A Top Gearish question - just the word ‘best’ however you’d want, aesthetics, efficiency, safety, whatever.
I don’t know a tremendous amount about cars to be honest, but these days I reckon Germany has it pretty nailed up, with Italy and Japan way up there too. Why the axis powers seem to rate so high I don’t know, maybe we helped them a bit too much after the war…
Poll soon!
Define “best.”
Purely your own personal criteria - think of it as ‘if you could have any car’. If the best car for you is one with a great safety record or value for money, or economy, fair enough. If the best car for you is handling and performance, also just as valid for poll purposes.
Oh, car makes there aren’t an exhaustive list, they’re there just to give an overview. I promise I’m not trying to skew the results towards the U.K. by giving more examples there.
Then in that case I like big American cars. I want a true full-size sedan, like a Town Car or a Crown Vic; I want a boat with a big V8 and mileage in the mid-teens.
German, every time. An Audi is my dream car.
I voted Japan. Their reliability pushes them past the Germans, who would lead if they could keep the cars out of the shop.
Whoever voted for Motown must still think it’s the Eisenhower administration . . .
1955 forever!
Most of those cars you have listen as british aren’t really. For example, Vauxhall is owned by General Motors. Some of the their models are manufactured in the UK, some in Germany and other countries. Jaguar is owned by Ford. Bentley is owned by the Volkswagen group, Rolls-Royce by BMW.
Shh, you’re ruining my chances of rigging the poll! Besides which, who cares if they’re owned by Johnny Foreigner, they’re bally well designed and manufactured in Blighty…some of them. Probably. Jag and Landrover are owned by an Indian company, but who would really suggest India as a powerhouse of automobile engineering?
It was a toss up between Germany and Japan for me, the prize going to Japan. My definition of best was a combination of all the usual factors, the Japanese make fantastic performance cars, prestige cars, high-mileage cars, safe cars etc. etc. They really have all the bases covered in my opinion.
I can assure you that nobody who votes for the UK is doing so because of Vauxhall. Anyway, GM sells lots of vehicles designed and/or built by its Euro subsidiaries (Vauxhall/Opel) and Australian subsidiary (Holden) in the US. Does that mean they don’t count as American?
What about all the Toyotas and Hondas built in the US? How many “American” cars are still actually built here?
Japan certainly dominated the market for a very long time. American manufacturers seem to have finally awoken to the fact that they need to gear up or die, and their sales numbers are showing it. Some American cars/trucks are now outselling their Japanese competitors. German engineering is tough to beat for quality, though. I’ve never been a fan of their painting process, however. The damn things tended to rust in years past.
I’d forgotten Tata now own Jaguar and Land Rover now. It’s hard to keep track, I think my Mum owned them for 15 minutes back in 1989. These days Jags are designed and built in the UK, but their best selling model of recent years, the X-type, was based on a Ford Mondeo chassis.
They have mixed parentage, like an awful lot of cars these days. The factors are the history of the company, who owns it, where it is designed, and where it is built.
I voted for Japan. So far, I’ve owned 4 Japanese cars (a 2008 Nissan Altima coupe, a 2008 Toyota Sienna, a 2000 Toyota Sienna, and a 1994 Nissan Sentra) and 3 American cars (a 2000 Ford Focus 3 door, and a 2004 Focus Wagon, and a 1990 Old Cutlass), and the quality and reliability of the Japanese cars has beat the domestics hands down every time.
I’ve not yet owned a German car, but if anyone wants to loan me a Merc or a BMW for a year, I’d be glad to offer my feedback. 
I’d vote German if all else was equal ( I kinda prefer them aesthetically and on paper ), but since it isn’t the prize has to go to Japan. For me superior reliability on average has to trump the smaller German advantages in other areas.
But I’ll be buying a new car sometime in this next year ( I think ), so I guess I’ll be going through the process of re-evaluating soon enough.
IME, any American car I’d be willing to buy is just as reliable as anything from anywhere else. Sure, the lower end American cars were throwaways, but that’s not what I shop for.
My only experience with German cars is VW. Using them as an example, the drivetrain lasts as long as anything, while the rest of the car disintegrates around it.
Strangely, this. The Japanese cars with such a big reputation for reliability and performance are all made right here in the US. Therefore, the US still makes the best cars.
I think, but am not sure, that the lower end cars are irrelevant to what the OP was looking for. I think the question is “The best cars come from which country? Never mind all the others that aren’t the best” and not “Which country’s cars, altogether, have the highest overall average level of quality?”
Italy. Because of Ferrari. Then Germany for BMW.