 bearing all the scars of three-plus decades of hard use, and his spotless, cherished ’72 Gran Torino.

“Would it kill you to buy American?” Walt mutters as the pristine Toyota drives off, wishing, no doubt, that he could turn his M1 Garand on the four-wheeled interloper.

Chances are you know someone just like Walt. Or close to it. Maybe it’s a friend, an in-law, your own father or mother, sister or brother, or maybe … it’s you.

These people live one-brand lives. For whatever the reason, be it patriotism, employment history, or the good luck of once owning a reliable model they never turned away from, these people view the purchase of a vehicle built by a rival automaker with the same guilt and shame as a devoted man cheating on his spouse.

Instead of Barbara from accounting at the No-Tell Motel on Route 61, it’s the alluring Ram Rebel offered at a cut-rate price at Bob Hinton’s Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram on Evergreen Avenue.

While I can’t claim to be a one-automaker man, I can attest to owning four GM sedans at one time or another. Loyalty? Uh, more like (rock-bottom) prices and ample front legroom. Sorry, Ford and Chrysler, but your seats don’t have nearly as much rearward travel. Growing up, it seemed every friend, and certainly every parent of every friend, settled for GM before any other car maker. How else could I have known, in high school, a friend with a Chevrolet Lumina, Chevrolet Lumina Euro, and Chevrolet Lumina APV? Not to mention the guys with the Chevrolet Celebrity and Chevrolet Celebrity Eurosport. (I’ll let the other divisions go unmentioned in the interest of brevity.)

At the time, of course, I could be found driving one of my parent’s two Chevrolet Corsicas, one of which I spent a grand on to call my own. GM sedans outnumbered shrubs at the time, so clearly there were more than a few General die-hards kicking around. Still, a good friend’s mother owned Toyotas and nothing else.

What say you, Best and Brightest? Is there one dealer you’ll always visit first come trade-in time? Have you sworn a silent oath to keep a certain HQ in Detroit, Japan, Germany, or South Korea in business until the day you shuffle off? If not, does this fit the description of someone you know?

Let us know in the comments.

[Image: Warner Bros. Pictures]