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HondaF1Fanatic,
Now it's your turn to tell us how a company(Toyota) that imports 46% of it's cars from Japan, which would be over 1 million cars per year ,is more American than GM, Ford or Chrysler.
I never claimed that Toyota was a more American
COMPANY than GM, Ford, or Chrysler so don't try to put incorrect words in my mouth. My original claim, if you actually read it before you replied, was that the Camry was as much if not more American than the
SPECIFIC models it races against in NASCAR. The Ford Fusion is largely based on the Mazda 6 and the Dodge Charger is underpinned by the previous generation Mercedes-Benz E-class. I was wrong about the Monte Carlo however, it is mainly a NA design.
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And if you want to talk about Xenophobia, Japan as a nation is virtually the epitome of that word. Trust me, I could start pasting link after link of Japans' quite famous Xenophobia. To me it's a good justified reason to have a reciprocal policy of keeping them out of traditional American racing.
This attitude shows that you are obviously believe that two wrongs making a right. If you see someone steal something from you, do you believe it is justified to steal from them? I used to think that way.......in preschool. Also, if you actually looked at the JGTC which is Japan's version of NASCAR you would see multiple Corvettes and Dodge Vipers racing in it, so much for the Japanese being more xenophobic than us.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/automo...nyt&emc=rss
"In 2006, 46 percent of Toyota’s vehicles were imported from Japan compared with 38.4 percent in 2005 and 37 percent in 2004.
Toyota sold 2.54 million vehicles in the United States last year, a record for the automaker, which passed DaimlerChrysler to rank third behind General Motors and the Ford Motor Company. It has forecast that its American sales will rise to 2.68 million this year.
Toyota accounts for 9 percent of automotive manufacturing jobs in the United States and roughly 16 percent of the vehicle market, while G.M. accounts for 29 percent of the jobs and about 24 percent of the market, Mr. Doyle said.
“We lose 10 for every one job that they bring,” Mr. Doyle said.
And despite the start of Camry production here, Toyota will still import 60,000 Camrys from Japan this year, Mr. Lentz said. Along with that, Toyota also expects to import about 70,000 more Priuses than in 2006, when it sold just under 107,000 in the United States."
In this group of info, you quote a member of the Level Field Institute, a group founded by retired UAW workers to try to discredit the fact that the number of "foreign" cars being built in the US is constantly growing while the number of "domestic" cars being built in the US continues to fall as GM, Ford, and Chrysler outsource production to lower costs so the can compete with the so called foreign companies all the while being saddled with ridiculous legacy costs. This method of argument would be similar to me quoting a member of the Tobacco lobby showing information that smoking doesn't cause cancer. If a RJR lobbyist told you cigarettes weren't addictive and used unverifiable statistics to "prove" it, would you believe them?
Also, you may have missed the main point of the article. The majority of the increase in foreign produced Toyotas being imported to the US are hybrids, something that no US manufacturer has yet to start mass producing (GM's pseudo hybrids don't count as they are not true hybrids and Ford's hybrids use licensed Toyota technology). The battery and transmission technology used by the Prius, Camry Hybrid and Highlander hybrid is simply not available at a reasonable cost from any US manufacturer yet. Americans are voting with their wallets by buying hybrids in ever increasing numbers so Toyota had to import more to keep up with demand.
I am sure you will continue to find ways to justify your myopic and xenophobic view of the world all the while typing on your computer (where are the vast majority of the components for that made?), watching your television (How about that?) and wearing clothes (hrm, wonder where they are made?). It makes sense to me.
Jon
