Wherever it’s made, my Solara runs like a dream, vs. the Pinto, Chevette, Camaro, Fairmont, Chevy PU, Olds something, Thunderbird, Grand Marquis, etc. American made POSs I’ve owned over the years.
From talking with some of the general managers at Lexus (part of Toyota), there is a move to have all models produced completely in Japan, but for now some are still made at plants in America and Canada.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/reviews/healey/2004-10-14-tacoma_x.htm
2005 Toyota Tacoma
• What is it? Full redo of Toyota’s compact pickup: Different frame, bigger size, more models, new engines, more room, classier interior. Available with standard-length cab, Access Cab (Toyota’s term for extended cab), Double Cab (Toyota’s term for crew cab).
Manufactured by New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) at Fremont, Calif., a Toyota-operated factory that also builds Toyota Corollas and the Pontiac Vibe for General Motors.
My Nissan Titan comes from Mississippi
Let me just do a quick post on china automotive. 2005 China saw roughly 5.6 m units produced. How many of these are “real” cars versus a souped up lawnmower is up for debate. At some point in this decade, China should over take Japan as the second largest global production market after the US. Companies like VW already sell more cars in China than in Germany.
all the major manufacturers are present in China in a pretty big way. Toyota produces many different vehicles in China. There are factories in Tianjin, Chengdu Sichuan Province and Guangzhou. The Lexus is imported from japan.
IIRC the rule in china is for 65% content made in China to be considered “Chinese”, at least from a tax perspective.
Production can be a little misleading. For example, BMW’s 3 and 5 series produced in China come from CKD (completely knock down kits). In other words, all the parts go into a container in Germany, are shipped to China, and then assembled in China. Not sure but likely to be the same case with BMW in the US. At this point, BMW has no practical plans to assemble in China and re-export to the US. The 5 series built in China uses automated robots, so there is no labor savings.
There are also cars like the Audi that get their wheels and steering wheels put onto an otherwise completely pre-assembled in the home country vehicle for import tax reasons.
7 of the big OEM’s are my customers in China, and i go see factories pretty regularly throughout the country.
The new gigantic sized Toyota Tundra will be built at the new $180 milllion plant in San Antonio starting in Feb. They are training 2000 workers and companies have sprung up around the plant. Just announcing Toyota is coming has made a tremendous impact on the SA economy.
Its somewhat confusing, according to the Wikipedia article on my car, a Honda Civic/Domani, was manufactured in the UK. After a small accident the garage our insurers used told us they had to scour the UK for a new front and rear end as the standard panels wouldn’t fit and the registration document told us it had been registered outside the UK. This made me think it was a Japanese import, but they usually go to the Republic of Ireland and there were none of the tell tale signs like fog lights in the rear bumper or Japanese script written anywhere on the car.
That reminds me of one of my brothers’ first car
- it was a VW Beetle, bought from a clergyman - well the guy wore a dog collar
After my mechanically inept brother ran it into the ground, my less inept youngest brother took possession and sorted it out.
It was very strange, there were all sorts of anomalies, it had things like disk brakes which were not on that model.
I concluded that it was a nicked car masquerading as a written off vehicle.
If you’re only going to make a decision about where the money goes, then don’t forget all of the white collar workers who do the engineering work for the respective companies. If you buy a GM, then your dollars also go to the white collar workers’ salaries there. If you buy a Toyota, your dollars are going to white collar workers in Japan. Everyone forgets that there’s a huge infrastructure of support, design, and engineering personnel that belong to auto companies, and that finances are much more involved than just the auto worker on the assembly line.
Except: GM also has white collar in Europe, Japan, China, Korea. Toyota has the same in Europe, Latin America, the USA. So it’s still not easy to draw a distinction.
Maybe, where does the philanthropy go? Toyota just donated something large (don’t remember what) to downtown Detroit, right beside the GM world headquarters.
Origin of the parts? Lots of “American cars” have Japan-sourced parts. How about the whole car? All of the Big Three import cars from Mexico.
Okay, then where are the majority of stockholders? I don’t think much of the buying public care, because they think corporations are evil behemouths and don’t stop to consider that stockholders even exist, so why does it matter where they are? For the few of us that aren’t brainwashed corporation-bashers, then do we care if Chef Morimoto gets that 1-cent dividend more than does Bobby Flay?
If you really want to make a financial decision, then you should live where the money is paid and earned. If you want to support San Antonio’s local economy, then it makes economic sense to purchase a Tundra. If you live anywhere in Michigan, it makes more economic sense to purchase anything from the Big 3. But if you live in Saskatchewan, you’re better off not thinking about it at all and purchasing whatever best suits your needs.
On another note, remember when Japanese cars were just pieces of junk? No one has that attitude anymore. It wasn’t more than three to four years ago that Korean cars had the worst quality of any producers, but now they’re equal to the American producers. Before making a buying decision because your 1985 Escort was a piece of junk, consider that “American” quality is now virtually equal to most of the Japanese, and among many brands, superior. That’s not to say you can’t buy a “Japanese” car, but start being honest – you like it better, and that’s fine. Don’t feel you have to justify your decision to redneck pro-American-car supporters by lingering on past quality.
They better let their subsidiaries in on those plans. 
TMMC (Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada) just took over RX350 production in 2003 (as the first Lexus plant outside Japan), and they’re expect to keep expanding Lexus (as well as other Toyota models) capacity through 2008.
Depending on the age of the car, such things like disc brakes might have been desirable after market conversions (not sure if a clergy man might have had time for such things) Older car magazines seem to have much more of a diverse spread of after market modifications than today’s, which seem to be mostly centred around engine chips, alloys and exhausts.
Bingo. The “quality gap” between Japanese and American cars is mostly an artifact of history. In fact, Toyota just had a spate of recalls on some of their vehicles.
There is still a quality gap, however. European cars now have worse quality than American or Japanese cars. There was a bit of a scandal a few years ago, when quality surveys showed that Mercedes, Daimler-Chrysler’s luxury brand, was actually inferior to its “low-end” Chryslers and Dodges!