Founded on May 19th, 1903, Buick in 1908 became the basis for General Motors.

Today, Buick for 2010 presents cars designed and crafted with the attention to detail that only more than a century of heritage could teach.

It begins with stiff body structures, serving as the foundation for precise suspension tuning, exemplary active and passive safety, and the quietest cabins in each segment.

Behind the scenes, the latest in intelligent technologies seamlessly enhance the driving experience, at the wheel, under acceleration and braking, and in inclement weather.

Imposing front fasciae, with authoritative, vertical chrome grilles as their focal point, meet graceful, tapered coachwork; while, inside, luxurious wrap-around cockpits are carefully crafted and draped in premium materials. Smoked chrome accents; warm wood; supple leather; contrasting threat, and French stitching are enhanced by cool blue ambient lighting. Ahead of the driver, analogue gauges are chrome offset by dark wood accents. These balanced contrasts exude harmony in the best Buick tradition.

Under the hood, Buick power is as it ever has been: authoritative, and responsive, now with direct-injection dual-overhead-cam engines paired with 6-speed automatic transmissions. Direct-injection technology makes for greater combustion control, which improves economy and is easier on the environment, reducing cold-start emissions (in particular) by up to 25%.

Indeed, any automaker who wishes to cater to the needs of tomorrow's customer must carefully manage its vehicles' cost of ownership. In these changing times, Buick intenders can be heartened that the Buick has always been a value proposition; a car of (what Buick once called) product integrity. Today, all 2009 Buick cars meet or exceed an EPA-rated 25 mpg on the highway. The Enclave crossover is right behind them, attaining up to 24 mpg.


FriendsOfBuick.com launched on May 19th, 2006, in celebration of Buick's 103rd anniversary. Debuting nearly a decade after Buick became the first automaker to launch a car on the Internet, this site presents a cyber-based, evolving look at the Buick brand, with the aim of exploring Buick's heritage and modern day relevance.

The automaker that invented the valve-in-head engine went on to build the first American mass-produced V6 and aluminum V8, among other innovations. Much as Buick has through its history, we expect to continuously improve.

Buick has evolved the art of not simply interior spaciousness, but also that of correct ergonomic science. Meanwhile, the modern Buick's craftsmanship largely surpasses its peers, inside and out.

The Buick's graceful, timeless presence has regularly met dynamic grace in the linearity of its primary controls and its chassis response. Indeed, Buick is among the few whose vehicles' dynamic gait - their gentle, cushioning demeanor, and their fluid response to the road's imperfections - is an integral part of its brand.

Buick has produced the fastest production car in American twice in the past fifty years, in addition to having built the third most powerful muscle car ever.

Buick has ranked at or near the top of consumer quality and loyalty surveys for much of the past twenty years, and has recently posted exceptional results in customer service.

FriendsOfBuick.com is an evolving effort to articulate the virtues of Buicks past and present. We believe in touring cars long on a lineage of ergonomics, grace, power, and reassurance of ownership. We are cheered by the thought that an automobile can be made to ride and handle well, with neither ungainly undulations in its body control, nor judder. A car, we feel, should both follow the road, and soften the road's harsher aspects, all the while remaining linear in its responses and demeanor.

We believe that the modern Buick, with its honed multi-link suspensions and QuietTuned structures, has the formula.

We believe that true evolution means embracing the best of the past while moving ceaselessly toward the future.

We believe in the power of understatement; in quiet power that delivers smoothly and promptly when called upon, and in the celebration of romance in automotive design.

We believe in cars that are distinctly American in flavor, but capable of playing in a world-class market.

Buick has been around for long enough to have witnessed, first hand, the mainstreaming and mass production of the automobile. While today's cars have benefited from technological progress, it has, equally, been a challenge for manufacturers to hide the pedestrian nature of mass production in sheetmetal, fit, and finish. We believe that the modern Buick does a superlative job of just that.

