[instarx]

I bought a 1972 Datsun and 15 years later it was STILL a wonderful car until I got T-boned at an intersection. I nearly cried that the car was gone. Although the quality was nothing like today's cars, they were still far above the American cars of the time.

There is one unarguable fact that disproves your position that Japanese cars of that era were junk - so many people bought them. If they were so bad why did they sell so well? Why did their market share improve year after year?

The big three were dragged out of their complacent ways by Japanese competition that literally forced them to improve quality or die. There was no American car with 4-wheel independent suspensions when they were common on Japanese cars. If you are old enough to remember, don't you remember the Ford advertizing slogan of the 80's "Quality is Job 1"? Ford knew they had a huge quality problem compared to the Japanese and of course their first response was a PR campaign. Do you remember US car makers going to Japanese plants to look at their assembly techniques and their ASTONISHMENT when they learned that any line-worker in a Japanese plant could stop the line if he spotted a quality problem? Don't you remember how hood and door seams in American cars were 3/8ths inch wide (or more) and seldom even parallel? I remember the marble test where a marble rolled down a hood seam on an American car would drift onto the hood or fender because the parts were so misaligned.