Ford Ranger tops American-made index, beating the Chevrolet Corvette
Ford's Ranger should be at the very top of your list if you want to buy American, according to a study published by American University's Kogod School of Business. It finished ahead of the Chevrolet Corvette, among others.
Published annually, the survey takes into account a wide variety of factors including the percentage of American and Canadian parts found in a given vehicle, where it's assembled, where the company's headquarters are located, and whose pocket the profits it generates end up in. It then assigns each car a score; the Ranger's is 85; 70% of its parts come from the United States or Canada. Interestingly, the outgoing Dodge Grand Caravan is built with 74% American or Canadian parts, so it leads the industry in this category, but it finished in 22nd place overall with a score of 64, partly because Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) established its corporate headquarters in Amsterdam and set up its financial headquarters in London. Dodge remains based in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
Second place goes to the Chevrolet Camaro (83 points) equipped with the automatic transmission. The stick-shifted model stands in seventh, with 76 points, because its transmission comes from abroad. 64% of the parts used to make the eighth-generation Chevrolet Corvette in Bowling Green, Kentucky, come from the United States or Canada, and it finished third with a score of 82. It tied with the gasoline-powered variants of the Chevrolet Colorado and the GMC Canyon. Their diesel-powered counterparts are in tied in 18th position.
You'll find the Ford Mustang in eighth place, regardless of whether it's powered by the 2.3-liter four-cylinder or the 5.0-liter V8. The most American F-150 is the 5.0-liter V8-powered model, which placed in ninth position. And, the Jeep Wrangler is all over the chart. It's in 12th place when it's equipped with the 2.0-liter four-cylinder, in the 31st spot when it's ordered with the 3.6-liter V6 and the automatic transmission, and in 41st position when the six-cylinder shifts through a manual transmission. The diesel-burning model doesn't appear in the study.
73 cars tied for last place with a score of one, including the Audi A3, the Jaguar F-Type, the Porsche 911, and the Subaru WRX STI. 100% of the components used to build these vehicles come from outside of America.
American University's study also lists the percentage of total domestic content (TDC) in cars made in the United States. BMW builds crossovers and SUVs in South Carolina, but its average TDC checks in at 33.3%. Subaru's American-built cars scored 53%, up from 43.1% in 2019, while Volvo's stayed flat at 30%. General Motors topped the list at 70.6%, followed by Ford and FCA with 67.6% and 64.1%, respectively.
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