FriendsOfBuick.com is an evolving body of work. You're cordially invited to stay tuned as we explore the brand, its triumphs, and its challenges. It is hoped that visitors enjoy browsing this site; and that car enthusiasts, in particular, enjoy this discussion. We hope you'll find this site to be the very best source for Buick brand research on the Internet, and certainly worth a read for anyone involved in marketing Buick, or otherwise communicating the brand's values.


Certainly, the primary goal of this research is to promote Buick's heritage in a manner appropriate for a brand with more than a century of history to discuss - and to do so in a way that, hopefully, seems relevant in 2010.

Buick is a brand of quiet attribute. Nonetheless, studying Buick history since 1903, one observes four consistent virtues: ergonomics, grace, power, and reassurance. While FriendsOfBuick.com is neither affiliated with, nor endorsed by, General Motors Corporation, it may well be advised to market Buick referencing these four qualities.

Thus, in addition to individual pages for each of Buick's current models, this site also elucidates these attributes as Buick has applied them (and as they have applied to Buick) through history. On the whole, this type of research is vital in an era when approximately as much is spent to launch Toyota's Camry as to advertise the entire Buick line-up for an entire year (between $150 million and $200 million).

Like any brand with premium aspirations, Buick must surpass its customers' expectations, and must do so most in clearly defined core competencies. Clearly defining Buick's perspective on the market would not only crystallize Buick's mission in today's automotive marketplace, but also its position within the GM fold.

This, in turn, would return a fair degree of confidence to the Buick organization. Heritage such as Buick's can be neither bought nor duplicated, and it can be referenced in a way that is relevant to the present.

To further illustrate why this work might be important, a quote from a recent New York Times article: "even the well-spoken Ms. Docherty - who in an earlier position at General Motors helped transform Cadillac - couldn't succinctly define what a Buick, or this Buick, is supposed to be, beyond what it isn't, which is excessive or innovative or bold."

Analysts and automotive media alike have latched upon the idea that GM's many brands are unnecessary. This theory ignores the fragmentation in today's market, and negates how much GM's brands have meant to people in the past. Rather than rashly discontinuing nameplates, and potentially losing customers, it is more important than ever to keep each brand authentic, distinct, and relevant.

In the grand scheme of things, Buick is neither a "mid-luxury car," nor a Lexus alternative; rather, it is Buick. The key is to entice customers to want a Buick, not to get them into a GM mid-luxury car.

Keeping GM's brands authentic, distinct propositions will require respecting the position they currently own in the customer's mind, and moving forward from there. For sales and marketing to be successful, what is presented must gel with what customers expect from each brand and, in turn, with customer needs in 2010. Moving forward thus requires, to some degree, looking back at what these brands once meant: taking, one might say, a heritage-based approach to authenticity.

On an overt note; observe the return of the Buick ventiport (or "porthole"). It has its roots in 1948; it is among the most recognizable typological references in automotive design, and its return is emblematic of Buick's revitalization and resurgence.

More inherently - pride in Buick's consistency will produce a more natural confidence - not arrogance, but confidence.

Confidence, in the heritage of powerful, refined vehicles with a hint of mystery, and of interiors with warmth, and designs with class, whose presence draws not from their shock value, but their maturity.

Both the brand and the market will be the better for it.


There can be little doubt that a perception gap exists. Here, the concept is defined as the general idea, and perpetuation thereof, that domestic vehicles are not the equivalent of their import counterparts in quality and reliability, performance, and technology.

In one instance, a Hart/ GM survey taken on June 29th, 2005, 77% of respondents believed that either Toyota or Honda lead in developing alternative-fuel vehicles. General Motors was viewed as having the poorerst record, despite 20 GM models, including the Buick LaCrosse, rated at 30 mpg or better on the highway; despite more than $1 billion devoted to GM hydrogen fuel-cell research (approximately what Toyota has spent on plants to build trucks in recent years), and despite GM's considerable investment in building hybrid buses.


