I lived a strongly blue-collar, union town growing up. When things went sour by the 80’s, the major employer laid off roughly 10,000 employees, mind you out of a population of 75,000. Several other major employers went completely belly up, and all the supporting industries and employers. Not good at all. In this context, foreign cars weren’t vandalized afaik, but it wasn’t considered very sporting to drive one. A common bumper sticker at the time was “Hungry? Eat your foreign car!” I didn’t notice a bias against foreign makes, but a decided preference for keeping Americans employed, which is understandable.
Unfortunately the build quality was so poor, and fuel prices so high - that support for US made, gas-guzzling autos dried up overnight and was supplanted by higher quality, fuel efficient japanese cars. The rest is, as they say, history.
I work for Ford. Our local union has a sign in the parking lot that claims foreign made cars will be removed from the lot at the owner’s expense. It’s understood that this means which company name is on the vehicle, not the actual percentage of domestic parts/assembly.
The plant I work at considers foreign brand cars a higher risk for vandalism in the parking lots, as such there’s a specially designated area of each lot with extra security cameras. I’m sure it’s merely coincidental that each of these is at the furthest end of their particular lot.
My father retired from Ford, surviving shift reductions and layoffs in the 80s, and still has the “Hungry? Need a job? Eat your import!” stickers on each vehicle they own.
The argument about where a particular model is actually made is considered negligable by most of my coworkers. Honda’s many factories in the midwest are still foreign, and of course Ford’s Mexican and Canadian plants are domestic, the deciding factor being where the corporation headquarters are.
Even so, in my 13 years working there, I’ve never seen/heard of any cars being damaged in our lots save our own. We had a serious tire theft problem around 95 with F-150 tires being stolen regularly.
I worked for a railroad serving a steel plant in western Pennsylvania from 1974 to 1981. There was a definite anti-import bias around there, and I was the object of some derision when I bought a '75 VW Rabbit, although no one ever touched my car on company property. It was all a bit silly anyway, as 1) so far as I know, the particular plant I worked in did not make steel for any of the domestic auto manufacturers, and b) the Rabbit proved so popular that VW eventually opened an assembly plant about thirty miles away (one that had in fact been built by Chrysler, at vast expense, but never operated by them). Of course VW abandoned the plant a few years later and now Sony builds electronics there, but that’s another story.
The only vandalism incident I ever experienced was to that car, at a shopping center a mile from my home. Someone broke the driver’s side mirror off it. Since the vandal didn’t leave any kind of message, I have no idea to this day whether they did it because it was an import, because they didn’t like red cars or just for the hell of it.
No you don’t understand. I had a Honda Civic, and it was vandalized all the damn time – sometimes the AC would stop working, sometimes the starter wouldn’t turn. Then I had a Toyota Tercel, and it just kept getting vandalized even more. Sometimes the head gasket, sometimes the belts, one time the radiator. It got so bad I had to junk it. I mean they couldn’t have broken on their own, they are reliable Japanese cars. After all Japanese have mysterious engineering prowess passed down through generations that protects what would otherwise be a cheap plastic piece of shit and makes it safe and reliable. Vandalism. That’s it. It’s going to take them a lot of marketing $ before I ever again buy a car designed in asia
I’ve lived in Michigan my entire short life and have seen many Japanese and German cars. I’ve never lived in a town with a heavy GM or Ford presence through. There doesn’t seem to be many people who care about which company’s car you drive and I’ve heard plenty of dislike towards UAW members, actually.
I’ve never heard of this in my life. Whoever told you this happens was either way out of date, or vastly exaggerating. My family members (who are fairly spread out across the country) have owned foreign cars and none of them have ever been vandalized.
Absent actual evidence to the contrary, I really don’t believe this “Vandalize foreign cars” thing happens at all. DOMESTIC cars get vandalized too, but when it happens nobody ascribes it to jealousy or sore-losership.
I used to sell components to the auto industry-our rep (in Detroit) had three cars-a FORD. a GM, and a Chrysler-each for visiting the prospective company. i have heard that people driving japanese cars have been asked to park them on the street (no admission to company lot). but, as has been pointed out-most japanese cars are now made in USA–the Koreans are the “foreigners” now. European cars don’t count-less than 55 of the market.
FWIW, the 'rents have had three Mercedes E-classes since 1996, and all three have had the shit keyed/scratched out of them. Somebody slashed two of the tires on the second one.
My parents are fairly nice. The car isn’t that bad, is it? Hell, it’s smaller than any Cadillac (or was until the CTX).
On the other hand, my brother lives in Richmond (west-ish side of London, for the non-UK Dopers) and he had a yellow Fiat Barchetta which also got vandalized constantly… but it might just have been because it was yellow and looks like a surprised boat.
Does Oz have a motorcycle industry? Or are they all riding Triumphs or Harleys and just hate Japanese bikes?
The latter, I’m afraid. Well, the losers ride them anyway. I’m not saying some decent folks don’t genuinely love their Harleys, but the stereotypical Harley owner is either a skinhead tattoo-covered biker, or a merchant banker with a ponytail.
Japanese bikes are probably the most popular here overall, but there are a few pubs in some country towns where you wouldn’t want to leave one unattended outside. That’s pretty rare though.
