When I was working in my career field of Industrial Design I was in central Ohio's Industrial Belt.
The company had many divisions, one of which was Detroit Mi. The Division Facility I was working in
rotated with the others in training Sales personnel and on one occasion a couple of guys came down from Detroit.
One of them had a nearly new Camaro and when he explained what he paid for it everyone within ear shot stopped what they were doing and walked over to listen. He explained that his dad was a foreman at a GM stamping plant and he would relate some of the things he had learned from him too.
A lot of the guys were wondering if they could drive to Detroit and get year end surplus cars there for cheap. He explained that that wasn't so.
Then they were wondering how he got it so cheap then? He explained it was used with low mileage.
But the trick to how he got it so cheap was he went over the border into Windsor, Ontario to buy it. He explained you could get low mileage used cars etc for cheap there and he then added what his dad had told him.
Canada (at least at that time) and some other countries have laws regarding the content of the alloy of the metals that cars must be made of that are imported there to sell. His dad told him that the metal was much better and less likely to rust out quickly. So GM's export to Canada's market had to be made to a higher standard which would increase their value to the consumer. He added that most
auto body repair shops preferred to work on the cars built for the American market as the alloy had so many different kinds of metal in it was easier to weld, braze, lead, and manipulate than some of the higher quality alloy.
In the south west the bodies may hold up in that environment and look great and still have 250K miles on them. Where in the north east and north central they may have 60K miles on them and look like Swiss Cheese as the salt eats them up.