As the domestics invest more and more in product, the consumer is, paradoxically enough, neither inclined nor encouraged to pay for such improvements. Take, for example, GM's Quadrasteer technology, available on full-size pick-ups and SUVs through 2005. It was cancelled because not enough customers appreciated the degree to which it enhanced high-speed stability. No media seemed too, either, even through the NHTSA had repeatedly expressed concern about the stability of heavy-duty vehicles. First costing $5,000, Quadrasteer was cheapened to $2,000, and finally was no longer available.

Who lost? Everyone concerned, consumers included.

Back in 1954, Buick had a problem with its power brakes. The power-assisted cylinder which would fail may have been provided by a third-party supplier, but it is also true that sufficient long-term testing was not performed. In his book, Unsafe at any Speed, Ralph Nader would, in 1965, use the incident to criticize Buick's handling of the problem: the division quietly told its dealers to make the fixes, instead of announcing a public recall.

Where are Nader's comments on the imports' common use of this practice today?

Curiously, Nader also failed to point out that Buick's revised, finned-aluminum brakes - the latest in motoring technology for 1957 - were among the best in the industry. Two years later, Buick cooled the rear brakes, too; and, by 1967, there were front power discs and aluminum rear brakes.

Having missed all of this, Nader certainly never mentioned that the 1924 Buick was the first mass-produced American car with 4-wheel brakes, period.


While some of the perception gap is rooted in past reality, the past is increasingly but a distant blur. The Buick brand has been operating for more than 6 times as long as Lexus (for instance), and as such has endured a series of market and product upheavals. This history makes for some effective, meaningful imagery; but, inevitably, also for a series of missteps.

It is, certainly, true that product development at Buick turned into a fit of stops and starts back in 1973, when the first gas crisis and government mandated emissions legislation combined to push the magnanimous manufacturer into a corner, to whose tight confines it was hardly accustomed.

The first gas crisis of 1973, and the ensuing decade which culminated in yet another gas crisis, presented challenges that made the future look particularly bleak. As a whole, the industry met these challenges with short-term solutions. These were trying times for a brand of largesse, of magnanimity and grand gesture.

By now, the David and Goliath story is common knowledge, albeit that it seems open to a wildly varying degree of interpretation. What is unchallenged is that the domestics had become complacent. They were used to having it easy. These companies, Buick included, would develop their cars, launch them, and watch people queue up to buy them.

Then, things changed. The gas crisis, a slew of regulations, and questionable trade practices combined to create the perfect storm.

A ridiculously undervalued Japanese yen met half-hearted Voluntary Restraint Agreement (VRA) import quotas. The resulting Japanese transplant production was financed in part by the selling of Japanese vehicles at prices lower in the United States than in their domestic, Japanese market.

That's dumping; it's not legal, and yet it assisted the Japanese in finding the resources to improve their vehicles in an automotive market that had undergone depression twice in a decade.

Meanwhile, American congressmen and senators were enlisted to lobby for Japanese transplant production, even while postwar Japan never attempted to open its own market to import sales, let alone production.

It is a little known fact that, in 1927, American manufacturers had held 97% of the Japanese market, and had produced cars for that market within its borders, before being unceremoniously thrown out. By the early 1980s, the Big Three combined barely sold 4,000 vehicles in Japan, per year. By 1997, that number had climbed to just 25,000 vehicles.

Bob Lutz, the only man to have risen to, virtually, the top of each of the Big Three, puts it succinctly: "the Japanese did generally build better cars, and they did, at the same time, routinely engage in unfair trade - which, by the way, in turn helped give them the resources to build better cars!

"And while I, for one, readily conceded the former point, hardly anyone in Washington or in the media would concede the latter. It seemed almost as if the American mind was incapable of grasping both propositions simultaneously" (Guts, Robert A. Lutz, John Wiley & Sons, 1998, 2003).

