Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure that you’ve heard that the Big Three in Detroit are facing some huge financial problems. Things like high labor costs, incredible pension obligations and other monetary issues leave both GM and Ford on the brink of declaring bankruptcy. Surprisingly, Chrysler is doing the best of the three.

But the bigger problem with Detroit in my opinion is with their products. They’re just… well, bland… and that’s being kind. A statistic that illustrates this issue is the “days to turn” number. Days to turn is the average number of days that a car sits on the lot of a dealer before being sold. Although is not perfect, it’s a pretty good proxy for what is “hot.”

I obtained this chart from the May 2005 issue of J.D. Power’s PinPoint publication. It’s noted in the original PinPoint chart that both the Mercedes-Benz G-Class and Audi A8/S8 data came from a small sample size which may have affected the results.

I had seen more recent data than May 2005 in the WSJ, but I couldn’t find the article through the WSJ’s search feature. But the point is the same, since in the more recent chart, no Detroit-made cars made the list.