Forbidden Fruit: The Cool European Cars America Can’t Have (and Why)

Straight shift, with the car chip, the podcast that's all about cars, buying, selling, fixing,

and driving.

And sometimes pretty fast to hear the car chip.

Now here's he is.

Hey everyone and welcome back to The Straight Shift, the podcast that helps you be a smarter

car buyer, owner, and driver by cutting through all the crap.

If you caught my last episode, you know that I spent a few days in the United Kingdom driving

on the opposite side of the road, shifting with my left hand and just desperately trying

to figure out where the heck I was going.

It was very character building, but I didn't hit anything or anyone, so I'm calling that

a win and I had a great time.

But between dodging sheep and mastering roundabouts, I kept seeing all these cool cars that

we don't get in America.

It was like walking into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, but instead of candy, it was cars

that I can't buy.

So today, we are going to talk about the automotive forbidden fruit, the best European cars that

have never made it across the pond, and the bureaucratic, political, and marketing

bullshitery that keeps them out of our driveways.

If you haven't watched my UK driving video yet, check it out on my YouTube channel

or you can jump to it directly at drivingintheuk.com.

I will put the description in the link below.

But right now, let's talk about why we can't have nice things from Europe.

Let's start with the cars themselves, because, ooh, there were some absolute gems.

While we were at Stonehenge, yes, the world's most famous pile of rocks, I spotted

the most gorgeous car in the parking lot.

It is called a Cupra Leon.

It is low, it's wide, it's got copper accents, a full with light bar that goes across the

back for the braking lights, and just an attitude that screams, I'm faster than your crossover

and better looking too.

It was like this Latin lover that wanted to pick a fight on your behalf and then

take you out for tapas.

It's just oozed sex appeal without even having to try too hard.

It was easily my favorite car that I think I saw on the entire trip, with the possible

exception of the cute little London taxi.

But it's small, it's nimble, it's aggressive without being obnoxious.

It's basically a sportier, more stylish cousin of the VW Golf and the Audi A3.

So let me tell you a little bit about what Cupra is.

It started as Seat's performance division.

So Seat spelled S-E-A-T, but pronounced Seat, not seat.

That is Volkswagen's Spanish brand.

It stands for Sociedad Espanola de Automobiles de Turismo.

Pardon my pronunciation, but that roughly translates to Spanish passenger car company?

Sounds so much better in Spanish.

But they spun Cupra off into its own standalone brand, similar to what Hyundai did with Genesis.

You can get the little León in a variety of powertrains, including standard gas engine,

a turbo diesel, a mild hybrid, and a plug-in hybrid, with up to 300 horsepower.

And you can get it with a proper manual transmission.

The interior feels more like a Barcelona nightclub and not a German engineering conference, if

that makes sense.

It's just sexy all around.

But it's sharp, and it's fun, and it's this perfect example of the kind of pure driver's

car that Europe still builds.

And we don't.

So after drooling over the Cupra, just a few rows down was another eyecatcher, a little

Vauxhall Mocha GS line.

This is a sharp little crossover.

It's got clean lines, excellent proportions, and these fun bright red accents.

It just screams, hop in, let's go for a ride.

And again, it's perfectly sized for the real roads that they have over there.

It's also the perfect poster child for how just kind of globally incestuous car brands

have become.

But I will explain more on that later.

The car that I was hoping to get in the UK at the rental agency, but no such luck,

was a Peugeot.

Peugeot is a French brand that was in the US market for about 33 years, but they pulled

out in 1991 due to poor sales, intense competition, and the high cost of meeting our safety and

emissions regulations.

But honestly, I feel that's our loss because especially now, their cars are gorgeous.

The little 208 hatchback, the 3008 SUV, they all have this sharp modern look that

just makes you wonder why so many crossovers look like a loaf of bread.

The one I really wanted to rent in the UK was the 4008.

It's a small coupe style four door crossover that kind of looks like the Audi Sportback's

French cousin.

