I'll try not to take sides between US and "foreign" cars, though I have only owned two US cars and one US truck since I bought my first car in 1975. Here in Silicon Valley there are many US minivans, SUV's and pickups, but a US passenger car in the parking lot at work is usually in the visitor's section and has a Hertz or Avis barcode sticker on a rear window. And it's been that way for 25 years or so ....
Back in '79 or so I was designing a molded plastic part for my job, in Fremont California, and I was speaking with a rep from the molder (in Michigan or Wisconsin) on the phone about how to handle a design detail. He told me to go in the parking lot and peer through the windshield of an LTD, Caprice, or Gran Fury and see how the dashboard and A-pillar trim mated together. I told him that I was pretty sure there were none of these cars in the parking lot. He paused ... and then said, "That's right, I forgot you're in California, the land of fruits and nuts". At the time I was driving a Ford Fiesta (made in Germany), my boss and HIS boss both had Fiat 124's, and my new boss a few months later had a Porsche 912 and a Datsun (not Nissan yet) 710. Oh, and I saw my first Subarus around town, 360's, back in 1969.
-dman
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