note: I am only posting this because of the outlandish question at the beginning of the article and as another example of the continuing media obsession with toyota.

business week

from the article......

"Now, I may receive some heat and email about this, but after almost half a century in the U.S., multi-billions of dollars invested in every state in the union, millions of very satisfied customers, seven factories, thousands of employees, isn't it time to stop calling Toyota an import brand? It may have come from Japan, but it is now an American brand that's almost iconic."

Edited January 21, 200619 yr by regfootball

ICONIC?

"When they're wrong or screw-up, they don't just admit it, they correct it. And isn't that refreshing?"

WTF?

The real question is - Is this even America anymore?

well, considering English isn't even our main language anymore......

the damn saltines box i bought at the grocery store the other day had all sorts of other foreign language crud all over it.

toyota's PR machine is amazing. the influence they have for producing such dull crap is amazing. When i see headlines and articles like this, its only a matter of time before we're stripped away totally of our culture and economic base and military power.

I do not give credit to Toyota's PR machine, I give credit to stupid Americans who are either uneducated or are completely unaware of what they are doing.

Personally? I don't know whether to go with the latter or the former. In my line of work, I get both every single day and I see about 100 customers a day and that's just me.

Americans are getting dumber by the day and from first hand experience they want to place the blame on somebody else.

but seriously though, how else does any one company get this much endearing press? Our media is taught to build up and destroy but with toyota, they just keep building it up. every day there's endless articles on the death of GM or Ford and just as many zillions on Toyota worship. I'm totally perplexed its gotten this bad.

If we all listened to the media, you'd swear toyota was the only company that built cars.

Edited January 21, 200619 yr by regfootball

And that's the issue....Toyota is so great for America. Yet, the shirt that is factual that is ON MY BACK states otherwise. I will post the statistics of it here on C&G....Jim Causley made the shirt...the dealership did from the president Robert Causleys encouragement.

Toyota has their flaws, yet you'll never hear of them, and if you do, it's tucked away real nice and tight during your local news lowest rated segment of Style & Home Improvement that absolutely nobody cares about enough to watch.

Wow, that article was breathtaking. And what about the V-6 engine coking problem Toyota had that they blamed on the customer, until the dealer lobby in the States threatened to sue, then they quietly put a power train warranty on their Siennas and Camrys that were effected........? Brake problems on the Rav4 a couple years back....? Toyota has just as many bodies buried in the back yard, they just bury them deeper.

Req is right: how does Toyota get such endearing press? How can GM fight this type of propaganda? Frankly, at this stage I would say GM and Ford need to get together - for the sake of survival, and hit Toyota between the eyes. Toyota and the gang have been doing it for years in Japan, it is time that GM wakes up and does it here now.

One's IQ would have to be below 50 to even consider that a foreign-based & foreign-owned company could considered anything other than that.

Oh, and I missed the fact that the article is surrounded by Lexus ads..............hmmmm

Americans are getting dumber by the day and from first hand experience they want to place the blame on somebody else.

American children aren't learning what they used to learn in school anymore.. When you and I were in 3rd grade, we learned at a certain specified level. That level has become lower since we've slowed-down for foreigners who can't read and write or understand the language. It's bad.. Worse than you think.. When I have children, I'm home-tutoring them.

American children aren't learning what they used to learn in school anymore.. When you and I were in 3rd grade, we learned at a certain specified level. That level has become lower since we've slowed-down for foreigners who can't read and write or understand the language. It's bad.. Worse than you think.. When I have children, I'm home-tutoring them.

It's not cause of the forigners, when ppl couldnt speak english, they went off the ESL, it's cause Liberalism has moved too far, teachers are not even allowed to yell at students anymore, cause it's not "politically correct". People are getting dumber. But it has nothing to do with buying imports over domestics.

Oh, and I missed the fact that the article is surrounded by Lexus ads..............hmmmm

figures, LOL

Wow, that article was breathtaking.  And what about the V-6 engine coking problem Toyota had that they blamed on the customer, until the dealer lobby in the States threatened to sue, then they quietly put a power train warranty on their Siennas and Camrys that were effected........?  Brake problems on the Rav4 a couple years back....?  Toyota has just as many bodies buried in the back yard, they just bury them deeper.

    Req is right:  how does Toyota get such endearing press?  How can GM fight this type of propaganda?  Frankly, at this stage I would say GM and Ford need to get together - for the sake of survival, and hit Toyota between the eyes.  Toyota and the gang have been doing it for years in Japan, it is time that GM wakes up and does it here now.

Ford and GM should get together.

but, it is true, half our country has an IQ under 50 anyways. they are all fried on looks, video games, pot and other drugs and 'whatever is cool'.

Oh, and I missed the fact that the article is surrounded by Lexus ads..............hmmmm

I see British Airways.

If these media clowns had any idea how Japan Inc. came to such dominance, they wouldnt have the balls to even dare suggesting that Toyota is no longer an import.

Go to Japan.

Tell them Toyota is an American company

Try not to trip on the stairs as you are laughed back on the plane.

Toyota Motor Corporation Headquarters

4-18, Koraku 1-chome | Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan

Tel: 03 3817 7111

Got a few too many digits to be south of Fresno, so I'm gonna guess Toyota is still - yup - Japanese.