It is true that, in the 1970s, American manufacturing standards lagged. It should also be noted that several schemes intended to correct the problem did not quite work.

Former assembly line worker Ben Hamper, in his book Rivethead, tells the tale of the man who dressed up as a cat, prowling the GM assembly lines and spurring people on to higher standards. BBC Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, reviewing Rivethead, writes, "equally peculiar was the later scheme, which involved the erection of several sizable electronic notice boards all over the plant. These kept the people informed of sales, production figures, and such, but could be used for messages.

"One day it would say, quality is the backbone of good workmanship, and on another, safety is safe, but Hamper saves his vitriol for the day when he looked up from underneath a Suburban to see the sign, squeezing rivets is fun!" (Born to be Riled, Jeremy Clarkson, BBC Worldwide Limited, 1999).

It is also true that, in the 1970s, the Detroit automakers invested in downsized platforms that, paradoxically, drew heavily (pun intended) from their predecessors in their sub-system components. New hardware was generally a rarity.


Besot by problems with its more innovative designs, and confused by the cooler reception to the larger, lazier cars that it most enjoyed building, Detroit grew inconsistent, going through several new product plans in as many weeks, and encouraging a risk-averse culture. Obsessed with creating products that would respond to a period in time that it continued to view as an aberration, Detroit created cars that were a product of uncertainty, rather than cars that people wanted to hold on to.

Meanwhile, the imports featured unconventional, sophisticated, and sometimes whimsical advertising and attitude. "Raw economics drove them to find ways to gain maximum effect from skimpy advertising and promotional budgets, and the pioneering spirit of their people led to independent thinking," recalls British Leyland America vice-president J. Bruce McWilliams.

"It was fun to be the tail that wagged the dog" (Triumph Cars in America, Michael Cook, MBI, 2001).

Less from more became a mantra.

With the strategy, management, and quality problems swirling around Detroit, what early adopter in these troubled times wanted anything further to do with the perceived excess of chrome, or of any styled effort, for that matter? The result was somewhat subjective reporting from opinion leaders, and the attitude would filter down to the general public.

As DesRosiers Automotive Reports suggest, "most consumers fundamentally don't understand the automobile industry, and look for comfort from others when purchasing a new vehicle. What are the automotive journalists recommending; what are my friends and relatives buying; what is the street talk about specific vehicles?" (DesRosiers Automotive Reports, November 15th, 2003)

The followers were about to be led, and in a far more subjective way than is acknowledged.

As an example, Car and Driver was incredibly critical (to the point of being unquotable) of the second-generation Chevrolet Monte Carlo's lines; yet this is a design which today exhibits decidedly more flourish than the "Mercedes-esque creases" and "coachwork equivalent of the blush of success" of the second-generation Honda Civic. Both cars were reviewed in the same July, 1980, issue.

Design, both domestic and foreign, suffered considerably in this era. "All that today's motorist seems to require," wrote the late, great, L. J. K. Setright in 1976, "is currently fashionable ostentation in styling, and the knowledge that his car will survive being driven at 13 mph into a block of concrete.

"The age of artistry in car design, like the age of chivalry, is gone."

Explains David Gartman, associate professor of sociology, "the quickest way for American automakers to convince consumers that they were coming down from the clouds and offering efficient, functional machines, was to append this functionalist look to the surface of their cars.

"The square, stern lines of the cars of the late 1970s to early 1980s assured Americans that they could consume themselves out of the indulgent excesses without altering the structure of Fordist production that gave rise to the notion of salvation through consumption to begin with" (Auto Opium: A Social History of American Automobile Design, David Gartman, Routledge, 1994).

This in turn, took romance out of the American car.

However, there's no doubt that, today, foreign manufacturers have done fairly similar things, and yet media concern, from enthusiast and (self-dubbed) consumer-oriented media alike, has yet to take hold.


