The second generation Toyota Celica was the first car designed in California's groundbreaking Calty Design Research Incorporated facility. Though it was built in Japan, is the 1978 Celica a Californian car?
This might be big of a heavy discussion for Monday afternoon, and if it is, please continue to drool at the above picture of a 1978 Celica. If you still have some oompah, read on.
While we were wondering how it looks like the American taxpayer is bailing out a German company via GM, we got an interesting back-and-forth between MoRphine-2 and duurtlang.
Great points were made and MoRphine-2 did a great job arguing that Opel is, in fact, an American company, not a German one. This prompted duurtlang to pose an interesting question.
If a brand like Acura were to have problems in the US, should the US government bail out a Japanese company? I don't think many Americans would argue for such a thing.
The whole thread is both quite lengthy, very satisfying to read, and quite thought provoking. Read it in full and then answer this question. With all of the American jobs and homes supported by transplant carmakers in the US, to what degree is the US government obliged to help them out in times of trouble, just as it did for Detroit? While they're outsourcing to Mexico and the rest of the world, what should we be ready to do for foreign carmakers with factories in the South?
Photo Credit: Ross Perkins