tuners: Japanese, Euro, and US., only one true tuner? Options

[96bluevert]

What are all of you're opinions on the different cars that we see in the import scene?

I mean obvioulsy there are the Japanese built cars (Toyota, Honda, Mazda, and Nissan being the biggest imo). But there other companies have played off the idea of a sporty compact car w/ a little I4 that has a lot of potential and appeals to younger people. Some U.S companies didn't really start building these type of cars until semi-recently, and if you look at the Euro-tuner scene is mostly VW's(even thier selection is slim) and not many more European companies build these types of cars.

So do you think that the companies like Chevy, Ford, and VW are just "wannabes" for making cars that are similar to alot of the Japanese companies' cars?

Discuss....

[goferris]

toyota and gm are NOT owned by the same company. they have done a few projects together mainly in the plant in cali
IE
corolla/prism
corolla/matrix/vibe
and apparently the cavalier.
the funny thing is that if it's the TOYOTA labeled version it's worth more LOL

the reason why the started that project in cali was toyota wanted to learn marketing strategies from chevy and chevy wanted to learn how to make a decent car. needless to say toyota learned how to market but chevy never learned about quality.
dodge has pretty much pulled out from mitsubishi
ford only partly owns mazda
and chevy partly owns subaru

you would (however) be surprised at how many automobile companies ford is tied with

ford- land rover, mazda, mercury, lincoln, aston martin (that's right), jaguar,

chevy- saab, saturn, pontiac, subaru, buick, opel, isuzu, toyota (project in cali)

chrysler- mitsu (not any more though), jeep, plymouth (dead), dodge, mercedes (i think that's done with now too),

i'm sure there are plenty more i could go through these are just the ones i could think of off the top of my head.

then there was that project between honda, nissan, and isuzu with the passport, pathfinder, and rodeo.