What's in a name?

I'll occasionally quiz some of my high-schoolers to see how much they know about cars -- brands, technology, whether or not they can change a tire. My sample size is very small, and not representative of American teens as a whole, but what I've seen is disheartening. Most of my students couldn't tell you that Subaru is Japanese, that Kia is Korean, or that Volvo is Swedish. They don't know how hard Volvo worked to distinguish itself with the safest cars on the road.

When I was a teen (in the '80s), cars from different manufacturers and different nations had very distinct qualities. They looked different, sounded different, and felt different. Driving a car was a glimpse into the character of the country where it was made. My Italian car was sexy, not necessarily reliable or well-made, but exhilarating to drive. My friend's Japanese car was not sexy, was extremely reliable, had no interest in impressing anyone with its appearance, and never attempted to increase the driver's pulse.

As time has marched on, cars have gotten increasingly generic. It's no surprise that a Volvo may have an identity crisis -- a Swedish company, now owned by Ford, sharing major components with many models of Ford, possibly built in Belgium. My Subaru came from Indiana. My VW was designed in the US, but was built in Mexico with an engine from Germany. Land Rover? Depending upon the year, a used Rover could be a BMW or a Ford...and now it's part of the Indian Tata group. Rolls-Royce and Bentley, formerly manufactured in the same plant, are now owned by BMW and Volkswagen. The new compact Volvo C30 sold in the US is based on Europe's Ford Focus. The traditional attributes of Italian and German cars could scarcely be more different, and yet new Lamborghinis are really Audis. Same goes for American and Japanese cars, but the Pontiac Vibe is a Toyota Matrix. This must be problematic for the companies' marketing departments. In the past, people bought Volvos because they were dull but safe. Now they're no safer than many other cars on the road, yet they're trying to maintain their reputation for safety. Manufacturers are increasingly building cars on a generic platform and then making minor tweaks to specific models to provide the car with its historical attributes.

Perhaps today's automotive products are as much a reflection of the differences in their places of manufacture and their parent companies as they were in the past.
As the planet shrinks and the countries become more similar, the cars get more similar as well. The cars lose their distinctive national flavor because the manufacturers are soulless interchangeable multinational corporations.