Originally posted by tuck
imports are more reliable, and for slow crawling... they make enough torque if you gear them properly.... but
s-t-y-l-e.... imports ain't got it.
4 poppers and 6's are cool, and can rock crawl as well as 8 cylinders....
but when the trail opens up and I put my foot in it, I like the v8 grumble and growl.... just personal preference...
And your Toy's and Suzie's bling, bling as they may be... the interior is still uglee...... my jeep has an oval steering wheel for crying out loud, how cool is that? 
lets apply this logic to the import sedan and sport compact crowd......imports win the STYLE hands down.
now compare a toyota pickup to a chevy or ford mid-size HICKUP!!! For and Chevy got not style!!! never have and never will!! dodge on the other hand does have some nice syle and some refinement.....and a frickin V-8 in their compact truck!! look at Toyota and Nissan, mazda does not count because they are ford anyway. nissan really trys to make their stuff stylish, more so than domestic car makers. if you get a two wheel drive new nissan truck they are horribly styled!!! you gotta have all the bells and whistles before things get interessting on a nissan. Toyota has always had the universal appeal. the last ugle truck they made was the pig nosed FJ-55. it is cute in a horrifficly ugle sort of way but anyway...
on to full size pickups....obviously the full size toyota is still struggling with it's manliness so the domestics win for style there, dodge wins again IMHO. ford and chevy are tied but they are always struggling. chevy was dead last until their last design, give me a duramax chevy with 6 " of lift and 35s over one of those powerjokes anyday for STYLING!!! not anything more comparitive than styling remember here!!
comparing SUV markets everyone is struggling. the toyota 4-runner is pretty cool with that hoodscoop thing going on. the nissan X-terrible is not so bad, I kind of like the fully trimmed package minus the running boards!!! The trailblazer was engineered to never be able to be lifted due to the fact that the front axle housing runs through the oil pan....
so there is no aftermarket for those either. the ford is boxy and trying too hard to resemble the bigger pickups. the dodge durango is sleek and stylish and I have seen some crazy cool pavement pounders lifted over 6 inches!! I dont think I need to go into the abortion that is the jeep liberty. the cherokee was pretty much devoid of any styling whatsoever!! no points there. the Wrangler follows in the same path of boring design because both the cherokee and wrangler are trying to fill a rugged boxy utilitarian style niche. so I honestly think imports barely win in the compact SUV category....I am not even going into the CUTE_UTE category because everyone loses there!!
to the fullsize SUV market, I think domestic wins there because there are no real rivals other than that toyota thing....?!?
overall I think the import crowd including european imports and CANADIAN imports win. Yes CANADA is considered an import in every book and definition you look at! they have to pay import taxes and tarriffs but not so much now due to NAFTA.
American car makers are trying harder nowadays but we are comparing American iron to European, japanese, canadian, austrailain and korean. They beat us by numbers and little more.
Ohh BTW I own both american and Jap cars, 2 zuks and a cherokee.
