Are foreign engines, car and truck manufacturers really foreign if they are made in American plants with American citizens?

Headline: Kia announces it will produce its best-selling Sorento mid-size SUV at the company’s brand new US production facility, starting with the 2011 Kia Sorento model year.

Headline: Welcome to Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama, LLC (HMMA), Hyundai’s first assembly and manufacturing plant in the United States. This $1.4 billion automotive plant is one of the most advanced assembly plants in North America.

HMMA currently provides employment for more than 2,700 people who are building Hyundai’s 2009 Sonata sedan and 2009 Santa Fe sport utility vehicle (SUV) at the Hyundai Alabama plant.

After more than 20 years in the U.S. automobile market and with “America’s Best Warranty,” Hyundai continues to reinforce its commitment to sell innovative, high-quality vehicles at affordable prices.

The factory in Georgia is Kia’s first, and the Sorento will be getting a complete make-over that morphs it from an SUV into a CUV — a crossover. The Sorento also will get a new name.

Headline: The first Japanese auto plant to build a car in America turns 27 in two months, marking a milestone that brought innovation to the U.S. auto industry and landed Honda in a leadership position of foreign car manufacturers building cars in the USA.

The Accord was the plant’s first vehicle and it remains the plant’s core product. The U.S. is the most important market for the Accord by far are mostly built in the Marysville Auto Plant. Nearly 80 percent of all Honda and Acura vehicles sold in America are built at one of Honda’s six auto plants in North America.

At 25 years, the Marysville plant and its employees continue as a driving force for Honda and the auto industry. Honda brought its unique brand of teamwork and employee involvement to manufacturing when it established Honda of America Mfg., Inc. near Marysville to begin motorcycle manufacturing in 1979. Success of that startup quickly led that same year to the bold decision to build an auto plant as well. At the time, the company was still a relative newcomer to the automobile business and only a fraction the size of Japan’s established automakers.

Honda’s approach to auto manufacturing was new to America with a foundation built on customer satisfaction, a high level of teamwork and a passion for overcoming challenges. The Marysville plant introduced many new concepts to the U.S. auto industry, including just-in-time parts delivery, quick die changes in metal stamping, rolling model changes to launch new vehicles without stopping production.

Honda’s automotive experience in Ohio became the model for Honda globally, in terms of local production, developing a local supplier network and recognizing the importance of working closely with communities. Having been building cars in Ohio since 1982.

As the first Accord sedans began rolling off the line Nov. 1, 1982, Honda assemblers who were building cars in small numbers with nearly identical parts and in only a few colors also had little manufacturing experience.

Honda operates seven auto plants in North America including one located in Indiana, which began operations in fall 2008. The additional production of 200,000 Civics per year at that plant will helped boost Honda’s total North American automobile production capacity to more than 1.6 million units in 2008, employment in North America to more than 37,000 associates and capital investment in North America to more than $9 billion. Honda annually purchases more than $17.6 billion in parts, engines and materials from U.S. suppliers.

Headline: Toyota TC opened in June 1977, and is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. TTC employs 728 people in four states. The company is engaged in engineering design and research and development.

Toyota factories in the US:

* NUMMI
* TABC, Inc.
* Toyota Motor Manufacturing Alabama
* Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada
* Toyota Motor Manufacturing de Baja California
* Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana
* Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky
* Toyota Motor Manufacturing Mississippi
* Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas
* Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia

As strongly rooted as the ‘foreign car’ manufacturers are in he US, using US labor and some US made parts, is there really a difference between US and foreign cars now a days? Soon will we can call every vehicle “globally” manufactured?

You think about it. If it strengthens the economy and makes jobs for people who cares? An upside to this ‘global’ car manufacturing phenom is that it will be easier to locate good used low mileage parts in the recycling yards. Currently, the supply of good used foreign engines is actually growing, which lowers prices. If you ever need a used engine of replacement engine, check out GotEngines.com, “Where our customers send their friends.”