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Is Your Car Truly American?

Emilio Labrador
/
Flickr

We all know the phrase “buy American.”  But in our global world the lines are increasingly fuzzy.

In the case of automobiles it’s hard to decipher what an American car actually is.  Is it a car made by an American manufacturer like Ford, GM, or Chrysler, but including parts from Europe?  What if it’s put together in Canada or Mexico?

Or what about a car assembled in the United States, but on behalf of a foreign company, like Honda, or Toyota, or Mercedes-Benz?

Lake Effect’s automotive contributor, Mark Savage, joins Dan Harmon to discuss what it means go to the car dealer to buy American.

"So many people nowadays probably just don't know exactly where their car is built and assembled and where all the parts are coming from, and I'm not sure it's even knowable," says Savage.

Lake Effect contributor Mark Savage is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s auto writer and associate publisher for four magazines at Waukesha’s Kalmbach PublishingAmerican Snowmobiler, Classic Toy Trains,FineScale Modeler, andScale Automagazine.   

Dan Harmon was one of the original members of Lake Effect (formerly At Ten). He started at WUWM in November of 1998 and left December of 2015 after 17 years of production.
Audrey is a WUWM host and producer for Lake Effect.