> If you had instead started with the thought that
> "knocking off other cars are bad", then you'd see that
> it really applied to everyone.
>
> Would american manufacturers ever make a compact car if
> the japanese hadn't done it first?
>
> Would the Ford Probe or Eagle Talon ever exist if the
> Japanese hadn't made the sport compact market what it
> is today?
>
> Would ford have made the xxxx if chevy hadn't been
> first with the yyyy?
>
> It goes on.
>
> - --
> Trevor Boicey
> Ottawa, Canada
> tboicey@brit.ca
>
Trevor,
Actually, would the Probe or Eagle even exist if the foreign car
companies hadn't agreed to help with the development? After all, the
Probe is basically a Mazda MX-6 with Ford badges (I've always thought
Mazda had much more input into the "joint" effort that Ford did.),
and the Eagle Talon, Plymouth Laser, and Mitsubishi Eclipse are the
same car with some minor styling differences. I don't know who was
actually in on the original design. I realize that these aren't
knock-offs, they're actually sister cars, but how many dodge/plymouth
cars can you think of that are actually Mistubishis with American
badges on them? (I can think of three off the top of my head.) The
first Geo Prisms were japanese-built cars with some minor cosmetic
changes to them. (Toyotas, I think).
It's funny to that some cars we think of as being all-American, like
the Jeep Wrangler, are manufactured completely in different
countries, whereas the Honda Accord just recently made some consumer
group's approved list of Made-in-America products.
Scott
Scott Gardner
gardner@lwcomm.com
www.lwcomm.com/~gardner
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