Crossover vehicles that feature SUV bodies riding on car platforms have been all the rage in the auto industry for the past few years.

Meet the new rage: international crossbreeds.

Dodge's 2007 Caliber, a five-passenger compact sport wagon, will arrive next year equipped with a Dodge body made in the United States, a Nissan transmission built in Mexico and an all-wheel-drive system that uses Mitsubishi parts made in Japan.

One version to be sold outside the United States will use a Volkswagen diesel engine made in Germany.

It's all part of the shrinking world of global automaking, as cooperative ventures are increasingly common and the major manufacturers seek to cut product-development costs.

"It's increasingly expensive to do a lot of this on your own," said Lindsay Brooke, advanced technology analyst at CSM Worldwide automotive consulting in Farmington Hills, Mich. "Automakers want to be individual on things customers see and touch, but everything else is on the table."

In Dodge's case, parent company Chrysler Group — the U.S. arm of Germany's DaimlerChrysler — has slashed product-development spending to $6 billion this year, down nearly 30 percent since 2000.

As budgets ratchet down, "it makes sense to go where the expertise is and to buy proven components instead of spending a lot of money reinventing the wheel," said Dan Gorrell, vice president of Strategic Vision, a San Diego-based auto-industry consulting and market-research company.

Chrysler and other U.S. automakers have long had cooperative agreements with overseas competitors: Chrysler and Mitsubishi were teammates 30 years ago, Mazda made Ford's small pickups in the late 1970s and early '80s, and many General Motors products sold under the Geo brand in the 1990s were built by Toyota and Suzuki.

These days, though, the cooperation goes beyond importing and re-badging whole vehicles made by another company. Automakers are increasingly seeking out components built by competitors to maximize their own development dollars.

The small-car segment in which the Dodge Caliber fits — it is expected to replace the $14,000-to-$17,000 Neon — has narrow profit margins. So "you want to make the best possible business case," said Chrysler engineering spokesman Cole Quinnell, referring to the advantage of sharing components.

When it comes time for service or repair, manufacturers work with dealers to make sure that unfamiliar technology won't cause problems.

As for the buyers: "The consumer wants reliability, fuel economy and a reasonable price and isn't all that concerned about where the transmission was built," said Quinnell.

Besides, Calibers sold in the United States will use a Chrysler gas engine. Sort of.

Actually, it's an engine designed in Michigan by a joint venture of Chrysler, Mitsubishi and Hyundai of South Korea.