Automotive reviews increasingly lack the knowledge they once showed, deriding difficult subjects - e.g.: design, ride, and handling - as subjective, while preferring to proffer opinions on brand image, and/ or reposting large sections of press release. While this may not apply to all journalists, that it applies to any is reason enough for concern. The very raison d'être of automotive media is to understand the industry and its products well enough to educate the consumer.

For instance, ride quality is a traditional Buick strength, one which depends not only on body frequency over undulations, but also on interior quietness. In both respects, the Buick LaCrosse (through 2009), with its tri-link rear suspension, is superior to Toyota's Camry and Camry's sister, the Lexus ES350. The Camry/ ES350 have for decades used the same 2-link MacPherson configuration at both ends (the most expedient rear suspension in the segment.

No media outlet has made much of this, and so the question remains: should the media seek a metric for ride quality, or should it continue to place cars on a skidpad, regardless of the fact that grip at constant steering and throttle inputs has little bearing on real-world handling?

Similarly, it is often written that the LaCrosse, through 2009, is based on a (heavily) modified "W-body" platform. The practice of reusing platforms for next-generation cars is not unusual. Indeed, Toyota's 2007 Camry has changed rather less in its underpinnings from the last-generation model, versus a comparison between 2005-09 LaCrosse and 2000-04 Regal. Yet because the media lacks a "W-body"-type term to measure Toyota's rate of change, this aspect goes unreported.

Moreover, it is unfortunate that widespread misunderstanding of overhead-valve technology, among opinion leaders, no less, has pushed Buick toward overhead-cam engines. Although the new OHC motors, with their direct-injection technology, are among the very best of their kind, Buick was for years the only premium brand to offer buyers a choice between OHV and OHC engines. The choice was both welcome, and legitimate. An overhead-valve engine's ability to attain peak horsepower and torque levels at more accessible points in the rev range caters to a fuel-efficient driving style, one which can push a 2009 Buick LaCrosse sedan to 30 mpg on the highway.

Moreover, when a car is as silent and vibration-free as the QuietTuned LaCrosse, points made about OHV refinement are moot.

In other instances of invalid metrics - Consumer Reports' predicted reliability surveys are so statistically questionable that a preliminary college-level statistics class would render them defunct. This organization has never seen the need to publish either the number of responses it receives per vehicle, or the margins of error between models. How can one possibly compare the provided data across models without such information?

Veteran automotive journalist and Autoline Detroit host John McElroy once suggested this to Consumer Reports senior director of auto testing, David Champion. In response, Champion admitted, "our job is to serve our subscribers... the people that we are helping are the same people that are filling-in the survey."

Clearly, this circular logic can only produce results whose external validity is questionable, at best.

Former Volkswagen CEO Ferdinand Piëch once (rightly) predicted that flock-lining the glove-box would encourage the consumer to believe that the same amount of time had been spent on machining their new car's cylinder head. Yet the truth is that every vehicle has a fixed product development budget. Changing the parts you see leaves less money which which to change the parts you do not. Perhaps this explains why Toyota's Camry has, year in, year out, been suspended by one of the cheapest configurations in the business.

Quadrasteer was an extraordinary system, one that buyers could appreciate for its safety, and enthusiasts and strategists could laud for its uniqueness. Its failure on the market illustrates a key problem. Unless efforts are made to improve consumer understanding of the issues in this complex industry, the car-buying public might well deserve the derivative vehicles that will be headed its way. Manufacturers will be free to merely change what we see, may ignore what we do not, and might never again reach the potential that this industry has attained several times in the last hundred years.


Romanticism across the automotive industry suffered in the '70s and '80s, as angular shapes and wild graphics threatened to ruin all appreciation of nuance, only to be followed by box-shaped functionality and rationalized platforms.

Emotions were rediscovered in the '90s, with nostalgia, in particular, revived at the turn of the Millennium.

