Right. Your German relatives are test driving a lot of new Chevys are they? And which Mercedes or BMW competes with a Chevy Cruze? Oh yeah, that would be a VW...
Your German relatives aren't driving very many American cars or Japanese cars because of relatively little investment by the US and Japanese companies in diesel engines, which most Germans prefer due to the way fuel tax laws work. Me, I wouldn't have a diesel if you gave me one, but I understand frugality.
Talking about German car handling, so which ones would you like to talk about? Porsches? No fair, in their price classes everything is good or should be good. Mercedes? They're okay, so long as you stick to the AMG things, or something in a "sport" version, otherwise they don't handle all that well. At least Mercedes stopped beating their cars with ugly sticks a couple of years ago. Non-S-Type Audis are the worst; they drive like old Buicks. And I speak from experience, since the two times I've taken my Audi S3 in for service to get the stupid "inspection" indicator turned off, I got run-of-the-mill A6s as loaner cars, and I hate the A6s. They wallow. The Audi S-Types are nice, like S4s, S5s, and S6s, even Q5s. I like my S3 a lot as a commuter car, and nothing American competes with it, but it handles like crap on curvy roads because it has a really dumb transverse engine architecture that generates understeer even AWD can't get rid of. You know, like an Acura. The latest BMW 3-series and 5-series are better, with proper longitudinal engine architecture and RWD or AWD, but the base 3-series steering feels like crap, and it handles just okay. Not as good as, say, a Mustang GT, but the way a Mustang GT gulps gasoline I doubt too many sell in Germany. And a Mustang isn't exactly my idea of compact or practical, and I doubt your relatives would think so either.
I have the curse of renting cars three or four times a month, and Hertz lets me choose whatever I want, and I've got to say my preferred choice is a Chevy Cruze. It drives surprisingly well, especially compared to Toyota Corollas and any Nissan I've had. The interior is crap compared to an Audi, but Audi doesn't compete in this price class. The VW Passat I drove at Hertz that one time didn't impress me much with steering or handling. The interior was better than the Chevy's though. I also like the new Buicks I've driven, but they're really German designs, and Hertz rarely has them. I grab one when I can though. The Ford Fusions are okay too, but known to be unreliable, and I wouldn't own a hybrid. The Fusions are sort of pretty.
Lest you think I'm some sort of American flag-waver, we own four cars and they're all German. There are other cars that tempt me, like a Tesla S, a couple of Alphas, a Jag F-type, the Cadillac CTS-V, the Mustang Shelby Cobra-R, but so far none of them has won me over. When BMW gets things right, and they haven't as much lately as I'd like, I generally fall for them. Porsches are getting so expensive I keep putting off a new Cayman or 911, however much I love them.
As for Trump, I wish he'd emigrate to the moon or Mars, but the economy sure has been great since he took office, so we're unlikely to get rid of him anytime soon. (If he'd shut up the S&P500 would likely set records every month.) And he has about an 85% approval rating with his voting base, and the Democrats can't find a candidate with charisma or a brain who isn't a socialist, so I think the US and the whole world is stuck with him for perhaps six more years. It is sort of weird that all of the German car manufacturers have US plants in red states, so perhaps a bunch of screaming governors and congressmen will shut Trump up, but I doubt it. Does Trump ever shut up? Even Airbus is building things in Alabama. Whatever. I wonder what the Kushners drive? Chevys? Unlikely. The German plants moving out because Trump has a big mouth? Really unlikThey rented many American car on their many business trips to the US and Canada and they have a genuine dislike for their handling characteristics. None of them own a diesel BTW. Its their personal preference, something you can try and rationalize but will end up failing.
