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Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                        Robyn Morrow             Chris Elliott                        =
                                               John Arterbury       Caitlin Cuppernull

America's leading automaker a foreigner 

Americans have long been attracted to size, power and aesthetics. Longevity and efficiency generally have not been chief components in the determining factors of overall performance.

We're talking about cars. Though U.S. automotive manufacturing giants General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. have improved the fuel efficiency and overall quality of their products in the last couple of years, their American reputation still lingers.

Experts agreed that it would only be a matter of time before someone would knock them off of their thrones. The New York Times reported that Toyota, the Japanese manufacturer that has built a impressive reputation with consumers in 20 years by providing durable, compact and fuel-efficient alternatives to the world market, had sold 2.35 million cars and trucks in the first quarter of 2007. GM's quarterly sales were 2.26 million. 

Why is this significant? Well, it has never happened before. Monday marked the first time that Toyota topped GM in sales in any period. 

This undoubtedly has to be a wakeup call for the automotive industry's "most powerful" entity. OK, maybe its steady decline in U.S. sales since 2005 was the wakeup call. This is more like the kick to the groin that you had a feeling was coming, but didn't know when or where it would occur. Yeah, it's exactly like that.

"It's an historic moment for Toyota," Benjamin Asher of Automotive Resources Asia told the Times. "Everyone was expecting it to assume the No. 1 position -- the question was when."

Toyota now sits at No. 4 in total sales in the U.S., behind GM, Ford and Chrysler, however those same experts who predicted Toyota's eventual dominance in the global market say that the Japan-based company is developing the resources to take over America's too.