To the original OP:

I will relay my experience with a German friend of mine who lived in Switzerland in the 1990's. I have since lost touch with him.

He restored Muscle Cars, mainly Mopars. He hated Mercedes with a passion. He thought they were cheap junk. Side note - my experience with Mercedes as a soldier in the '80's stationed in Germany was the run of the mill Benz I rode in as a taxi was a cheap car. They obviously don't ship the cheapies to the states. Ok, back to the main story. My friend made a good amount of money coming to the USA and buying American cars (mainly trucks) and shipping them back to Europe in his personal name. He worked for dealers who were limited to what they could import. Hard to believe that's been 20 years ago. Maybe the laws have changed since then, I don't know. But, he always seemed to have need for American cars/trucks both of a new and used variety. He sent them all over Europe, so it wasn't just in Switzerland. Again, he did well, maybe that market has died now.

I meet many Europeans, South American's and Aussie's at Carlisle and the Nat's. I think 90% drive non-American cars as daily drivers. Typically, they cite fuel cost as the major reason.

My own experience with foreign cars has been limited and with mixed results.

82 Toyota Tercel - cheap junk
83 Dodge Colt (by Mitsu) - cheap, but reliable and good on gas
89 Acura Integra - good quality, nothing bad to say
89 Toyota Camry - mechanically, no issues. Kinda cheap interior.

Cars from that era were the ones that the media hyped over American cars and helped to form the opinion of many of today's American's about foreign cars. My experience with American cars from that era:

81 Ford Thunderbird - total junk, never ran right, Ford couldn't/wouldn't fix it
84 Chrysler Laser - good car other than some paint fade on the rear spoiler
87 Pontiac Grand Am - lots of mechanical issues
89 Dodge D150 - 250K miles and good 100K of them are from towing. No tranny cooler, 2.53 gear, original engine runs fine. Just rebuilt the tranny. Paint - awful, clear coat peeled like a lot of them did. Finally Repainted in 2002. Radio junk, cheap door panels armrest pads, all faded or broken now. I've replaced a compressor, starter and a/c hoses from failure. That's it.

Fast forward to today's cars. My experience with my 2004 Dodge Ram 1500 and 2005 Chrysler Town and Country have been poor. Lots of mechanical issues. A large part of the poor experience has been the dealer experience. When I replace them, I may or may not choose a Mopar again.

I think much of the poor opinion of American cars comes from the dealer experience. People will judge a brand by the dealer, fair or not. I have dealt with over a dozen dealers in my car buying and parts buying years. None were excellent experiences. Only one or maybe two were what I'd call decent or fair. The rest poor. This covers 2 states and a half dozen cities. My experience with the Acura dealer was superb by contrast.

Sales of US cars is small because Ford and GM have european factories with product lines designed for european taste.
Only niche models are sold, like Corvettes, Camaros and Cadillacs. Prices are often much higher than in the US and are therefore less competitive against german premium brands.
Ford doesn´t sell any US model in Sweden.
Chrysler sell the Voyager and 300 as Lancias, only Jeep (Wrangler and Grand Cherokee)have the original name.
At least in Sweden, US cars have a better reputation than italian ones which are equalled with quality problems. This rebadging weakens Chryslers position in my opinion.

US cars haven´t sold in large numbers here since the 1960s, the Valiant was quite popular.
As the car industry as well as the society in general gets more international (Chryslar-Fiat,Renault-Nissan etc) I think it is unlikely that the genuine american car will return to its strong market position. US made products may come back but only as a part in a product line (say version of a model) or as parts (engine, transmission etc) in any car.

This seemed to do okay against the best the Europeans and the rest of the World it was pitted against. Didn't it win the Euro Championship the last few years

As viewed from the Ohio Turnpike:

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/cadillac-cts-motor-trend-car-of-the-year?icid=autos_4949

The 2014 Cadillac CTS has been chosen by Motor Trend as its Car of the Year. This victory for the CTS is a kind of fulfillment of destiny; it also was named Car of the Year in 2008, with Motor Trend going so far as to say, "put Germany on notice: America's coming." Now in the eyes of Motor Trend, the third-generation Cadillac CTS is ready to take on the best the big German builders have to offer in a very real way.

