Detroit executives will tell you that journalists have a bias, that we write that everything the foreigners make is great and that American vehicles are not as good. Robert Lutz, for example, the vice chairman of General Motors, is outspoken on the issue. Then again, many of the same executives act as if the foreigners build them better. Lutz, for example, is leading the charge to have GM’s German engineering used as the base for American cars. Future Saturns will be versions of German Opels. Chrysler’s advertising campaign this past summer emphasized the German (Mercedes) connection to Chrysler’s cars. Ford Motor is betting its future on vehicles built off either Volvo or Mazda architecture.
Sure, there may be some bias on the part of journalists. Yet the reality is that American retail consumers buy a higher percentage of foreign brand cars than of U.S. makes, especially after you net out the large volume of passenger cars the U.S. companies sell on the cheap to fleets, such as rental companies. The foreigners are gaining traction in trucks, too.
Are millions of car buyers just wrong? Sure, there is some subjective opinion that goes into vehicle ratings, but it is also possible to be objective about some of the shortcomings of American vehicles, such as balky manual transmissions, automatic transmissions with fewer gears than the competition and technologically dated motors.
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