On Sat, September 17, 2005 9:09 pm, jon@dakota-truck.net said:
>
> Don't look now, but anyone who owns a 1999+ Dakota is also
> driving a foreign vehicle.
OK, we all know the place of manufacture is almost meaningless.
Chrysler's flagship cars have been built in Canada since at least the
early 90's (Intrepid, Concorde, 300M, etc). My '95 Neon was built in
Mexico. Actually, at the time, it was preferable to get one from the
Mexican plant, as that meant the paint might actually stay on the car for
a change. Japanese cars are built in America and Canada all the time.
(BTW, Ford and GM both also build a large number of cars in Ontario.)
So, with that in mind, here's my take on the whole thing. I tend to look
at who designed the vehicle, rather than where it was built, or who footed
the bill. The Chrysler group still does most of their design and
engineering in Michigan, while Mercedes cars are designed in Germany.
IMHO, that still makes Mercedes German cars and Chryslers American cars,
designed in America, largely by Americans (or at least immigrants living
in America) according to American design philosophy and standards. I
consider Minis and Land Rovers to be British vehicles, even though the
companies are owned by BMW. I similarly consider Mazdas to be Japanese
vehicles, even though the company is largely owned by Ford.
I have a theory that you can learn a lot about a country by looking at the
way they design and engineer things. Taking the Neon for example, anyone
who spends any amount of time in one would never mistake it for a Japanese
or German design. I've observed that American designs tend to follow the
"too much is never enough" mindset, the Japanese tend to favor efficiency
in all things, and the Germans tend to favor precision in all things.
With the British, everything is about luxury and style. With the
Italians, everything is about sex. If you look at a Lada, which is a
Russian car from the communist era, you realize that it's the perfect
socialist "you don't need anything more than this" solution.
Among the class of cars I was looking at when I got the Neon, the Japanese
cars tended to use technological trickery like variable valve timing to
squeeze equivalent power out of 1.5L engines, but none could match the
low-RPM grunt of the 2.0 in the Neon. Even though it's a small economy
box, it's still an American economy box, and I would assume that the
current generation is still the same way.
Look at the high end sports cars. America: Viper and Corvette. Japan:
NSX. Germany: Porsche. Italy: Ferrari and Lamborghini. Britain: Jaguar.
Americans use the biggest, hugest engines we can find. Japanese prefer
the challenge of squeezing the power out of a smaller engine. Germans are
most interested in having everything run smoothly like clockwork.
Italians don't care if it requires constant maintenance, doesn't it look
nice? And the British just want to arrive in style.
Anyway, those are my thoughts, feel free to scoff.
-- Jason Bleazard http://drazaelb.blogspot.com Burlington, Ontario his: '95 Dakota Sport 4x4, 3.9 V6, 5spd, Reg. Cab, white hers: '01 Dakota Sport 4x4, 4.7 V8, Auto, Quad Cab, black
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