Go figure. Honda's first pickup truck, the 2006 Ridgeline, is more "American" than a Chevy pickup, the Avalanche. And the Toyota Camry is more "American" than the Chrysler 300.

The Ridgeline gets 75 percent of its parts from the United States and Canada, compared with 61 percent for Chevrolet's Avalanche. The Camry, built at an assembly plant in Georgetown, Ky., has 80 percent American content vs. the Canadian-built Chrysler 300's 72 percent.

The statistics are there on the vehicles' window stickers for every shopper to see.

Blame this weird world of automotive lineage on industry trends.

For years, the world's auto industry has been consolidating, with larger automakers buying others. Chrysler vehicles today are products of Germany-based DaimlerChrysler, and Ford Motor Co.'s portfolio of vehicles includes English-built Jaguars and Land Rovers as well as Swedish-built Volvos.

Foreign-based carmakers such as Honda, Toyota, Nissan, BMW and Hyundai have opened factories in the United States and many build both vehicles and parts — such as engines — on U.S. soil.

Add in the pressure on automakers to source vehicle assembly and parts globally as inexpensively and efficiently as possible, and you begin to see how complicated it can be for a car shopper today trying to "buy American."

The so-called "domestic content" window label dates to 1992's passage of the American Automobile Labeling Act by Congress. The move was pushed by Detroit-based carmakers and the United Auto Workers union as Japan-based companies made inroads into U.S. market share.

The labels require manufacturers to post on every new model the origin of a vehicle's parts. Consumers also are told where a vehicle is built, and where the engine and transmission come from.

Back in the 1990s, supporters of the legislation hoped consumers would shy away from cars and trucks with foreign content. But that hasn't happened.

In fact, automakers like Toyota and Honda, both of which are based in Japan but have factories in the United States, have continued to take market share away from the traditional Big Three.

"Consumer research indicates that for a lot of people ... (the 'buy American' issue) really doesn't come up," said George Peterson, president of the research firm AutoPacific Inc.

That's especially true of younger buyers, Peterson said.

"They're more open," he said, noting that many young people are employed in services, rather than in manufacturing. "As a result, they're not tied to the union jobs of old and don't have the same sensitivities as did earlier generations."

Dan Bonawitz, a vice president at American Honda Motor Corp., also has seen little evidence that the labels affect sales.

"Our experience is people don't even pay attention to it," he said.

The domestic-content label mixes U.S. and Canadian parts into a single "American" percentage, so there's no real way to know the U.S. content. Also, the domestic content is for parts only and does not factor in labor.

It's not always easy to find the labels. In a sample search at dealerships in Sacramento, Calif., domestic-content labels on Nissans were found on the windshield, away from the pricing window sticker that shoppers look for. But on Chryslers and Mazdas, the content information was incorporated into the price sticker. On Hummers and Chevrolets, it was on a separate label next to the price sticker.

Meanwhile, automakers say, gathering the content information is complicated, with an average vehicle having some 20,000 parts.