>My car was indeed assembled in Pennsylvania.  However, that is NOT the
>deciding factor in how a car feels when you drive it.  It's the engineering
>behind it.  The Europeans(Germans in particular) engineer things differently
>than the Japanese, and Americans.  That's where a car gets it's "feel."  How
>many people out there can honestly tell me that any given Ford, GM or Chrysler
>product "feels" the same way as a VW, Volvo, Honda, et al?
>
>-Dave
>'88 GTi 16v (Assembled in Westmoreland, Pa)
>'88 Vanagon GL Wolfsburg  (Assembled in Germany)

        Have you ever *driven* a Taurus SHO? A car capable of 140mph and
        blessed with trailing throttle oversteer...admittedly, its 24v
        DOHC V6 with dual-induction manifold was put together by Yamaha
        but it very definitely had a "feel" and it wasn't Japanese, nor
        German, and not quite what you'd probably class as "American", either.

        Oddly, moving from my 86.5 (the original) 16v Scirocco to the SHO
        was not at all difficult since they shared similar qualities such
        as the ~7Krpm redline, gobs of torque steer under hard acceleration,
        incredible handling and the willinginess to be DRIVEN...not to mention
        the trailing throttle oversteer which was especially handy for
        decreasing radius off/onramps. A Driver's Car.

        We now return you to the program in progress..."How the ageing
        population of Vanagon drivers will light up the night skies with
        Gigalumen replacemnt headlights to aid their declining nightvision"

        1/2 ;^)

      OLTECO                    Ari Ollikainen
      P.O. BOX 3688             Networking Technology and Architecture
      Stanford, CA              Ari@OLTECO.com
      94309-3688                415.517.3519