Random question, I know, but I wanted to get your guys' opinion. I've head varied responses from the few car guy friends that I have; some said no since they're all the US versions of their parent manufacturers, but some also said yes since they were started by Japanese manufacturers, and have JDM (no, not the car culture) counterparts sold across the pond. (For Example: the Infiniti G35 here sports the name Nissan Skyline V35 over in Japan.) I think they're really JDM cars that are rebadged and sold here in the US, much like the situation with Vauxhalls, Buicks, and Opels, but in this case, the brands aren't part of one giant company. But what do you think about it?
As much as I consider the brands themselves American, the cars I would categorize as Japanese (depending on what relation the car has with their parent company), but certain cars I would say are American. But if we're talking like when they were formed, then yes I would consider them Japanese as most of their cars were rebadges from their parent company with some cosmetic changes and a few modifications for the American markets.
Here's an interesting thought: Some years of the Honda Civic were not sold in Japan. My 2014 Honda Civic is one of them. Also the engine was made in North America, with the transmission coming from Japan, and the assembly was done in Canada. Things aren't always so simple...
Bit off topic, but this one was a rather bizarre one, 1982 was the first year that Honda opened their Marysville, Ohio plant and started building cars there, but 1988, Honda decided to officially export certain models built at the Marysville factory back to Japan, bit odd, but nowadays you pretty much see this everywhere, but here's the thing. The models they exported to Japan weren't built in the usual JDM spec cars, but rather, they sort of were, but instead of RHD, they were all LHD. Mostly these were all coupes, and but even then the 3rd and 4th gen Accords, at the time when all of this was going on were still being built in the Sayama factory in Japan, but in the mean time, they were importing LHD, but JDM spec Accord coupes to be sold there. Alot of them had this "Honda of America" badge on them, and more than not, they were referred to as "Honda of America" Accord, rather than just your run of the mill, Honda Accord. Why they did this, is anyone's guess.
well you said Infiniti (Nissan) Nissan has plants in the southeast part of the US and uses Cummins engines in their Titan so Americanese????
realistically this is a pretty arbitrary opinion, but I'd say one other thing to consider is if the company was originally its own separate entity and was acquired by a conglomerate, (i.e. Jeep, Rolls-Royce, Oldsmobile, Abarth, Daihatsu, Holden, Duesenberg, etc.) or if it was "artificially" created (mercury, autozam, SRT, lexus, infiniti, genesis, etc.). i'd say the latter have a much greater tendency to be lumped in with their umbrella brand, since all of their assets and techniques had to come from that brand.