It's sleek, it's sculpted, and it looks just a little bit smug about it.

It has a sloping roof line and these claw mark LEDs that make it feel so sporty.

It's also very practical in terms of a family vehicle, but it still manages to ooze this

European style that you expect to see on the streets of Paris.

We just don't get anything quite like that here.

The Audi Sportbacks are probably the closest, but it's really a shame because it is exactly

the kind of practical, but beautiful crossover that we Americans say we want.

And then we go out and buy another boring Honda CRB.

No offense Honda.

In 2019, Peugeot really got my hopes up by announcing that they would be making a return

to the US market, hopefully by 2026.

But then, yeah, pandemic, the Stalantis merger.

Now we got TeraFors and just kind of the general financial mess that Stalantis is

in.

They have since reevaluated that strategy and said, no merci, not interested.

Well-mared.

But then there was the little Skoda, that's the rental car that I did get, and to my

surprise, really, really liked.

Skoda is originally a Czech brand owned by the Volkswagen group.

So the Skodas share the same bones with the Volkswagen Golf and the Tiguan, but they're

simpler.

They're less German over-engineered.

In my opinion, they drive better and smoother.

They're better packaged and they're cheaper.

Think of them as outies, but without the attitude or the price tag or the overly

complicated technology.

But because they don't have seven seats, Americans won't buy them, which is tragic

because they're solid, well-built vehicles that make great, comfortable

commuter cars as well as a family hauler.

Finally, one of the brands that I really wish we had here is DS Automobiles.

This is Citoyenne's luxury sub-brand.

Now, DS Automobiles sounds like a fairly lame name for a luxury car line, but it's

actually a kind of clever play on words if you understand French.

DS in English stands for kind of different spirit or distinctive series kind of depending

on which marketing exec you talk to.

But it's pronounced dais, which is very similar to the French word dais, which means

goddess.

And let me tell you, these things look like a goddess, especially the interiors.

They look like they were designed by a French fashion house.

There's diamond stitching.

There's crystal toggle switches, sculpted chrome vents.

They look like concept cars that actually made it to the production floor.

What you would expect from French art.

And DS Automobiles doesn't have a website that would be too pedestrian.

They have what they call a digital design studio, which tells you all about not their

cars, but their creations, their savoir faire, which is French for know-how, but

not in the practical know-how sense.

More means that you know what to do and how to act appropriately and gracefully at all

times in any social situation.

So they don't just make cars.

They make statement pieces.

It's the kind of thing that you fully expect to see parked outside an elite's Paris

Michelin-starred restaurant, not in the Chick-fil-A drive-thru.

So of course they're not sold here.

I guess we're just not sophisticated enough to deserve them.

Eh, c'est la vie.

So why don't we have these cars other than the French probably don't think we're

good enough?

Let's talk about all the reasons and there are many on why basically none of

these fun, small, stylish cars ever make it over here.

The biggest one obviously are the safety and emissions standards and

regulations.

Europe has a lot of them just like the US does.

But they're all totally different standards.

They're different safety standards, different emissions regulations and they're

developed and governed by totally different organizations.

In the US everything is governed by the National Highway Traffic Safety

Association and the book of standards that they have put out.

Well Europe on the other hand follows the United Nations Economic

Commission for Europe.

And they have never gotten together to agree upon a set of global standards that

would make it easy for the automakers to build and sell vehicles across

country lines and across the continents.

No, no, so a car that is perfectly safe in England might fail the safety

standards here because, God forbid, the headlights sit a millimeter too high.

You can't just flip the steering wheel to the other side and call it a day.

Another thing that makes it complicated is that to actually sell those cars,

brands need to have a full support ecosystem in the United States.

They have to have dealerships with showrooms and trained salespeople,

trained technicians, part supply change.

That is a billion dollar investment before you even sell one car.

Fortunately, some of that is changing and in theory could get easier because

more and more car brands are getting assimilated by some of these large groups

like Solantis and Volkswagen Group and they're doing that for the specific

purpose of cutting costs and having these global platforms and economies of scale.

