Millennials Of All Generations Least Sold On Buy American Label For Cars

The “Buy American” movement has little resonance with young American car buyers, the most likely to consider their vehicle to be a reflection of their personality than any other age group and least likely to lend importance to the “Assembled in America” label when purchasing a car, according to a new Autotrader.com study.

That, however, doesn’t mean they prefer foreign over domestic brands automatically. They just tend to place a priority on product qualities over where they were manufactured.

According to survey unveiled recently in Detroit, less than 40 percent of Americans of the ages 16 to 24 weighed an auto’s Made-in-America qualities heavily in their decisions to purchase vehicles.

Compare that to a little more than 50 percent of generation Xers and 60 percent of baby boomers looking to purchase cars.

The takeaway? The Big Three can’t just rest on its domestic-made laurels to rack up sales at car dealerships as much. Millenials have little loyalty to brand names instead looking for the product that best speaks to them.

Observed Autotrader’s Isabelle Helms to the Detroit Free Press: “It’s important for domestics not to hang their hats on ‘Made in the USA’ to the same extent they did in the past.“