8th Mar 2013, 23:43
I love reading your claim over and over that the American car companies made a sudden turn around in past few years, and somehow built junk in the 70's and 80's. Take the Cutlass Supreme for example, it was the best selling car (not to mention being also known as America's favorite car) through the mid-70's to the late 80's, before it was turned into a smaller front-drive, to be like the imports, then the sales went down. A majority of GM and Ford cars through that era were not bad at all, but you couldn't give me a Chrysler vehicle. I lived, owned and worked on cars from this era; did you? Yeah, Vega's had rust problems, but so did your "much better Japanese cars of the time".
8th Mar 2013, 16:55
The Vega and Pinto were terrible. They were built for PR reasons after the 1973 Oil Crisis. However, if you bought the full-sized cars from the 1970s, you were alright, as they came with reliable engines and had far better build quality than the ill-fated small cars the Big Three were producing at the time.
On the other hand, full-size cars were incredible popular, but the CAFE standards and high gas prices began taking their toll on them by the late-'70s. They enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the 1980s and 1990s when gas prices fell and continued to sell. However, they were slowly out-competed by SUVs, which were far more versatile and useful for families.
Now that gas prices are at record highs, small cars are the vehicles to have today. Their efficiency and good array of standard equipment makes them high sellers.