As I've talked about in some past podcasts, modern cars are built on

these shared modular platforms or basically giant Lego sets.

So one architecture can span not only a dozen different models but

across different brands under the same group.

So for example, Volkswagen's MQB platform supports everything from

the little golf up to the Big Three Row Atlas.

And Solantis has a CMP platform that underpins Pujo, Citoyenne,

Opel, Vauxhall, even Buick's here.

So for example, that cute little Vauxhall mocha that I like so

much with the red trim in England.

It has the same bones as the Pujo 3008 and the Citoyenne C4.

They're cousins.

But it gets even more complicated than that because Vauxhall was previously owned

by GM.

They purchased it in the Opel brand from Germany back in 1925.

The first little mocha that launched in 2012 was a Buick encore in disguise

and a Chevy Trax just built in South Korea and sold in the UK.

Yeah, complicated.

And then in 2017, GM sold Vauxhall Opel to the French PSA group.

And that is when the mocha got redesigned and became cousins with the

Pujo and the Citoyenne.

But wait, there's more.

In 2021, PSA group merged with Chrysler Fiat to form Solantis,

which now owns practically half the world's brands.

They own Pujo, Citoyenne, DS, Opel, Vauxhall, Fiat,

Alfa Romeo, and Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram.

Confused yet?

Don't worry, you're not alone.

Keeping it simple, everyone is related.

They just don't want to talk about it at family reunions.

But despite all this automotive inbreeding, sales and support infrastructure,

especially in a country the size of the United States is still

immensely complex and incredibly expensive.

Not to mention a huge risk if the cars don't actually sell here in our highly

competitive and kind of picky environment.

Because let's be honest, we Americans are kind of addicted to size.

Europe loves their little compact hatchbacks and wagons that fit on their

narrow roads and fit into little tiny parking areas.

Where on the other hand, we like our ginormous SUVs that we can barely

skid ways into a parking lot at Walmart.

That little Citoyenne C3, it's a little hatchback.

You put that next to a Chevy Tahoe and it looks like a lunchbox, just like my mini.

But another reason that the Europeans focus on these small cars

is because they pay twice as much for gas as we do.

I mean, we bitch and moan about paying four bucks a gallon for gas,

but they pay eight or nine dollars a gallon in Europe.

So it makes sense that they would build small fuel-efficient cars

that are also agile.

We're just spoiled by all the elbow room we have

and the relatively cheap gas prices if you look at the global picture.

And I would argue that we probably embrace the concept of bigger is better

just a little too much for the European brands to develop a three-row SUV

like what we crave here in America, even with those global platforms,

way too expensive.

And it's getting more cost prohibitive every day.

This is where we enter the trade policy circus.

These days, one week you can import a car.

Next week it's slapped with a 30% tariff and you just don't know what's going to happen.

Then you add in the EU retaliation for centaurs.

You have the Chinese holding rare minerals and computer chips hostage

and all the other forms of political chest beating that seem to be going on.

The poor automakers are left trying to plan five to seven-year product development cycles

in a world that's literally changing every five minutes.

This is why I built my tariff tracker tool because I can barely keep track of it all.

But with all this chaos and uncertainty, the automakers are literally just trying to survive

and hang on to their rapidly vanishing profit margins.

They are not looking to expand into new markets, especially the complex and expensive U.S. market.

Not anymore.

It's just too big of a gamble and they can't afford it.

It's just not the golden opportunity that it used to be.

While we can't have these cool European cars, some of the vehicles sold in the European

market actually are sold here, just under a different name.

After we dropped off the little Skoda rental car and we're heading to the cruise port in South

Hampton, we called Europe's version of Uber and our driver showed up in this shiny little black

hatchback that looked really familiar.

It was a Toyota Oris, basically a Corolla hatchback.

The Corolla badge has been around since the mid-60s, almost as long as the Mustang.

