How many cars does John McCain own?

Republican presidential candidate John McCain is in the soup again over his wealth. Weeks after he was unable to tell a reporter how many homes he owned - the answer was variously seven or eight - he now appears to be unclear how many cars his family has the keys to and, more crucially, where they were made.

In a recent TV interview in Detroit, centre of the struggling US car industry, he said "I've bought American literally all my life and I'm proud". Now Newsweek has conducted research that shows the McCain family owns a fleet of 13 vehicles, including more than one Japanese car (Cindy McCain drives a Lexus and the couple also have a Honda sedan and a Toyota Prius bought for daughter Meghan) and a German-make VW convertible.

The auto workers union leader Ron Gettelfinger - an acknowledged Barack Obama supporter - was quick to pounce. "It turns out that John McCain wasn't being straight with the people of Detroit, or the state of Michigan, or our country as a matter of effect," he said. "The American auto industry and the American voters deserve a president who will be straight with them."

By contrast, Obama owns a single car: an environmentally friendly 2008 Ford Escape hybrid. It was purchased last year to replace the family's Chrysler, a "gas-guzzler" which was ditched after complaints that Obama was lecturing Detroit on building more fuel-efficient cars.

McCain's wealth, which is almost entirely derived from his wife whose family runs a beer distributorship, looks set to remain a campaign issue after Rollcall, the Capitol Hill newsletter, published a list of the 50 richest members of Congress. McCain comes 13th - way below Democrats John Kerry and Edward Kennedy - with an estimated fortune of $19.6m.

As Rollcall admits, McCain's true value is impossible to estimate because most of the major assets are listed in the name of his wife or children. There have been suggestions that Cindy McCain's net worth may exceed $100m.

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