Misplaced patriotism?
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Misplaced patriotism?
WITH REGARDS to Will Shiers' comment in CM 29 November 2012 on the 'Eat your foreign truck' banner he observed on the back of a Texan Peterbilt rig.
That proclaimed determination to buy American is laudable enough, but aren't those gung-ho truck buyers also showing their insularity? I'd suggest many of them don't realise, for example, that market leader Freightliner is now German controlled. Likewise, Detroit Diesel was developed by Daimler also in Germany. DaimlerBenz, as it then was, retained the Freightliner name when it took over the business in 1981, rather than rebranding it Mercedes-Benz, ensuring a continued perception of the marque as all-American.
Volvo scrapped the White brand name a few years after it bought the manufacturer in 1980. That opinionated Texan trucker you encountered might well have had Volvo in his sights, regarding the marque — accurately — as Swedish, even though its US model range is no more, nor less, foreign than Freightliner's. When Volvo acquired the Mack brand in 2001, the Swedes decided to hold on to the venerable American name. Mack has been revitalised as a mainstream marque, designed to attract those buyers putting high value on patriotism, however misplaced.
Alan Bunting Harpenden, Hertfordshire