by Frederick A. Babb

Created on: May 04, 2010

Being patriotic no longer means having to spend one’s money on American made products.  The truth be known, with so much outsourcing going on in today’s business world, it is getting more difficult to find any product that is one hundred percent USA built with pride.  The automotive world is very much a reflection of this reality.

You can break the automobile manufacturers into four groups:  USA brands, European brands, Japanese brands, and Korean brands.  Each has its own targeted audience and marketing group to set a sales pitch towards.  Unfortunately, as we dissect these groups it will become apparent why there is less and less argument to buy USA brands.

Ford, General Motors and Chrysler make up what should be considered the USA brands.  Before the economic crisis rocked the world economy, each was unique in their “American” roots.   Just the breakdown of each group questioned the origins of their vehicles.

Ford was made up of Ford, Mercury, Lincoln, Rover, Jaguar and Volvo.  Half of their vehicles were foreign name plates and the remaining three (Ford, Mercury and Lincoln) had models that were interchangeable with each other except for a few unique models for Ford and Lincoln.  The Mustang was one of the few originals although even this historical car had an era in its times gone by when it was also a Mercury Capri.   How many Mercury models of today can you count on your hand that are exclusively designed and sold under the Mercury nameplate?  Get the point?

General Motors, or GM as they are generally referred to, was a dysfunctional family since the oil embargo of the early 1970s.  With the exception of a few Cadillac models and the Chevrolet Corvette, there aren’t many exceptions in the nameplate models.  GM had, at its peak, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, Saturn, Opel, Hummer, and Saab.  Only Opel wasn’t sold in the USA in its original form.  There was, however, during the end of the Saturn run, rebadged European Opel models like the Astra sold in the USA.  That was probably one of the better models sold by Saturn, which reflects the standards of their USA built products and explains why they are following Oldsmobile and Pontiac to the graveyard.  GM has been able to establish themselves as the darlings of the car rental industry which has a double edge sword danger to it.  Many more people get an opportunity

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