The question may seem strange to answer. What is exactly an ¡°American¡± car? Should a Hyundai Sonata produced in the U.S. be considered American? What about a Chrysler van produced in Canada? Is a Kentucky Toyota that uses nearly 50 percent of Japanese parts American? How about the Ford Probe, built for Ford by Mazda in Mazda¡¯s Michigan plant? Definitely, it is becoming more difficult to define what an American car is.

For some economists, any vehicle assembled in North America (the U.S., Canada, and Mexico) should be considered American, since these vehicles use U.S.-made parts. Some regard automobiles produced by Korean or Japanese-owned plants in the U.S. as American since they provide jobs for American workers.

On the other hand, there are others who regard production by these ¡°transplants¡± as foreign because the jobs they create were taken from the U.S. automakers, because they also use imported parts and remit profits to their home countries.

It is difficult to decide exactly what an American car is even after the American Automobile Labeling Act of 1992, which requires all automobiles sold in the U.S. to indicate what percentage of the car¡¯s parts are domestic or foreign.

In fall 1994, Ford introduced a model conceived and produced in the U.S. and Europe and sold under the name of Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique in the U.S. market, while Mondeo in the rest of the world. Other major automobile makers also seem to be slowly moving in that direction.

This case of Ford and other companies may show that it may be odd to even ask such a question as the world is getting more interdependent and globalized. Indeed, it is getting more difficult to make the definition of an ¡°American¡± car. Instead, there is a growing number of what should be called as ¡°global cars¡± that run on the roads and are sold in the world market.