But in 2006, Toyota decided to change the name of the hatchback version,

which was much more popular in Europe, to the Toyota Oris.

But then in 2019, when they redesigned the Corolla and the hatchback version,

they said, never mind and switched back to calling it the Corolla.

They literally renamed it and then renamed it back.

Just classic marketing whiplash.

But here's where it gets really interesting.

For the American market, we actually did have our own version of the Oris,

just under yet another name, the Toyota Matrix.

So that sporty little Toyota hatchback your neighbor had in the early 2000s.

Yep, that was actually a Corolla hatchback, but it was just called the Matrix,

because that just sounds so much cooler and we were enjoying those movies.

But it still shared its platform and engines and so much of its DNA with the Corolla

and the Oris just wrapped in a more American friendly body and cooler name.

It was even twinned with the Pontiac vibe,

which was essentially a Toyota Matrix with a different badge.

But they were both built in California at the plant that Toyota and GM shared.

So while Europe got the Oris to make the Corolla sound stylish,

we got the Matrix to make it sound sporty, just marketing.

And when Toyota killed off the Matrix in the US and then later the Oris in Europe,

they finally realized that everybody is perfectly okay with the Corolla nameplate.

It's synonymous with fuel-efficient, practical, and reliable.

So they just brought it back worldwide and called it a day.

So you can have a Toyota Oris.

It's just called a Toyota Matrix and you have to buy it used.

Another good example is the Nissan Qashqai.

This is one of Europe's best-selling small crossovers.

And it's really fun to say the Nissan Qashqai.

We do have it here.

We just call it the Rogue Sport.

Because I guess Nissan figured out that Americans were just not going to be able

to pronounce Qashqai without spreading a bell.

But Qashqai isn't a random name.

And while it's cool to say, it's named after a real group of people,

a semi-nomadic tribe in Iran that's known for their independence and their constant travel.

And Nissan wanted to capture that same sense of freedom and adventure and individuality.

So when they renamed it the Rogue Sport for the US market,

they kept that same spirit just in a version that we could actually pronounce.

So in Europe, it's a nod to this nomadic tribe.

And in America, it's just something at least because if it's in your garage.

But it's a nice little car.

Another interesting example is the Mitsubishi Pajero.

This is one of the all-time great translation fails.

Mitsubishi launched this car in Japan.

And they named it after a wildcat that is native to South America,

which is Lepardus Paneros.

Sounds exotic.

Sounds adventurous.

Except that in Spanish,

that word doesn't mean wildcat.

It's slang for, how do we say this?

Someone who enjoys spending time alone with themselves.

So in Spanish-speaking countries, the Mitsubishi Pajero is basically

like saying the Mitsubishi wanker in Great Britain, if you catch my drift.

So they very quickly rebranded it as the Montero,

which sounds much more manly.

It means mountain hunter.

Yeah, much better, much better.

But that little translation slip cost them millions of dollars

and gave the rest of the industry a really good reason to double-check

all their translations before naming cars and not to rely on Google for that.

So there you have it, folks.

The forbidden fruit of Europe's car market and all the regulations and costs and plain

bullshitery that keeps us from having nice things.

If you could import any European car that you can't get in the U.S.

tomorrow, let's pretend there are no tariffs,

there's no red tape, there's no safety stuff we got to worry about,

you could import anything you want.

What would it be?

Let me know in the comments.

And if anyone in Spain is listening, please send me a Cooper Leon BZ,

preferably in the Magnetic Tech Matt Gray with the 19-inch Hailstorm Copper Wheels.

Please, please, it's so beautiful.

And if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to the show

and head over to thecarchick.com and sign up for the straight shift newsletter.

You'll get exclusive access to my Tariff Tracker tool,

plus next week's edition is going to dive into the latest chip crisis

that's threatening to bring global auto production to a screeching halt.

Again, thanks for listening, everyone.

Until next time, drive safely.

I'm out of here.

Forbidden Fruit: The Cool European Cars America Can’t Have (and Why)

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