The 80s saw a wave of change in the automobile industry. While certain marketing strategies continued to extol the virtues of an American car, others advised consumers to a Japanese car, effectively putting a number of Americans out of work. Whatever the efforts to promote American automobiles, the change had already occurred. The internationalization of the automobile industry had already taken place.
There are always forces at work who though campaign for a united world, are happier keeping it dived. However, the automobile industry played a pivotal role in creating a globalized world.
One no longer knew which an American car was, and which was not. How would you distinguish between a car that was made in the United States, assembled with components manufactured in other parts of the world and a car that was assembled elsewhere and sold with an American plate? What about English company that manufactured its cars in the USA and vice versa?
Physical, national boundaries were beginning to blur. A corporation like GM might be originally American, but also existed in Britain, Germany, Iran, Korea, Mexico, et al. General Motors was probably slower moving into the international market, but it acquired a Canadian subsidiary in 1918. It took over the Vauxhall Company in Great Britain in 1925. In 1929, GM acquired the Adam Opel Company, which was one of Germany's oldest auto makers, and then bought Holden's in Australia in 1931. Ford began building cars in England in 1911, Brazil in 1919 and in Germany and Australia in 1925. Ford now assembles cars in Argentina, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Spain, South Africa, Taiwan, Uruguay and Venezuela. Chrysler Corp. was forced to sell off its overseas holdings (Rootes Group in Great Britain and Simca in France) during its crisis of survival in 1979-82. Chrysler no longer owns Simca, which became part of the Peugeot-Citroen group and builds the Talbot car, but its once-ubiquitous Omni/Horizon was in large part a product of Chrysler designers in France. Chrysler has numerous ties with Mitsubishi. American Motors was almost half owned by Renault before it was acquired by Chrysler Corp, which was in turn owned by the French government, and seized during World War II after Louis Renault died in 1944. AMC also built the uniquely American Jeep in 19 countries around the world. After Chrysler acquired AMC, France was out and the Jeep became one of Chrysler's best-selling vehicles.
Europe was a major player in the automobile industry for more than a century. Quite a number of the earliest name-plates are still in existence- like the Benz and Daimler (1886), which merged in 1926 to form Daimler-Benz, who is best known as the maker of the Mercedes. In Italy, Fiat was started in 1899. Other British nameplates were Rolls-Royce and Rover (1904) and Austin (1906). Whereas in France, Peugeot dates back to 1890 and Renault to 1898.
Czechoslovakia's best known car was the Tatra, which was launched in 1897, some time before Czechoslovakia existed (it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire then). It was called the Nusselsdorf, after the town where it was built. The name was changed to Tatra, which is a mountain range on the Czech-Polish border after Czechoslovakia was created with Nusselsdorf within its territory.
The beginning might have been in Europe, but America quickly caught on. Major developments like mass production, the moving assembly line and interchangeability of parts were pioneered in Detroit by Ransom E. Olds, Henry Ford and Henry Leland. Mass production did not begin in Europe until the '20s, when Opel began adapting American techniques and Andre Citroen started building a "car for the masses."
USA led the game of technological improvements with Leland's work in parts interchangeability and Kettering's self-starter ignition system. It held the numero uno position through development of the automatic transmission, various power accessories and low-cost powerful engines until the early '70s. After this though, Japan became a strong contender in the game.
Initially, a "Made in Japan" tag used to mean "cheap imitation" and second-rate quality to most Americans. However this was only till until the '50s. In the Korean War, photographers first noticed that Japanese lenses were as good as or better than German and about half the price. This caused a change in perception, and brought a turn-around in the acceptability of Japanese goods as those of high technological ability. This change is to such an extent that about one in four cars sold in the United States are made in Japan or assembled in the United States plants owned by Japanese firms.
Thus the automobile industry took over the entire world and paved the way for the progress of various corporations as well as nations. Competition between corporations as well as countries continued to further increase, leading to a surge in technological developments, and R and D.