"A good planning process can be an excellent baseline tool, a means of generating solid data," wrote GM vice chairman Bob Lutz in a company-wide memo in the Fall of 2001. Yet, he cautioned, "it cannot robotically create a good future portfolio."

Lutz's revamp of GM's product development processes has created leaner structures, limiting the layers of approval that so often hamper bold programs. Bright minds are more able to exercise their imaginations.

Today, Buick product development emphasizes design, high quality of materials and assembly, and satisfying vehicle dynamics. More than a decade of complacency in the face of unfair competition has produced better cars - and better Buicks - than ever.

Detroit's problems are front page news, and are, of course, on the minds of many car buyers. A negative psychology exists, developing into a vicious circle which is very tangible and real to the consumer. This is of concern for Buick, a brand of quiet attribute.

"The Buick LeSabre is one of those cars that subtly sneaks up on you," wrote Todd Hayes for the Washington Times in 1998, adding, "what it does do, though, is reassure you that American automakers can make some of the cleanest, most tasteful luxury sedans in the world when they put their minds to it."

Sometimes, competence is a curse; a car can be one of the most competent all-rounders around, responsive and sturdy, and through this lack of serious vices, somehow, our positive impressions fade. Autoweek said of the 1998 Buick Park Avenue, "too bad there isn't an award for the most underrated car of the year. If there were, somebody at Buick would have to clear some shelf space."

There can be little doubt that the domestic automakers, Buick included, made critical mistakes in the wake of the 1973 and 1980 gas crises. There can also be little doubt that, in 2010, Buick some of the highest quality vehicles in the industry.

"Our quality, as rated by a number of consumer groups, remains among the highest in the industry; but consumers don't know this," reported Buick marketing director Margaret Brooks in 2005.

"The problem with Buick hasn't been quality so much as public perception," writes Edmunds.com (Edmunds, October 27th, 2004).

As Automobile.com wrote of the 2005-09 LaCrosse, "this is one formidable contender, easily ready to do battle with any import in the land... the tough sell will be getting people to go down to a Buick store and test it out at all."

According to U.S. News magazine, "Buick is perhaps the nation's most underappreciated automotive nameplate" (U.S. News, February 15th, 2005).

The perception gap is doubly hard on Buick because it is an upscale brand in a culture that has been reticent to believe that Americans can do upscale as well as foreigners. Author Thomas E. Bonsall, whose work is published by the Stanford University Press, explains this phenomenon best, as he discusses "our distorted cultural bias toward things American.

"When it comes to Mass Culture, we think - unreasonably - that no one else in the world can hold a candle to us.

"When it comes to quality (from luxury goods to the fine arts), it is just the reverse. We automatically grant special status to things foreign, while reflexively denigrating our own achievements or, perhaps worse, ignoring them altogether.

"Every educated American knows of Picasso, but how many could name a 20th century American painter?

"It is no different with high-quality automobiles. If it is built in the Black Forest by elves, it is accorded an instant respect that an American carmaker has to struggle for years to attain. In the area of our finer accomplishments, people around the world tend to have a better appreciation for us than we do ourselves.

"After all, Picasso drove a Lincoln!" (The Lincoln Story, Thomas E. Bonsall, Stanford University Press, 2004).

As Bob Lutz writes, "the prospect of failure is a great motivator. It can be a wonderful teacher." So you'd be wrong to think that unfair competition almost killed the domestic industry; rather, in Lutz's view, unfair competition may save the domestics, forcing them, "initially against their will, to face realities and make certain changes that they would never have done voluntarily." (Guts, Robert A. Lutz, John Wiley & Sons, 1998, 2003)

Today, neither the consumer nor the automotive industry is served by the continued projection of past mistakes upon modern products; particularly when Buick has for nigh on two decades regularly ranked top, or thereabouts, in J.D. Power Initial Quality, Long-Term Dependability, and Sales Satisfaction surveys. J.D. Power also regularly ranks the GM plants were Buicks are built among the highest in quality, in North America.

