I believe it was the Smithsonian magazine that ran an article Vise-Grip locking pliers, made in America. The article ended with (paraphrase) - in Taiwan, source of pot-metal tools, mechanics use Vise-Grip tools. One said, “I can’t afford to use cheap tools.”
It looks like @Knowed_Out 's father would have been in the very early days if he was on ships transporting things to MacArthur in PI. The Allies were getting their asses kicked then and were desperate for any way of getting supplies through. They tried using submarines because they couldn’t get ships through, but that was literally in the first couple of months of the war.
If he was on a freighter then perhaps he just didn’t encounter Japanese planes after than. Had he been a fighter pilot then his impression would have been very different.
The designers of Japanese planes purposely used too little armor and didn’t use things such as the self sealing fuel tanks, which made them flying coffins later in the war.
I just got rid of a '96 Buick that had power windows.
In other words, you’re buying the wrong cars. 
I had a 2001 Toyota Echo that only had power steering. Everything else was manual; windows, locks, you name it. It was a value car so definitely didn’t have the frills, but it lasted me a long time with very few problems and was really nice to drive (it could turn on a dime). I don’t doubt there were more advanced cars older than that, but once a feature becomes common it doesn’t become ubiquitous.
My current car is practically a computer on wheels, all it’s missing is a remote/keyless starter. (I do like how I can lock/unlock the car from anywhere with a phone app.)
Before the 2009 Honda Fit I was in high school, driving a 1984 Oldsmobile Delta '88. Good old Brunhilda lasted me until '01, and I didn’t need another car for several years - we just used my husband’s.
I heard someone suggest once if you want to know what your car is going to have in ten or fifteen years to buy a top-of-the-line Mercedes. The idea is that they put new technology in their cars while it’s still bleeding edge. (For a possible example, the dashboard on their new 2022 luxury electric sedan is going to be one giant touchscreen display.)
If I ever get rich enough to buy a Mercedes, I’m gonna buy a Cadillac.
I don’t know why but that actually made me LOL. That was clever.
The US issued their troops WWI leftovers at the time, and Dad wasn’t there to enjoy the tech upgrade. He thought FDR purposely allowed Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor so we’d enter WWII. He didn’t trust the US government, and that influenced his opinion of US-manufactured goods.
Thus, a prime example of the OP.
Well, they aren’t cheap to BUY, but otherwise I do agree with you: we’re on our 4th Honda vehicle.
- Civic, bought new in 1990. We walked away from a head-on collision in it in 1993. 5 years later it was in a 4- car pileup that did it in. Replaced with
- Civic, bought new in Dec 1998 (it was a 1998 still on the lot). My husband drove it for years, then gave it to our son 3 years ago. In its last couple of years, it began to want very spendy maintenance; we donated it to the school district, a few months shy of its 22nd birthday
- CRV, bought in 2006 when our Dodge Caravan’s electrical system began misbehaving, nearly stranding us in Canada. 2 months of one repair after another on the Caravan, and we sold it and got the CRV. We still own that - my son now drives it (see above)
4( CRV, bought 3 months ago. We seriously considered the Ford Escape - we wanted a hybrid (better yet would have been a PHEV but there are none for sale anywhere around here from any manufacturer). But the Escape had been on the market, then discontinued a few times, then on the market again, then discontinued, and then brought back… which seemed like a bad sign. It had some features we liked but not the best reliability rating.
I’ve owned two American vehicles: that Caravan, and the Dodge Omni I bought in 1982. The Omni… was an improvement over its predecessor (a Fiat 128 wagon that my parents bought for me, used. I did eventually forgive them…). It had loads of problems including the clutch and the electrical system. The Caravan had major air conditioning issues, then the final spate of electrical.
I’d consider a Ford. Well, they’d have to really improve their SUV reliability for me to seriously do so, but it’s not off the table.
They seem cheap enough to me. Googling, a base-level Accord costs about $24,000, although you can pay thousands more and get the fancy trim level. Remember that the average new car price is about $40,000.
The Fit was brand new and $19,000 out the door, and that is a base model.
The CRV is a 2015 I purchased in 2019 with all the trimmings, $26,000.
That’s cheap to me. Cheaper than most other options in the same class, to be sure.
My car is a 2010 Honda Fit I bought in September 2010. It’s the “sport” trim level and it cost $19,375 plus tax of course.
I miss my Fit. The CRV was necessary for safe baby haulin’ but man that Fit was fun to drive. And the gas mileage!
You may be sad to hear that Honda has discontinued the Fit.
Drive-by to point out that this is an aggressively stupid OP. Buying a “Toyota” a “Ford” a “HP” or a “Dell” or a “Samsung” are entirely meaningless statements. Ford sells $60K cars and $21K cars, Toyota sells cars in Japan and Africa that they do not sell in the US and vice versa. HP sells a wide range of laptops at a wide range of price points, each with completely different subcomponents. Just because 2 laptops say Dell on them does not mean they share anything else in common. Finally “I don’t like them” is a fucking stupid metric to use to blame “American” products. Lazy fucking troll is what this OP is.
Nooooooo! I loved my Fit. I could beat it to death, have a blast, not really go too fast, and it’d take it all day long. Honda, you’ve lost your way. America needs good itsy-teeny-weenie cars, even if it doesn’t know it.
I own three cars produced by Subaru. That wasn’t intentional, it just worked out that way. I got a 2012 WRX (built in Fuji, Japan), loved it, and my sweetie decided that she’d get a 2017 Outback for transporting art (built in Lafayette, Indiana), and when I gifted the Fit away I decided that I’d buy a 2019 BRZ (built in Ōta, Japan) to replace it as my daily driver.
Difference in build quality? Not really. The one built in Indiana is probably #1 or #2, but they were all about the same. The engineering is about the same on all 3, of course. The WRX has had its issues, but the most severe of those was technically covered by a recall, and I have a warranty on the replaced parts out to over 200K miles. They’re a good car company, but nobody’s perfect. The reason I bought the two I decided to buy was because they scratched an itch that none of the cars produced by the big 3 did.
I think that the real problem with American manufacturing is the management, not the labor pool. American corporations usually focus on quick wins for their shareholders and quick bucks for their corporate officers. That means cutting corners on quality and treating workers as disposable. Not surprisingly, workers who are treated poorly and worked to death are not invested in the success of the company, nor care about the quality of what they produce. Japanese companies that come here are able to succeed where American companies do not.
The Fit isn’t being discontinued. Honda just isn’t going to sell it in North America anymore because they’re moving very few of them here. It’s still going to be sold elsewhere - although I guess you could say the Fit will be no more because it’s known as the Jazz everywhere else.
Still sad. I have an '09 I bought new that has been an excellent car for me, and I love the form factor. But then I’m hoping its replacement in 5 years or so will be electric, and there are some small hatchback electrics being made.
[exasperated teenage melodrama]
And I guess I could consider a crossover
[/etm]
Yes, Honda will continue to sell the Jazz outside the US. And in fact, they’re still selling the HR-V in the US. The HR-V is a crossover SUV built on the Fit/Jazz platform, like the CR-V is built on the Civic platform. I think the CR-V is their most popular vehicle and probably what I would replace my Fit with if I had to.