For those of you who drove a Japanese import in the 60’s/70’s/early 80’s, did you get any heat from family/friends/coworkers/general public about your choice of car? How bad was it? What were some of the consequences and what was the most extreme example you’ve seen or heard of?
This question applies to americans as well as some western europeans, whose auto industries were also in decline with the exception of germany.
This discussion might also be a good predictor of what will await the first owners of chinese cars when they do arrive in north america.
I’m from California, which happily adopted Japanese cars, but I remember visiting family in Arizona and the Midwest in the mid '80s and seeing nothing but domestic land boats.
I feel like California has always been the early adopters for cars. Maybe because they’re so removed from the states where American car manufacturers are/were. Even today it’s true. I just bought a used Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid (original version they stopped making last year) and I live in the Midwest and I almost never see other ones on the road. But I’m pretty sure they’re more common elsewhere in the country.
Pretty crazy to think about but Detroit is about the same distance to California as Japan is.
Could also be down to rust, early Japanese cars had much worse rust protection and rotted out very quickly in areas that get road salt in the winter.