On a lighter note - one of Buick's issues in combating the perception gap is that so many older Buicks, built for a different era and with hundreds of thousands of miles behind them, survive. The sheer durability of the Buick 3800 V6 (considered by Ward's Auto World to be one of the 10 Best Engines of the 20th century) is, in part, to "blame!" Interior materials and automotive technology have moved on, yet we are regularly reminded of where Buick was ten; fifteen, and occasionally, even thirty, years ago (this latter period having been a difficult time for automotive design in general). Moreover, cars depreciate as they age, and so older Buicks, no matter how desirable their brand of luxuriousness when new, fall into the hands of owners for whom secondary repairs are a tertiary consideration.

That said, we know several owners of older Buicks who understand that their vehicles are as much ambassadors for the brand, going forward, as is a new Enclave.

On the whole, Buick represents a unique opportunity to challenge the perception gap. Buick is, after all, a premium American luxury brand in a time when American and premium are not what they once were. Buick is also a brand of evolutionary rather than revolutionary design - of timeless style - and as such Buick challenges the assumption that a car is technologically underdeveloped simply because its design is evergreen. Consider the 1997 Riviera, for instance; two years into the 1995-99 Riviera's life, Buick upgraded the rear suspension, mid-cycle, with all-aluminum control arms, knuckles, and related hardware, reducing unsprung weight and substantively improving ride quality. That's continuous improvement - and it adds considerably more value than a new pair of headlights, or a dashboard console.

Yet Buick marketing has not been loud enough about its brand's key, quiet virtue of continuous improvement, leaving the impression that Buick has become staid.

All in all, if the perception gap is widening, as domestic manufacturers produce better and better vehicles, then we should all be concerned. Ultimately, the loss of both American manufacturing and American skill in design and engineering hangs in the balance.

FriendsOfBuick.com is an effort to articulate the virtues of the modern Buick.

Meanwhile, at Buick, as marketing director Margaret Brooks puts it, "with quiet confidence, we're just looking to remind people of our high quality performance."

Generally more buoyantly confident, GM vice chairman Bob Lutz has told Britain's Channel 4 News, "I'll take you to see a Buick up close - and I challenge you to show me a Lexus/ Toyota or an Acura/ Honda or an Infiniti/ Nissan with tighter body gaps and flanges, better interior fittings, sheetmetal quality, and so forth" (Channel 4 News, May 15th, 2006).

As Buick gets it together in both its product development process, and in the products that process produces, it remains to be seen if our opinion leaders can forgive and forget the 1970s for long enough to take notice.


In and of itself, no; a blind, Buy American mentality no more serves the industry than does the perception gap.

However, this is not to lend support to the idea, so often cited by advocates of the so-called "free trade" that exists between America and the rest of the world, that foreign car companies are replenishing the jobs lost by the American automotive industry.

They are not.

Consider: In 2006, GM, Ford, and Chrysler accounted for 4% of the U.S. GDP, and 11% of all manufacturing shipments.

Consider: From 1980 to 2006, GM, Ford, and Chrysler were responsible for 85% of the total investment in the U.S. automotive industry.

Consider: In 2006, GM and Ford each had nearly 5 times as many major American plants as Toyota, Honda, and Nissan combined.

Consider: In 2006, GM, Ford, and Chrysler together employed 90% of the autoworkers in America (400,000 people, directly). Ford alone employed 4 times the number of Americans, directly, as Honda, one of the largest and longest-operating transplants in the U.S.

Consider: GM, Ford, and Chrysler provide health care for 2 million Americans, and pension benefits for 800,000 retirees.

Consider: GM alone provides health coverage to 1.1 million employees, retirees, and dependents - more than any other company in the country. By contrast, Honda in America has just 1,700 retirees, and is reported to have expressed dismay at the cost of their health care. One can only imagine General Motors' burden.

