Does anybody else feel guilty for liking German cars?

[Car Fan]

Like most people, I am a fan of German cars and there is no doubt that they are very good at what they do (although they are not perfect, e.g. I think the reliability of modern German cars is overrated).

However, I am starting to get a bit bored of their dominance of the market, and kind of feel like I should boycott the Germans and support manufacturers such as Jaguar, Volvo, Lexus etc. simply because they aren't German. Also, in the case of Jaguar, I feel like I ought to buy one to support local industry over foreign rivals. It's just that whenever I look at alternatives I always seem to find some way in which they are not quite as good as a German rival.

I was just wondering if anybody else feels the same way?

[Car Fan]

Interesting, thanks for the replies. It seems that the majority don't agree with me, which is fair enough. Just to clarify, I am not asking why people like German cars - as I stated in the OP, I like them myself so I can see why people buy/lease them. I guess I'm kind of wondering if I should 'support the underdog' even if I know that it is not quite as capable as a German car.

Although I do wonder how many members of the general public would choose a VW over a Honda (for example) simply because the former is German, so they perceive it to be 'better'.

Impasse said:

Car Fan said:

Like most people, I am a fan of German cars

I challenge this bit.

Could you elaborate please? I'm just going by what I see on the roads, I see tonnes of German cars every day - if people didn't like them, surely they wouldn't buy/lease them? Are you saying that the majority of people don't like German cars?

[Car Fan]

Axionknight said:

I'd feel guilty if I nicked something or supported ManCity, but not for liking a car.

Yes, I think that "guilt" was maybe the wrong term to use. Perhaps more of a conflict of interest in that I wish that more people would look beyond German cars, but then I like them myself so I feel hypocritical.

[Car Fan]

SidewaysSi said:

They may like the car - where it is built may have nothing to do with their choice. I have German cars, I have British cars. I have owned and loved French and Japanese cars. I buy the car, not the country.

Besides, no one nation produces the "best" cars. In fact, no one mainstream manufacturer has "best in class" cars across its range.

OK, I understand that. I try to judge cars based on their merits, I wouldn't strongly like or dislike a car depending on who built it but I must admit that I am slightly biased towards certain manufacturers.

I always thought that the general public still bought into old stereotypes such as 'German reliability' and 'Italian flair' but maybe people have moved on from that.

[Car Fan]

bristolracer said:

If you were a British car worker in the 1970's then please feel guilty for crashing the British motoring heritage into the abyss but otherwise appreciate the Germans are good engineers.

I do appreciate that the Germans are good engineers, or I wouldn't have said that I liked their cars. However, as a casual observer of the car market, I would quite like to see a non-German manufacturer pose a serious threat to the Germans, if only to see how they would react in order to regain lost territory - like how Lexus came along with the LS400 and revolutionised the luxury sector.

New Jaguars have been well-received for a while now, but they have yet to make a serious dent in sales of German cars. I'm not saying that I want the German car industry to collapse, but they have dominated for so long that it would be interesting to see some change.