The future of the American auto industry

So, I know every now and then I've thought about what the future might hold for auto manufacturers in America. I usually end up coming to the conclusion that I should save up some money and buy a nice American sports car sooner than later before imports completely take over. It's mostly a combination of labor / manufacturing costs that just means higher vehicle prices, which can't compete with foreign (mostly Southeast Asian) companies.

Anyway, no more babbling, here's an interesting response to the topic by Jay Leno:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24714435/

I don't know how much of that is true for example best sports cars, ok you have the vette but looking at aftermarket tuning for some reason most or 99% are imports, there must be a reson beyond the price which he talks about for econocars. vette's aren't that expensive compared to to the rest in the sports level but they dont dominate the market which would be in a way logical, and many of the cars come into US, rather you dont see many vette's in europe (I dont know about the rest of the world just talking from personal experience). It just seems that most of the cutting edge technologies for cars in general come out of foreign markets wether retail or racing f1 etc in which US doesnt have a great deal of a stand in.

Now, I'm not talking about classics or any of that, there are some beutiful cars from before but at this point some of the recent cars performance, luxury, quality, marketability, domestics compared to import I say get outnumbered big time

o, ps I have a bit of a bias view since I grew up in europe haha

This is a very interesting topic...
The fundamental problem with American cars, from what I have seen and heard, is that because they are American they are assumed to have a lower level of overall quality. And lets be honest...for awhile (90s till '03, '04) that was pretty much true. And my dealer experiences were abdominal. I'm not sure that the 'vette is lumped in with econoboxes...but if you are looking at the 'vette, there is nothing in the price range that can beat it. It sells decently here, mostly due to having a strong fan base, but that doesnt exists in Europe, so the sales wont make it over there.

While the 'vette has come a long long way, and the new C6 is quite something, and the ZR-1 is just flat out amazing if you read all the stats about it, it still comes down to someone paying 100k for a 'vette. I just dont see many people who will be willing to spend that on a 'vette, vs. 100k on a Porsche C4s for example. Its sad, but thats how many people will see it. As I mentioned somewhere else, for me its not about the label, its about what the car is....