This has kind of diverted from my original post a bit. I think that there is a lack of understanding on both sides of the pond here.
In Britain and Europe we mainly have Smaller economical manual cars because they are ideal for and designed for our needs.
In the US they mainly have bigger automatic cars and SUVs because they are ideal for and designed for their needs.
In the UK we don't really need a big car or large engine as we don't need to do as much driving. In the States they can afford to have bigger gas guzzlers, they need them and can afford to fuel them.
I don't see what the big deal is. It is all about supply and demand and market forces. The reason the Americans probably don't think too much to a fair percentage of the cars made for our market, is because they are not suitable for theirs and it's the same vice-versa. The companies that customise cars for different markets, those cars will do well. There will only be the odd exceptions to that general rule.
One point I would like to add on this whole crash thing, I would say that the newer a car is the better it will withstand a crash against a similar sized but older car.
I seem to recall an episode of Top Gear here in the UK where they had two large 4x4 vehicles and they showed how the newest model just went straight through the older one in a crash with relatively minor damage whereas the older one was completely trashed and there could have been fatalities. That also has to be a factor in crashes from what little I know. So even if you have an SUV that may be slightly bigger than the other person on a collision course, you may come out of it worse if they have a brand new model.
One thing I like about American cars is the seat belt. I was in I think it was a Saturn, and the seat belts moved across automatically for me to plug in. Are their any cars in Britain than do this? This is a serious question. I expect it may just be some of the executive cars with things like this. This Saturn though I believe that was just one of their basic cars.
John