Originally posted by Coasterkidmwm
If you're British you shouldn't be knocking American cars. At least we've never made Leylands I mean jesus christ.
Also how great can you people be if the goddamned new Mini is made by Germans?
I was not responsible British Leyland though really was I? So why does being British make me somehow linked to this travesty against the automotive industry? We have made good cars in the past, but for the large part, they've been a huge pile of crap, but that my friend does not mean that an even higher percentage of American cars haven't been huge piles of crap now does it?
And I'll tell you why the Germans have their name on the new mini, it's because they tend to build decent cars and they saw a chance to make some money by re-launching a modern version of an old British classic. Can I also point out that the new mini is not "made by the Germans", for the large part it is built by English hands. One of the main plants is in Swindon, England. The company that I work for also had a lot to do with some of the machinery that went into that plant specifically for the construction of the new mini! So just because BMW own the design-rights does NOT mean it is made by the Germans! [:)] The mini is in fact built all over europe like most vehicles, except for American cars, which for the most part are entirely designed and built within America, herein lies the problem. The new mini isn't a particularly great car anyway so I don't even know why I'm defending it haha!
This in recent years has been tagged onto a little bit by the American car companies such as Chev. who buy the design-rights and manufacturing rights to fairly poor japanese/indonesian/indian cars, put a chev logo on them and sell them here, which doesn't really work, even though they are an improvement on American cars. The only company to break the market here is Ford, the reason for which is that the cars they release here are European vehicles that have been designed and manufactured here and have never even seen an American person
GM on the other hand is now using old vauxhaul/holden/opel designs in America. Doubt that's going to work, our cars don't consume anywhere NEAR enough fuel for the American market!