A young man was driving his Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart, a Japanese made car, on an icy morning before school heading westbound on Spring Creek Road right next to Guilford High School. As the bumps on the roads rattled his car, he tried to switch lanes but the mixture of miniature bumps and ice caused his tires to slip and drift towards the oncoming lane. He collided with a Dodge Ram 1500 and a Chevrolet Monte Carlo, both domestic cars, at speeds of 40 mph from both sides. The aftermath looked pretty bad. The Lancer’s and the Ram’s front sides were ripped off and the Monte Carlo, who was next to the Dodge Ram had a smashed-in side and door. The drivers of the Dodge Ram and the Monte Carlo suffered minor injuries such as broken fingers and a knee injuries while the driver of the Lancer walked off without a scratch and went to school afterwards. This is one of many examples that show the reliability and safety of Japanese import vehicles. A common notion presented by media is that domestic vehicles such as Ford and their “Built Tough” slogan are much better and safer than the small and fragile Japanese cars such as the Mitsubishi Lancer. However, in reality the makers of the Japanese cars put great emphasis on safety all around, power, milage, size, and are still able to sell most of their cars for a smaller cost. It doesn’t mean that the cars made from Japan can be classified as better, but they sure do have more advantages than the domestic vehicles found today.

In discussion of domestic vehicles versus imported vehicles, one controversial issue has been safety and that Japanese cars are small and made of fragile materials such as plastic that would kill the driver in a collision. On one hand, Jerry Edgerton, a former car columnist and the author of Car Shopping Made Easy, created a article called “The Safest Cars on the Road” which includes descriptions of improvements made by certain companies and a list of highly rated cars on the safety chart. I would like to point out that every section, except pickups and SUVs, is dominated by import vehicles particularly from Japan. Through advances in technology, makers such as Mitsubishi, Mazda, and Honda were able to improve their ratings all around including rollovers and side collisions. So even though that the common notion of their cars being small and fragile, statistics shows that they are indeed equipped and built to save the lives of their passengers in case of a collision. Consumer Reports, a database which keeps track of buyer preferences as well as manufacturing factors of vehicles such as luxury, mpg, and power, has created an article called “How we Test our Cars” which explains how every cars new model has to be tested over and over before it can be evaluated for a certain safety rating so that every car model and every manufacturer has a fair grade. One of the things is that the cars go through 50 different safety evaluations including crash testing with Japanese cars showing consistent results of technological improvements.

On the other hand, Christopher Neiger, an engineer who has worked for both sides of the spectrum will say both sides have their advantages and disadvantages and that it is up to the people who purchase the vehicles to make the decisions that is best for themselves. He says that both companies have the buyers in mind as they work to improve safety and preferences but they still have to make profits so they can’t make everything top end. However, there are people who will create illogical reasons to why domestic vehicles should be favored. One reason is that things built in the United States should be favored because it favors our economy, even though most Japanese cars are designed in Japan, they’re still manufactured here in the US which still contributes to the US GDP. Other reasons include calling Japanese cars “Ricers” or “Rice burners.” This comes from the sound that some imported cars make after being modified with an aftermarket exhaust, but the name comes from the domestic loving muscle car enthusiasts which prefer their roaring V8 engines over anything else.

Consumer Reports has created as very thorough list of top luxury sedans found in the US. The list glorifies luxurious imports but not particularly from Japan. When people think of a luxurious automobile, they turn their attentions to the European giants such as BMW, Mercedes, and Audi which are still technically imports. Although dominated by European manufacturers, the list also complements domestic vehicles such as the Cadillac CTS and Japanese vehicles such as the Infiniti G37. Although the domestic makes a small appearance, I think this article shows the advantages of owning an imported vehicle over a domestic. Even though car manufacturing started here in the US a century ago, other countries were able to develop faster and better such as Volvo, a Swedish car manufacturer known for its strength and reliability and it literally often dubbed as the tank of the automotive world, praised as indestructible.

Jethro Bovingdon, an author for many automotive articles, favors one car over all other, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, a crowd favorite in the “car enthusiast” world. In his article “Mitsubishi Evo: The Greatest Evos Tested,” he describes the Evolution lineup of the Lancers from top down. He goes into such thorough detail about the safety, the mpg of the small engine that the Evolution has but the insane amount of horsepower it has as well as its technology in the all-wheel-drive system. Now this car can be compared to one of the most popular cars in the US, the Chevrolet Impala. Both cars are rated equally by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety but there are so many differences in everything else. Yes the Evolution is more expensive by $6,000 when brand new but it has so many more features. The Chevy Impala is much heavier and only has power to the front wheels, called front wheel drive. This doesn’t make it the most fuel efficient car as the engine is a 3.6L V6 which puts out about 210 horsepower. However, the Evolution is lighter, more fuel efficient, has all wheel drive which makes it an ideal vehicle in snow and slippery situations. It has a 2.0L I-4, significantly smaller than the Impala’s engine, which puts out 300 horsepower, the equal amount of power the Chevy Impala “Super Sport” with its 5.7L V8 Gas-guzzler engine has. That’s a 50% smaller engine with a 50% increase in power, may seem like fiction but it’s pure fact. It is one of the reasons the Evolution is a crowd favorite for enthusiasts but the media make it seem like a dangerous sports car. In result, the Chevy Impala is much more popular than the Evo but in my view, the car is only as dangerous as the driver.

The automotive industry has evolved greatly since its beginning almost 120 years ago. However, wherever there is competition, there is always somebody better than the other. Some may be better in certain things, some might be better at simply everything. This is what the media tries to hide by making catchy slogans such as Ford’s “Built Tough” and Dodge’s “Guts, Glory, Ram!” This formula has grown very tiresome and cliche as Japan seems to be winning the general crowd in automotive as well as the enthusiast. The Honda Civic, for example, is a Japanese made car with superb reliability. They have great gas milage and their engines are known to reach 250 or 300,000 miles without a problem and it is one of the reasons it is one of the most popular cars in the United States. If people do not agree, they can ask themselves “Do Japanese civilians drive cars like Chevrolet Impalas and Dodge Challengers?” Of course they don’t. The United States is the world leader in military technology, does that mean it’ll use inferior equipment made by the Russians? The answer is the same. Cars are different however as they are chosen by preference. One can’t be blamed for liking a domestic made car over an import because preferences are opinions, however, science and statistics are facts. Imports like the Toyota Prius dominate the “hybrid” world. Imports also dominate luxury, safety, and popularity. The only classification of vehicle that seem to favor the domestic side are the pick-up truck fans. Toyota and Honda have maybe two or three models while domestic manufacturers have sometimes up to 10. However back to facts, imports are superior in the most important things such as safety, especially when you have a child in the car, gas mileage to power such as the Mitsubishi Evolution, and overall popularity in the world. Even though I didn’t look up any sources on automotive popularity, I was born in Europe and have visited Europe many times and have rarely seen a car made by a American company. Outside the US, the popularity is owned by Japanese models and European models, I guess people can see for themselves which choice is better.