Re: A Little Marketing Hype....
Japanese cars use painted leather, or finished, and usually a poor grade at that. Car leather has to endure more temperature extremes than household leathers, and rougher treatment. It has to stand up against moisture as well (rain, sweat, etc). German leather is slightly better, but not that great either. The best leathers without getting into exotic cars like Rolls, Bentley, Aston-Martin, are actually in Cadillacs and Lincolns. They spec a fairly good hide for those cars. American cars are tops for leather, electronics and air conditioning systems in my opinion. Toyota Motor Corp., builds an OK product, but they drive like a bowl of noodles and have had more issues in the past few years across the line than they did in earlier models. They really did grow too fast, too big. Not a bad car, just not the superior machine that long-time Consumer Report readers think it is. I've owned them, found them very bland and not fun to drive, but as a utility machine, very good. I still like German cars the best, though they can have some annoying model-specific issues.
Duane Collie
Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
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