June 11, 2009
By Brian Watkins
Brian Watkins
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Monday night on the Fox Business Channel, a panel was discussing the current state of the US Automotive industry. This is nothing new, as the state of the industry changes by the day, if not by the hour.
What was interesting about the panel discussion is that one of them members was none other than NASCAR driver Brian Vickers. The show was billed as debating if NASCAR was still a realistic marketing tool for the automakers. It quickly turned to a discussion on what an "American" car is when Vickers was identified as driving a foreign car on the track. Vickers response was the same as everyone's these days: "It depends on what you mean by an American car".
The debate has been brewing ever since Toyota moved into the Cup arena two seasons ago. Back then it was about an American sport being invaded by the Japanese. There was even a group called 'Fans Against Racing Toyota's' (FART) that made it's way into the spotlight for a few moments of fame. While the Toyota in NASCAR debate seems to have flamed out (the FART website is gone and their MySpace page hasn't been updated in nearly two years), the recent failures of the Detroit Three have brought on a new wave of "Buy American" slogans.
I remember my Father, who spent his working life in the auto industry first for Ford and then GM -- had a hat that read "Buy American... the Job You Save Could be Your Own!". It was the 80's, and "Buy American" was the rallying cry of the Big Three and the UAW. It was also much clearer what American meant. A Chevy was built in the US with US parts by US workers. A Honda or Toyota came from Japan, built by foreign workers using foriegn parts. There was no grey area. Now, the whole automotive industry is a grey area. Which is why the resurgance of the "Buy American" slogan is so interesting.
Vickers comment, "It depends on what you mean by an American car", is the heart of the current debate. He pointed out, as many have that the Camry he fields for Team Red Bull is the only machine on the track representative of a vehcle assebled in the US.
I'll now take a moment to refresh your memory, or incase you've some how not heard the argument before, to fill you in a bit.
GM/Chevy fields the Impala SS. It is built at GM's Oshawa Assembly Plant #1 in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
Chrysler / Dodge fields the Charger, built (until bancruptcy shuts-down) at Brampton Assembly in Brampton, Ontario Canada
The Ford Fusion is assembled in Sonora, Mexico
Toyota's Camry is built in Kentucky
So if you take "American" to mean "North American", then all four makes are equally "American". If you take American to mean the more traditional United States of, then the "domestics" have an identity problem.
With the bankruptcies of Chrysler and GM, the debate now moves from the track to economoic recovery efforts, where many believe that US consumers should only buy goods produced by domestic manufacturers, menaing their parent company is located in the US -- regardless of vehicle origin. While I appreciate the sentiment that reviving the old 80's montra brings, it doesn't make sense to me. Why is buying a Chevy Aveo, completely made in Korea by Daewoo with no domestic content at all more helpful than buying a Toyota Corolla (built in California) or a Subaru Outback (made in Indiana) that employs US workers in US factories in US communitiesa and feeds US families? PLease don't tell me it's to support the American stock holders.. I had GM stock. Guess what it's worth today? And where does Chrysler fall into the picture once they are owned by Fiat? They will be a foreign owned car company producing vehicles in the US as much as Toyota and Honda are.
It can be debated until we're all red white and blue in the face, but the truth is, unfortunately, that it is what it is. All of the manufacturers are global corporations. When the "Big Three" began outsourcing jobs to Mexico and other countries.... when they began importing whole vehicles from places like South Korea, they became as much a patt of the problem as they accuse the foreign automakers with plant's in the US as being. The US state and federal government's, with their confiscitory taxes and mixed bags of standards are to blame as well for driving the plants from the heartland to overseas. But now we're all paying -- NASCAR fans as well.
The first casualty of the auto-economic debackle seems to be Richard Petty Motorsports. They layed off 9 people Monday, and it looks like there's more to come. The reason? Their supporting manufacturer, Chrysler, is bankrupt and can't support them like they have in the past.
By next season it's not improbable that we'll have a Dodge free track. While Chevy claims that it won't turn it's back on NASCAR -- being owned by the federal government might make that promise one they can't keep -- at least not at a high level of funding. While seeing GM pull entirely out of NASCAR seems improbable, so did a GM bankrupcy just a few scant months ago.
So as we head toward the 2010 season, it's only tradition that we should speculate on the 2011 season, right? So if Chrysler is gone next season and GM's financial woes demand it's withdrawl by 2011 -- that could mean that within 4 years, Toyota went from being the invading manufacturer to one of only two manufacturers remaining in NASCAR. Here's hoping it doesn't come to that.
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