Consider: Figures for the 2006 model year place the average content of GM; Ford, and Chrysler vehicles at 76%. Contrast with 48% for Japanese automakers; 5.4% for European automakers, and 3% for Korean automakers.

Consider: More than 65,000 Americans work in 215 automotive R&D facilities in Michigan alone. By contrast, the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers' Association (JAMA) notes that the 14 Japanese automakers doing business in America employed, in 2006, 20 times fewer that amount: roughly 3,100 people at 33 R&D facilities nationwide.


Given that American companies pay more taxes to the U.S Treasury than foreign companies, they might well expect cooperation from their government (much as Japanese automakers, Honda somewhat apart, have ever received from their own).

This is not to propose mercantilist policy. If Buick's products - or the products of any domestic automaker, for that matter - are terminally uncompetitive, then let them sink. However, if they suffer because perception distorts reality, then we all lose.

This site does not propose anything quite so peripheral as a Buy American campaign. Rather, it urges both the media and the consumer to spend as much time and effort as possible to determine the merits, or lack thereof, of what are, after all, most people's second-largest single purchases.

As Autoline Detroit host John McElroy wrote for Ward's Auto World, "Americans should buy whatever brand of car they want; but buying from the Big Three is better for the country.

"For all the value the foreigners have added here, they still don't do their core engineering in the U:S. They don't create platforms here. They don't design the powertrains, drivetrains, chassis, or suspensions. They don't develop the electronic architectures. They don't conduct the crash testing.

"All of this is done in their home countries.

"Meanwhile, it's General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler that are doing the most recruiting at American colleges to fill every kind of job imaginable. They're the ones buying the American-made super computers, and hiring the people to program them. They're the ones doing the computational fluid dynamics here before they go into their wind tunnels. This is where they do their manufacturing engineering. These are the companies with the greatest diversity of employees, supporting the greatest number of communities, and adding the most value to the American way of life" ('Buy American,' John McElroy, Ward's Auto World, May 20th, 2006).


To put it in the simplest of terms: no child grows up wanting to work in an automotive industry which merely assembles vehicles designed elsewhere.

This was recently made abundantly clear in a piece written by CAR magazine's Gavin Green, who was alone among Britain's media to articulate the problem of MG-Rover's 2005 collapse. Through the ordeal, the media had seemed intent on maintaining that national interests had no place in a discussion of the of the future of automotive production. Green countered this idea, writing, "most of the pundits who pontificated on MG-Rover's final failure implied that, actually, despite MG-Rover's incompetence, it's going fine for U.K. Motor Industry plc. The Japanese are here! The U.K. now makes more cars than it did a decade ago.

"Nissan, Honda, and Toyota are the new Austin, Morris, and Rover!

"True, we make them here. But we don't design, engineer, and develop them here. In a neat reversal of 100 years ago, we now provide Asia with low-cost, conveniently located labor. They do the high value, university educated, creative, and managerial stuff. We build 'em. The only mass maker with a hefty engineering presence left in the U.K. is Ford.

"Yes, we have loads of companies making cars here, with good productivity and good quality. But none is British owned. This matters in the car business. A company's home is typically where it sites its senior management, engineers, designers, and key administrators - the important jobs that young people aspire to.

"A company's home is where it will always, even in the face of low-cost Third World options, locate some of its manufacturing. A company's home is where it has loyalty, political affiliations, cultural empathy, and key suppliers.

"The disparate U.S., Japanese, and German-owned carmakers which assemble cars in Britain help this country, so thanks very much and the best of British to you. But when the chips are down... they'll be off. And as we've already seen, not even a call from Tony Blair will make any difference" (CAR, July 2005).


Food for thought.

What is the true measure of a fine car? What lends an automobile its élan; its distinction? (more)

What is the true measure of a fine car? What lends an automobile its élan; its distinction? (more)