Corvette is Officially Rated the Most American Car on Sale Today

We already know the Corvette is America’s sports car, but now a university study confirms it’s even more American than that.

We caught this little nugget from the ClassicCars.com Journal website telling us about the study made by the Kogod school at American University in Washington, D.C. Since 2013, the Kogod ‘Made in America Auto Index’ uses expanded criteria compared to other studies to figure out the most American cars based on “total domestic content.” That includes everything from research and development to the financial elements as well as the labor used and where the car is assembled.

It’s impressive for a car to top the list is because so many parts are made all over the world. As the founder of the Kogod Made in America Auto Index, Frank DuBois, points out, “It is likely that no vehicle has been truly 100 percent American since the Model T, and you could argue that some of those parts were mined or manufactured out of the country.”

Ford, understandably, ranked highly as well with their F-Series trucks. However, it was two opposite sides of the Chevrolet range at the top of the table. The Corvette sits in the number one spot with the top score of 83.5 points, while the Chevy Volt follows up in second place with a healthy 83.0. However, it’s just the automatic transmission model Corvettes that sit at number 1, and taking the manual option reduces the Corvette’s score to 76.5. All Corvettes are built in Bowling Green, but TREMEC, the company that supplies the 7-speed manual gearbox for the Corvette, has its production facilities in Belgium and Mexico.

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While it’s something to celebrate for GM, they have 7 cars in total in the top 10, DuBois also expresses concern for the government’s potential implementation of a 25% tariff on all vehicle and parts imports. “The price of vehicles will rise and domestic consumption of vehicles will fall. In addition, retaliation by trading partners will make it that much harder for U.S. vehicle exporters and parts producers to win orders in foreign markets,” DuBois said.

You can check out the full index of  544 vehicles being scored here.

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Ian Wright

Ian Wright has been a professional writer for two years and is a regular contributor to Corvette Forum, Jaguar Forum, and 6SpeedOnline, among other auto sites.

His obsession with cars started young and has left him stranded miles off-road in Land Rovers, being lost far from home in hot hatches, going sideways in rallycross cars, being propelled forward in supercars and, more sensibly, standing in fields staring at classic cars. His first job was as a mechanic and then trained as a driving instructor before going into media production.

The automotive itch never left though, and he realized writing about cars is his true calling. However, that doesn’t stop him from also hosting the Both Hand Drive podcast.

Ian can be reached at bothhanddrive@gmail.com