This is one of those subjects that can make fights break out in a heartbeat: exactly what does it mean to “buy an American car” nowadays?

Well, the automotive web site Cars.com has a surprise or two in their annual “American-Made Index.” Every year, the index examines all the most popular U.S.-made cars and trucks, calculates their percentage of U.S.-made parts, and ranks the “most American-made” vehicles.

This year’s winners are a little shocking: The top “most Americanmade car” is the Toyota Camry. The Honda Accord comes in second. Does that mean that two of the most popular “Japanese” cars are actually the most popular American cars? The Camry, built totally in Kentucky and Indiana, has more than 80 percent U.S.-built parts. The Accord is built in Alabama and Ohio with 75 percent U.S.-made parts. Some half a million of each car are built and sold every year, and the volume of production affects the ranking. Cars.com says Cars.com says that the F150 pickup, which has been “most Americanmade” for years, fell out of the list. It’s still built in the U.S., but the U.S. content fell from 80 percent in 2007 to 55 percent in 2010.

Just think – almost half of a new 2010 F-150 is now assembled from imported parts. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Hoist a few beers and discuss among yourselves.

GM’s big pickups? Forget it. Some are built in the U.S. and some in Mexico, with only 65 percent U.S.-sourced parts, so they’re not on the list. The San Antonio-built Toyota Tundra, however, is on the list. It’s a crazy world, ain’t it?

Now to me, the important thing here is Friday paychecks. The name plate may say Toyota or Honda or even Hyundai, but it’s American working people, in Georgia and Alabama and Tennessee and Texas, who punch the time clocks and build outstanding cars and trucks using state-of-the-art technology.

Not to mention the thousands of American workers who work in hundreds of plants making all the parts that go into these cars – every one a Friday paycheck.

These American workers aren’t just building Japanese cars and trucks, either. They’re building BMWs in South Carolina and Mercedes in Alabama, good old boys and girls making cars to the exacting standards of the top German luxury makers.

That tells me there’s nothing wrong with the U.S. auto worker when he’s left to do his job the best he can, where he’s working alongside management totally focused on just building the best cars possible.

But, you say, the company’s foreign. Well, the profits don’t go to Japan, profits go to the stockholders. The sales price of a Kentucky-made Toyota is split among the home office in Japan, parts suppliers both U.S. and overseas, and their workers, the Toyota factory’s workers in Kentucky, the U.S. dealership it’s sold at, and even the trucker who delivered it.

A lot of Friday paychecks are wrapped up in what seems like a foreign car or truck, just like a lot of Mexican paychecks are earned building what seems like an all- American truck.

It’s a crazy world.