Jap comment aside re-read this:
You drive a friggin' Volkswagen, not some exotic with cutting edge technology. Almost every "technology" on the GTI had already been used by a different manufacturer before it made it to VW, drop the elitist attitude. Dubbers have a bad reputation because of posts like this.
Hell, it is only recently that VW has begun to produce cars that are even remotely reliable (they are still far below average as a brand) and most of the European manufacturers are no better. What good is cutting edge technology if you can't make it work reliably?
Just like a black person does not like the 'N' word, if they don't like it, and then stop using it so it won't keep getting spread around. And you, you are offended by the word
Jap (which I used to type less), and here you are, again, using the word you claim to hate by mentioning is again.
Yes, I now drive a VW, and it does happen to be using some cutting edge technology. Is it a Lamborghini, Ferrari, Maserati, no. Do I feel like it is one and am proud of it, you bet. Now yes, the tech on my GTI came from other cars first, like Audi and Porsche I'm quite sure, um, owned, by... VW! (I forget the other car companies VW owns that don’t export to NA).
Now you call me an elitist. If I wanted to be an elitist, I'd change my name to Barak Hussein Obama. I'm no Elitist by a long shot. Not with cars, not with computers. I hear that crap all day at work. Mac vs PC, Teradata vs. DB2 or Netezza, Oracle vs MS-SQL Server, Mainframe vs Unix/Linux, Unix vs Linux, etc.... I like, love and use them all. Each one has a useful and purposely slots to fill; I don't choose sides or camps, so I guess that makes me homogeneous (Hey, I heard that!).
You have bad mouthed VW now (“...friggin' Volkswagen”), claiming they have mostly made crap. Then why are they the #1 auto maker in Europe? Is it because Europeans love crap? They have a good assortment to choose from there besides a "Friggin' Volkswagen". As I've stated in some other post, all the German car makers have highs and lows with quality, it’s the same for all car makers. Take for example, the latest disaster of Toyota. Volvo has had their bad days too, some say they still do. All car makers fall from grace from time to time.
I still stand by my original post that you have quoted; the JAPANESE have stolen heavily from a lot of other auto makers, most especially when they were in their start up years. Just because they can build a good car doesn't make it ok. Other car maker’s swipe ideas from others too and that is no secret, it has been my observation that the JAPAENESE do it more than anyone else. In fact, they even make their cars to look like high end German luxury cars, say a MBZ or BMW while car makers from S. Korea make theirs to look like JAPANESE cars, like a Hondas.
When I say stolen, I'm not saying borrow technology (or share within various divisions) and perhaps even pay a royalty for its use or design like VW, Audi and Porsche do among themselves, just as one branch in TI has to pay another branch in IT to use their patented process if they use it.
One thing the JAPANANSE do better than most others is the fact that they have their finger on the pulse of the American taste better than anyone else, even American car makers (by far), and that is one reason they have done so well at selling a lot of cars, plus their build quality.
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