The new Malibu is a reskinned Opel from Germany, as is the new Saturn Astra. Heck, with the Saturn they didn't even change the name of the car!! When the Saturn Aura was named North American Car of the Year for 2007 some of the European press was laughing because, as they put it "American names 4 year old Opel/Vauxhall as Car of the Year". While not completely true - the Aura isn't just a reskinned Opel Vectra but it isn't far from it - it kind of shows the sad state of affairs in auto design in the US today.

GM is heavily relying on their European (Opel and Vauxhall for things like the Saturn Aura & Astra, Chevy Malibu) and Australian (Holden - Pontiac GTO and G8) to create their better cars. The Corvette and Cadillac CTS seem to be their only real "domestic" shining stars.

Ford builds some wonderful cars in Europe - the Focus is a perennial favorite hot hatch over there and the new Mondeo is a fantastic car in its own right, but take the relatively low price into account and it's just amazing. The domestic Focus is, to be kind, a piece of junk. And what else do they give us? The Five Hundred...er, sorry, Taurus. They can't seem to make up their minds about the name on that one.

Chrysler built some great stuff, like the 300, Charger and Magnum with some heavily borrowed Mercedes E-Class bits underneath, and of course our beloved Crossfire - an SLK with real panache. Left to just their domestic devices they give us......the Caliber. And the Sebring.

Sure, there's plenty of crap built all over the world - including in Opel factories. Everybody builds a stinker now and again. It just seems we're building too many of them on this side of the pond lately.