Where do the most patriotic car buyers live?

Among prospective car buyers, the country's regions are generally predictable in their automaker preferences.

We like to brush them off, but regional stereotypes exist because they're partially based on truth. Among car buyers, it's common to say that liberal Northeasteners and West Coasters love the Toyota Prius and conservative Southerners and swing-state Midwesterners go for domestic pickup trucks.

And by the raw, faceless audience metrics from car-shopping website CarGurus, this is all true.   

CarGurus, based in Cambridge, Mass., tracked the brands its users chose from a pool of 500,000 queries they sent to dealerships in June. Of the 51 cities surveyed, Detroit came out on top, with 68 percent of prospective buyers looking for American-brand cars, compared with San Francisco, which landed at the bottom of the list at 37 percent. Other top cities swayed by American cars were Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Mo., and Tulsa, Okla., all of which ranged from 58 to 61 percent of online shoppers.

In total, 27 cities favored American cars by at least half, including southern cities like Nashville, Tenn., Birmingham, Ala., Louisville, Ky., and Richmond, Va. The split between Asian and European cars varied more among all cities, from a low of 11 percent probing Detroit-area dealers for Asian cars to 28 percent in Houston and 29 percent in Richmond, for example. Las Vegas buyers asked for European cars 30 percent of the time despite half choosing American. Asian cars were favored more in Washington, D.C., Boston, New York, San Diego and San Jose, Calif., than any other cities (between 32-34 percent), although Los Angeles and San Francisco, despite posting the lowest interest in American cars, were more interested in all three global regions at nearly equal levels.

In the end, this is simply one study from one month from one website, but it's a decent snapshot of general buying preferences. Subarus, for example, are practically the state bird of New Hampshire and the BMW 3-Series is like the Ford Taurus of Los Angeles. But for all the stereotypes associated with cars, there are bound to be plenty of owners breaking them with unexpected choices.

Nothing more American than that, right?

autos.msn.com