My son is 16 and is proud that the family has all American cars! But ummm my Impala was put together in Canada...

well at least here in detroit I get to see alot of GM cars.. I see at least 5 bonnies a day for example and family owns 3 pontiacs, 1 chevy, 1 buick, 1 chrylser. sold the mitsubishi cuz the trans sucked

When I was working at AAMCO, I had to do a few mitsubishi transmissions.
Those things are not built to last anyways. Frail parts, the hard and the soft.
If you were to compare the parts of a Mit and any american transmission, you would understand why a mit. trans sucks.

Whew. I wish i had a few bucks for all of the people who refi'd their mortgages, and borrowed against the boom valuation. Most of the ones i know said it was to pay college tuitions (and for the most part is true).

But i started to get calls, "Hey come over and check out my new wheels". Audi, Acura, Lexus. Maybe it'* lost on the X-Gens and the Twentysomethings. But keepin' up with the Joneses is still alive in us Boomers. You are what you drive.... but that'* a different reason than the core value that used to put Americans in their car and on the road. And as our values have changed, chicks might be more interested in your portfolio than if your wheels have a high flow catback.

I think this site is profoundly within the traditoinal American spirit. And that is not wholely because the Bonneville is "American". It lies within the American tradition of taking something fundamentally good, and pushing it to new performance and horizons.. I would recommend to the Big Three (or two now) that they hang out here. Maybe they could learn a thing or two about cars and the people of the US and Canada.

But I'm an old fert, so what do I know.

Well... I'm sort of an outsider here, living a few thousand miles away and in a complete different reality. But I think it'* good that in the US you still can rely on old domestic cars - you still have a choice when willing to buy a 30-40 year old car and you still have a whole industry support (service and parts) to make it run and to keep it in good condition. In Europe you can't buy many cars of that age and it'* not that easy to find parts at reasonable prices. Poland is an exceptionally discriminating in this matter. If I wanted to register a car from abroad (and I don't have many old cars in good shape to choose from on my domestic market), I'd have to pay a 65% tax (that'* right, sixty-five!!) plus lots of additional fees and procedures.

OK, this was a little off-topic but..

Although I'm not any kind of "America-freak" (although perhaps I'll go to the US one day, if I can't take all this Polish **** anymore ), it'* also a little sad for me, that the Americans give up their ideals and that still smaller cars sell well in the US. Because in a few years, if I'm willing to buy some american car, my top option will be some 4,6l high-rev engine (I don't like cars like Corvette or the like) or even worse. My dad always drove cars with diesel engines and I'm also very much into diesel or diesel-like cars - with good torque at lower rpm - that'* why I bought an american car. If I had any chance I'd have bought something even bigger than the Bonnie - sth with a 400 or 455 engine . But with fuel prices about 4,3 USD/gallon (in western Europe it'* more but they also earn much better money) and typical Polish income I wouldn't be able to drive it :( . Gas in the US still isn't that expensive

Anyway, I hope that in a few years someone will p'haps return to bigger engines. On the other hand, when even Cadillac puts in a car a 1,9l diesel... Doooom :?

Besides... Are foreign cars in the US that cheap that people buy them? If you take a price of a new (2005) Bonneville SE (ca. 27000 USD), you won't a similar car in Europe for under 33-35000 USD).. For bigger cars the difference is even worse