<< Americans want a car that has decent pickup off the line, but they aren't that concerned with high speed highway performance (not too much of a shocker considering how few highways that we have that allow 75+ mph speeds), they want over-boosted steering to make it easy to park in tight city parking spaces, they want mushy automatic transmissions (stop and go traffic?) they want a big "roomy" vehicle (because many of us are heavier than we should be). Definitely having multiple cigarette lighter outlets (for cell phones) and giant big gulp style cupholders are more important than handling or stopping power. >>
Those things are certainly true. Just few years ago, american cars imported to Europe did really poor here. I remember that every single comparison that had american cars, always had the american car coming in last when compared to european and japanese models. The main things that they disliked in american cars was:
Over-boosted steering that gave the driver no real feedback
Too soft suspension that made the cars poor to drive and again, didn't give the driver any feedback
Huge size of the car combined with poor turning-radius, which made the cars awkward and clumsy in cities
Sub-standard headlights. This became painfully apparent when they happened to test-drive Cadillac Seville STS and Lada 1700S in same magazine (separate articles) Cadillac had price-tag of about 500.000 FIMs, while the Lada had 50.000 FIM's (cheapest car available in Finland). Ladas short-beams were about as good as the long-beams in the Caddy. Ouch!
Poor fuel-economy.
In recent years things have dramatically improved when it comes to american cars sold in Europe. They have tuned the steering and suspension to better fit european style and headlights have been improved. And they have made some smaller models available here too (like Chrysler Neon).
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