If it weren't for Ford, Jaguar and Aston Martin would be a page in the history book. Ford still lets those divisions run themselves. I am SO sick of people saying the X-Type is a Mondeo. The X-Type only uses 20% of the parts and none of them can be seen. If the X-Type came out first, everyone would be saying "wow, the Mondeo borrows 20% of the X-type's parts!" And all of the people that say this have not even SEEN a Mondeo. This isn't the same Mondeo that we got here (as the Contour and Mystique). It is an all-new car that is considered by some European publications to be the new segment leader (formerly held by the Passat). I am not sure where the new Passat fits now..

Ford has had absolutley no say in the design of Jag's. The only reason that the X-type looks the way it does is so that Jag could afford to offer a car under $30K. Quality wise, Jag's were a joke right before Ford bought them. Now, because Ford takes care of the "boring" stuff like logistics and resource sharing, Jaguar can spend its money (and that is TONS of money because of Ford) designing and building cars.

The S-type came out before the Lincoln LS so everyone says "wow, the LS is on the same platform as the S-Type!" But if the LS was launched one day earlier (despite the fact that both were developed side by side), everyone would be ripping on the S-Type.

I am no GM lover ( I get an employee discount, and havn't been tempted to use it), but I do think that GM has the most promise right now corporate wise... But to their credit, they built good engines and transmisions (although, they tend to put them in painfully boring cars).

Design wise? Ford is the champ right now. Chrystler doesn't have much in the pipeline other than concepts that wont get built. Most of their designers jumped ship to Ford and GM in the last 24 months once Daimler took over. Ford on the other hand, acquired J Mays (US born) from Audi/VW in 99' or so. He had a lot to do with the Thunderbird (he wasn't the main designer though). While at VW, he did the MkIV Jettas and Golfs and worked on the TT's and production version of the New Beetle. At Ford, he has done the Bullet Mustang, the Ford '49 and the GT40.

I'm from Detroit, so I guess I take this a little to personally but I also have a little better idea of what is going on industry wise. I spend more time on the intranets and at auto.com, autonews.com and autoweek.com than here! I was involved in Ford's media dept. and was able to see a lot there too... I left just in time before this whole Firestone thing hit.

In general, all recent studies have shown that the quality gap is narrowing. The reason I bought a Japanese car (and it was a great internal debate in my mind!) is only because there are no US built, AWD sedans. And I had trouble justifying a Jetta for nearly the same money that has suspension technology dating from the early 80's.

It is all personal opinion as far as design goes. GM sells more cars than anyone in the world. But more people watch Nascar racing the US than any other racing so popularity shouldn't be a measure of merit. I do know some people that consider the Audi A4 to have a boring interior... Me? I love 'em!