| Dear LOS
I guess I knew what I was doing when I emailed you today from work. I will say this:
1. You’ve always added a rational and balanced approach to almost every topic we crossed so far. To that end I have to say Thank You for the great advice/opinion/help you produced so far.
Now to follow up on your reply I wish to add the following key points:
A. You stated: Toyota copied the design; the MR2....Isn’t it a fact that the whole notion behind Lexus is to follow the leads of Mercedes? Great car for sure in terms of quality, look, and pricing (at least for what you get compared with Mercedes’ price) but let us stop and think for a moment about this copying business. The emblem on: it is that funny looking “L” looks like 2/3 of the Mercedes star. 300 series, 400 series, the LS, SC. Body style, front, rear, sides you name it; so much resemblance to Mercedes. In fact many people get the same feeling about Nissan/Infinity another great car which also has so many roots in Jaguars’ classic interior/gauges/clocks/shifters/wood trims etc.
B. The above point leads us to believe your point that the Japanese automakers while excellent at quality vs. pricing still like to toy with the whole idea of “imitation”; and further they seldom fail at it. To be sure take a look at the sides and wheels of the 2004 new Mitsubishi Endeavor and see how much resemblance to the Jeep grand Cherokee is there. I bet you for your same BUCK (by the way you lost by half last time you bet) you will find the endeavor is another copy of a Jeep but with 50 or more “less bugs” and probably a saving of thousands of $$$ over the Jeep! The same holds true of the Lexus RX3 series resemblance to the ML3 series. We can go on and on.
C. AS I stated earlier we are not in the business of passing judgments good or bad on anyone. We are simply thinking a loud hoping to reach a common ground on these issues with due respect to every member's opinion.
And till next post I wish you the best
Regards
billb | 
