[ENINTY]

Originally Posted by SpeedOften

Just to throw this in the mess, my family owned an 84 Mustang LX 5.0 for about 8 years. When we finally got rid of it, the engine had over 500,000 miles - NO BS. The tranny had been replaced once, and the body was rusting pretty bad in some places - hatch and a couple wheel wells and passenger door, but that 302 was still running and strong.

My Sister had an '87 LX 5.0. She sold in 2002 it to my friend with over 100,000 miles on it. He used it as the donor car for his Factory Five Cobra project. He's still running the Corba to this day using the same engine (block and crank), trans, (shortened) drive shaft, and rear end. He's since changed the intake, heads, and cam and I think the motor is now pumping on the order of 400HP. He's not had to touch the transmission nor rear end since he built the car.

[ncarter124]

Originally Posted by ACZakka325i

You people call yourselves American?

I'd rather keep the dollars in the country.

You don't have to drive an American car, but for fucks sake, cheer them on.

Say's the BMW driver.

[ncarter124]

Originally Posted by sysfailur

I'll start cheering when I see a product worth buying.

+1

[Spec 1]

Originally Posted by ncarter124

Say's the BMW driver.

You must be absolutely retarded.

[IMG]

^ Thank you! I assumed ncarter has reading comprehension issues as well.

[pmeloche]

Originally Posted by JoosyJoos

We had a discussion about this the other day in my international finance class actually. Its interesting how most consumers tend to stick with domestic brands. If you go to Germany you see an overwhelmingly majority of German cars. If you go to Spain you see SEATS. If your in France you see mostly Renaults, Puegots etc. America is one of the few that chooses to reject our own brands.

Germans, french, and spaniards would buy an american car if they could provide a cheaper, more efficient, and better adapted car to their needs. The reality is that very few american cars if any at all matches the quality and reliability of the foreign cars whether they are japanese or german.

[EmPower]

And therein lies the problem. The american names have been associated with too much negative publicity. They should just scrap the names and rename the brands, make funkier logos, a more formal naming convention and for fucks sake some decent designs. The only reason germans are succeeding is because they have established brand equity, and honestly, investing any more time or money into these dying brands is overkill. The parent company needs to restructure and at the very least, change the logos. They look very 1930s in all honesty. Look how the germans have evolved their logos specifically Benz. The Blue oval looks the same as it did on the 1908 Model T. People like change, and we just dont see it here.

[ChrisV]

Originally Posted by pmeloche

Germans, french, and spaniards would buy an american car if they could provide a cheaper, more efficient, and better adapted car to their needs.

They tend to buy quite a bit of Fords and GMs over there, though. GM sells different cars under different brands (opel and Vauxhall), and Ford sells different cars, (like the Fiesta, Mondeo, a completely different Focus, etc). None of the American brands need to sell American cars over there in any great quantity, so there's no need to adapt American cars to European desires.

And America doesn't have cities dating back to the 1200s-1500s, with streets designed around walking and horseback traffic. Completely different needs and completely different markets.

[lyndon_h]

Originally Posted by ChrisV

And America doesn't have cities dating back to the 1200s-1500s, with streets designed around walking and horseback traffic. Completely different needs and completely different markets.

Thanks for bringing up that point. I was going to...
Europe is nice and all, but the big catch is China. From what i've heard, Buick does pretty well over there. If they can ramp that up, Buick doesn't wont ever have to sell another car in the US or Europe.