Thank you,

This second source has a lot of credibility but one late thought about the Forbes article was the impact of small, gas-only car sales.

In the USA, that market has been hobbled by offering the cheapest possible piece of cr*p that can pass a safety inspection. The low end, USA cars have been treated pretty much 'junk' except for many of the imports. This comes from the attitude that if you are trying to save gas, you are a tightwad who will put up with manual everything, pot-metal parts and a car that will have to be replaced in say, 109,000 miles.

This is the hubris that led the major USA manufacturers to produce so many horrible, small cars in the past. It is the reputation, deserved or not, still follows them. It took a Yugo to find something to replace the Chevette as the worst small car in the USA (only because the East German, two-cycle, Trabant couldn't pass the emissions test.) Hummm, perhaps they were imported to suggest how bad Communist products could be?

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
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