As a man, and a lover of American muscle cars, I think that most of us men, deep of us inside somewhere, love American cars, and all men love the pure raw power of a muscle car, even though some of us don't want to admit it, we say things like, I think the imports are built better, I think the big three motor companies could take some ques off of them, but why would we compromise our way of building, when it works, and it has for a long time.

We built the first gas powered cars, I do believe that Henry Ford was the first in history to build a gas powered car, and for years they have all followed suit, and used and reused our technology to build cars, yes maybe the manufacturing processes are different, but the whole idea of the imports being better then our cars is ludicrous, almost to the point of stupidity with some people, it's a keeping up with the Johnson's type thing, the people next door just bought a BMW, so just to be cool, I have to do it to.

American cars are built every bit as good as the imports, if not better, I have owned and driven Japanese and German cars, and have yet to understand why people always sprout off this crap about how much better they are built, I've worked in the automotive industry for a long time, I've work all different brands and models of cars, the most common argument that I hear is the comparison of how many mile the imports will last, and how many miles ours don't last.

I have a theory, which of course hasn't been tested in any way, but let me lay it out for you, let's say that a person goes to the dealership and purchases a brand new BMW, for let's say around $60,000, and a person goes down to let's say the Chevy dealer and purchases a comparable car there, for of course a lot less money, let's say around $35,000, and I promise the Chevy is built just a good as the BMW, but being as where the guy that bought the Chevy paid a lot less money, maybe he doesn't maintain it as well.

With any car or truck, preventative maintenance is the best way to make it last longer, so the guy with the BMW goes the extra mile to keep up on the regular maintenance of his car, he does what the owners manual tells him to do, and when it tells him to do it, he doesn't put off the regular scheduled maintenance even for a day longer that he's supposed to, and the guy with the Chevy is just a little more relaxed about it, it will take miles off of his car or truck, this is the most common reason that cars came to the shop in the first place.

If two cars, no matter where they make or model are maintained completely different, with out a doubt the longevity of the two cars will change, and the better maintained one will last longer and in essence be a better car to the owner of it, therefore making him or her think that the car was built better, when really it's the owner of the car that was built better, their way of thinking and taking care of business has made the car last longer.

So I say, we don't need relearn how to build a good car in the United States, the people buying the car need to adjust their way of thinking, I would be willing to put this theory to a practical test, if two people were to buy cars, one of them a Chevy and one an import, know that I could prove my theory to be true, we'd do the regular scheduled maintenance on the Chevy, and be a little more relaxed on the import, and this would prove my point, it's not the manufacture of the car, but how well it gets maintained during it's life.

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