BTW nice looking car (IMO)

It would be nice if we didn't crap up this thread with the typical Moparts back & forth "My $70,000 luxury car is better/faster/more stylish than your $70,000 luxury car" and just answered the guy's question.

If you really want to attempt something interesting, consider a take that includes the change in American society occurring at the same time a new generation of Americans suddenly found not only foreign cars, but pretty much any consumer product from another nation to be superior.

It's no coincidence that the culture wars of the later 60s cast large American companies in the role of "the man", "the establishment", and therefore worthy of scorn and rebellion. In 1945, American companies spoke with pride about the number of tanks, planes, bombs, etc. produced in their factories to beat back Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. By the later 60s, "war machines" were the last thing you wanted associated with your company.

But it wouldn't really matter. Your uncle drove a Chrysler (or an Oldsmobile) watched a big wooden Zenith TV, and probably dropped out of school during the depression. He was a little rough around the edges, told some racist jokes, and wore a short hair cut. Your college professor drove a Volkswagen (or a Toyota) watched a small plastic Panasonic TV, was highly educated, refined and (at least publicly) claimed to believe in equality.

The truth is, the first imported-to-US consumer products were junk. My '70 Dart-driving mother often said if she had a dime for each time she had to rescue her VW-driving friend, she could have paid for the car. I had an oddball-uncle who bought a '78 Honda and after a couple Michigan winters, it had rusted so badly the doors wouldn't open. Honda's with the early CVCC engine would smoke after a few thousand miles. Mazda's rotary engines were such a disaster only a 15% investment from Ford saved the company. Chrysler nearly purchased Mitsubishi when the parent company was almost ready to give up manufacturing cars. Toyota actually withdrew from the US market for 8-years. BMW was nearly bought out by Mercedes. Fiat gave up on the US. So did the French. British makes simply went out of business.

Yet a few found a market, and that market was based more on perceptions about the BUYERS of product than the actual product itself. I just watched an episode of the mid-70s American TV show "Maude", an outspoken, middle-aged, politically liberal woman living in suburban Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York The show was created by Norman Lear, a well-known politically liberal man. In this episode, the writers made an obvious effort to describe the well-educated, handsome character as the driver of a Toyota. This struck me as odd, since TV shows (especially in that era) would never mention a specific brand of car... To the point of being ridiculous and having a mechanic describe a getaway car to the police as a "white sedan". In another Norman Lear show, (All in the Family) the Gloria character (always smarter than her father) is mentioned several times as driving a Toyota. I don't believe these were coincidences, and these were HUGELY popular shows.

The automotive press of the day was much the same. Read a review of American luxury cars from the early 70s and you'll find more references to "bourgeoisie" and "establishment" than a communist rally. Consumers Union is the policy and action division of Consumer Reports.

From Wikipedia:

Quote:

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Consumers Union's predecessor, Consumers' Research, was founded in 1926.[3] In 1936, Consumers Union was founded[4] by Arthur Kallet, Colston Warne, and others who felt that the established Consumers' Research organization was not aggressive enough. Kallet, an engineer and director of Consumers' Research, had a falling out with F.J. Schlink and started his own organization with Amherst College economics professor Colston Warne. In part due to actions of Consumers' Research, the House Un-American Activities Committee placed Consumers Union on a list of subversive organizations, only to remove it in 1954.

Prominent consumer advocate Ralph Nader was on the board of directors, but left in 1975 due to a "division of philosophy" with new Executive Director Rhoda Karpatkin.[5] Nader wanted Consumers Union to focus on policy and product advocacy, while Karpatkin focused on product testing

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Mother Jones magazine (hardly a magazine for squares) broke the story on "exploding Pintos" and those evil Detroit executives who would rather burn innocent Pinto owners than spend an extra $3 per car. Too bad the Rutger's Law Review showed Pintos to be statistically AVERAGE for fires after a rear-end collision, and the only time a dollar amount was put on a human life was in a study done by the US government to establish damages... Not beforehand by Ford execs who sent their own kids off to college in Pintos.

