Why The List Of 'American-Made' Vehicles Keeps Shrinking

The Ford F-150 topped Cars.com's ninth "American-Made Index" which rates how "American" vehicles are based primarily on where they're built and where parts come from. Only ten 2014 vehicles were eligible for the list, the smallest crop ever.

That's right, according to Cars.com's criteria, there are only ten American-made cars and trucks. Or Canadian made, as Congress' 1992 American Automobile Labeling Act considers our northern neighbors to be "domestic" producers.

Cars.com Editor-In-Chief Patrick Olsen told Autoblog "In 2013, 14 cars met the threshold, 20 in 2012 and 30 cars the year before that. This consistent decline points to global nature of cars these days. Production in the US is up, but parts are coming from all over the world, making the notion of classifying cars as 'American' more difficult than ever."

America's most popular car, the Toyota Camry built in Kentucky and Indiana, is apparently the second vehicle with the most American-made parts.

The Chevrolet Corvette, Honda Ridgeline, Honda Crosstour and Dodge SRT Viper meet the American-Made Index for the first time in 2014.

Here's the complete list, explained by Cars.com:

"Cars.com's American-Made Index rates vehicles built and bought in the U.S. Factors include the percentage of parts considered domestic under federal regulations, whether the car is assembled in the U.S. and U.S. sales. We disqualify models with a domestic-parts content rating below 75 percent, models built exclusively outside the U.S. or models soon to be discontinued without a U.S.-built successor."

Obviously, the Big Three aren't very well represented with Honda and Toyota pretty much running this board.

It seems ever-increasing globalization of the auto industry will continue to make this list shorter, unless American labor starts getting a whole lot cheaper or taxation regulations change.

Image: Ford