If you think the Ford Mustang is as American as baseball and apple pie, and the Toyota Sienna is more reminiscent of sushi and chopsticks, think again. Ford's current advertising campaign carries the
theme "Red, White & Bold" and resonates with traditional American imagery. The company is also on record as saying it wants Americans to "buy American." Yet a report from the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration shows that only 65 percent of the content of a Ford Mustang comes from the U.S. or Canada, while the automaker buys the rest of the Mustang's parts abroad. At the same time, the
report revealed that Toyota's Sienna is assembled in Indiana with 90 percent local components. The bottom line is that it's becoming increasingly difficult to determine what is truly "made in
America" and that revelation has sparked a public relations war between American carmakers and their foreign counterparts, who loudly trumpet their contributions to the U.S. economy. A grass-roots
organization called Level Field says that comparing North American component content is an ineffective way to determine who is "more American" among auto makers. A better way is to look at the number
of jobs--from research and development to manufacturing to retailing--each auto maker creates per car sold in the U.S.
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