Believe it or not, there WERE people in the 1960s and 70s who wanted to see these huge symbols of American capitalism FAIL, and create opportunity in the middle of the economic chaos.

Against this backdrop of social change, came a wave of early 70s government regulation that ensured many Americans would have a negative experience, as opposed to a "love affair" with their automobile. Let's not forget the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 imposed by Arab nations as punishment for US support of Israel.

American companies never made much of an effort to penetrate foreign markets (therefore broadening their product line up, and making them better prepared for a run-up of gas prices) because they were met with protectionist measures... Sometimes these measures to halt imports were ironic legacies of the Marshall plan to rebuild European and Japanese industry!

In summary... Were there crappy American cars built in the 70s/80s? Undeniably. But for every Vega there was a Mazda with worn rotor seals burning oil. For every Toyota with 200,000 miles on the 22r, there is a Buick with 200k on the 3800 V6.

Chrysler's manufacturing in particular was barely functional by the late 70s, and luckily they didn't have the money to re-design their chassis/engine/transmission designs from the 60s. What engineering dollars were available (at all the American producers) went into designing anti-pollution equipment which didn't become mandatory in Europe until the early 90s (Euro I, 1993).

Any paper should include these points, or it risks becoming just another rehash of mainstream media pablum. I recommend this webpage in particular:

http://www.fairimage.org/historyofinnovation.htm

That is the best synopsis of that era in automobile manufacturing and culture I have read, kudos!

Wow was that all directed at me for posting the Motor Trend car of the year..

Plain and simple American cars are unique to the USA and don't necessarily fit the foreign car marketplace. Not to mention many foreign countries make it difficult for us makers to competitively sell there, while at the same time we have an open door policy. Look at china for example they won't even let you sell there without a "Chinese partner" company. So if us cars in a foreign country are double the price there will be less sold. Hard for Foreigners to fall in love with a product when it out of reach, therefore they have little positive experience to share about us cars.

GetAwayDriver, that might just be the best post on Moparts ever! The Consumer Union background is something I've never looked into, very interesting!

We are constantly bombarded by propaganda and few people stop to think what is behind the scenes and which products are actually good. It is not so much about the product but how the product is imaged in the consumer minds.

When I grew up all my experiences about American cars were positive. When I was 1 year old we bought a 1966 Rambler American which was in Finland "that big car" at the time. My parents visited Detroit (among other cities) and did the Ford factory tour in 1967 (they rented a 1967 Ford Fairlane 2dHT). Many of our family friends drove new American cars. I never heard anyone bashing American cars, they were somehow the ultimate thing you could own. But then again, we did not associate with anyone at the other end of the political spectrum. When I turned 10 or so I visited the library a lot and loaned bound yearly editions of two finnish magazines that had road tests of American cars. And boy, were those biased! Positive things were rarely said and it was pretty obvious that not only was the understanding of the US auto industry very poor but there was also a heavy political bias. Luckily in 1978 I discovered the new Finnish American car publication as well as Hot Rod, Car Craft and Popular Hot Rodding not to mention several Swedish titles. Those were my windows to the world for a long time and I bought every issue of them all. At the age of 15 I bought my first car, a 1965 Dodge Dart 4d sedan together with a friend. There has been about 70 cars since, all American. I would never consider anything less.

Fast forward to today. When Finland voted to join the European Union we were promised by the politicians that the 100% or so car tax would go away. I had hopes that American cars would slowly take over Europe as the trade barriers would vanish. The opposite happened. The European Union reminds more and more of the Soviet Union and especially the American cars are heavily targeted not to mention trucks. If there would be free trade between the US and Europe the car market would be totally different. But the US cars continue to raise in price here while the European cars are actually dumped on the US market. The prices are often lower in the US than in the home market. Enjoy having that free choice we don't.

Great post GetAwayDriver...you REALLY need to write that book.