Like a dirty shirt.

Well fine. However where would GM & Ford quality be if it were not for
outside competition ? Like my 1976 Dodge Aspen ?  GM especially needed
a swift kick inthe butt in the mid 70's to about 1994.

The foreign owned US assembly plants have proven without a doubt that
US workers can assemble cars as well as anyone else, if not better.
IMHO it is management that needs changing.

Remember the Saturn L series ? Their field engineers were telling that
the car was not ready for production. Some bugs still had to be fixed.
A certain Saturn VP said no and rushed the car into production. Well it
quickly earned a bad reputation for defects and Saturn's reputation
took a hit and never recovered.  Just one example.

Well fine. However where would GM & Ford quality be if it were not for
outside competition ? Like my 1976 Dodge Aspen ?  GM especially needed
a swift kick inthe butt in the mid 70's to about 1994.

The foreign owned US assembly plants have proven without a doubt that
US workers can assemble cars as well as anyone else, if not better.
IMHO it is management that needs changing.

Remember the Saturn L series ? Their field engineers were telling that
the car was not ready for production. Some bugs still had to be fixed.
A certain Saturn VP said no and rushed the car into production. Well it
quickly earned a bad reputation for defects and Saturn's reputation
took a hit and never recovered.  Just one example.

The problem is not the consumers, it is the companies that you work for
that are making inferior, less appealing, less reliable products for an
uncompetitive price.  The solution would be to let the engineers and
the car guys have more say and listen less to the bean counters, but
unfortunately when a company starts to go into a downward spiral it's
usually the bean counters that take over.

I wouldn't mind "buying American" even if it cost a little more, but
there isn't an American car on the market that I'd want that isn't way
out of my price range and/or impractical for daily use ('vette Z06,
solstice, GTO, etc...)  most of the economical models are bland to the
point of physical pain.

Of course, some of my imported favorites (VW Golf/GTI etc.) are
currently in the process of blowing up into caricatures of their former
selves and other cars that might interest me (Porsche Boxster, Audi TT)
are also expensive enough that the only option is to buy used.

HOWEVER...  even so, if you drive, say, a Jetta TDI and an American
family sedan back to back, there's really no comparison, the Jetta
still wins hands down... and the TDI gets likely twice the fuel
mileage...

nate

Thanx man. Yer right, I am still lurking.

I do communicate with some corporate GM types and a retired Shell Oil
executive, so maybe I can provide some insight. I would sure hate to see an
American icon implode, but it has been 30 years in the making.