It's the age old question who makes and sells the best cars? Undoubtedly, you will here more opinions on the subject than a mind can entertain. American auto makers versus imports, it's really a touchy subject with millions of people who are dead set on certain auto makers they think are the best, but are they? First of all, what's the basis for the opinions? Who sold the most, which model cost the least to repair or historically which auto maker's cars last the longest?



From an American stand point of view, we always hear about stiff import competition from Japanese car maker's capturing the market for big sales and big values for your dollar when compared to American auto makers. Even South Korea's Hyundai has reported strong growth in current markets cutting in to the sales pie.

However, what many Americans never hear about is the facts that General Motors Corp. just became China's top-selling foreign automaker last year, even blowing by Germany's Volkswagen AG, with rocketing sales growth of 35.2 percent to 665,390 vehicles for the 2006 fiscal year.

Americans sell their very own auto makers short many times thinking they are being out done by imports due to media they hear. Nevertheless, what people don't hear about is just how powerful American auto makers really are in the market and just how they really stack up to the import auto makers. In spite of all the benefits, you hear of import auto makers and they benefits they bring to America. They still don't meet the mark of the big three General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. Like, did you know that for all the value the foreigners have added here, they still don't do their core engineering in the U.S.? They don't create platforms here. They don't design the chassis, powertrains, suspensions or even drive trains. They don't develop the electronic architectures unlike U.S auto makers do.

Meanwhile General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are doing the most recruiting and hiring from colleges across the U.S to fill every kind of job opening they possibly can. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are the ones buying the American-made High tech computers and employing the people to program them.

Additionally, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are the ones doing the computational fluid dynamics here before they go into their wind tunnels. This is where they do their manufacturing engineering. The big three are super contributors to the U.S economy, employing so many people and communities, import auto makers can't even compare or really even compete with. Here's a fact you may not know, Japanese car makers are actually envious of some of are car designs we produce here in the U.S like from Chrysler. Additionally, VW a strong importer has seen its market share drop sharply from over 50 percent in the 1990's. Hoping to regain lost ground, it has slashed prices and announced plans to introduce up to 12 new models in China by 2009 while cutting costs and improving service.

Today, sales of the Buick GL8 luxury passenger van also enjoyed powerful growth, as the newly introduced Chevrolet and Cadillac models are really selling great. In fact, GM, the world's largest automaker, about 11.2 percent of the Chinese market, up from 9.4 percent. Now, while imports are a matter of choice, the next time you go car shopping remember, not only do the big three American auto makers create thousands of jobs for Americans, they also build some of the finest long lasting and affordable automobiles in the world .