The sums up my childhood experience as well (though not quite as much drama).
It all depends, I had a 79 IH scout that I bought with 65k miles on it, and put a personal 250 000 miles on, and in that time did routine maintenance [oil changes, tires, brakes - the usual stuff that needs routine maintenance] and nonroutine maintenance was one water pump at about the 200k mark, the linkage for the accelerator [I engineered a manual control for it out of speaker wire and drove it home from an SCA event in central New Jersey, and that week husband repaired the linkage. It was a freak accident, a fastener broke] the cable for the emergency brake snapped at about 180 000 miles, and the clutch plate needed replacement at about 100 000.
On the other hand, it looked like a rust monster nibbled on it regularly. Scouts traditionally had rust issues. I had daydreams about dipping it in that bed liner to stop it from rusting. sigh
I had an 84 diesel escort that got 48-52 MPG dependably, it had one issue with the fuel pump which got fixed right after we bought it, and I nailed a rock in a dirt parking lot and punched a hole in the fuel tank, but I don’t think you can pin the blame on Detroit for that.:o Did 2 round trips from Norfolk VA to Fresno CA and back in 3 months. We put some serious miles on that car before it died.
We had The Zombie, an 84 s-10 that wouldn’t die. Parts fell off, or rusted off and got replaced, bondoed or duct taped and wired back into place, it only sort of passed inspections, but it kept chugging along until it finally had too much rust for us to manage to get it past inspection about 3 years ago. We got it for $500 in 95. We still miss poor little zombie cries Now we have a 94 s-10, and it just isn’t the same.
I think the issue with most American metal of the time was that Americans don’t want to do routine maintenance on their cars, They seem to have this idea that you pour in oil and gas, and windshield fluid and it just runs.
Also, I think that the 1970’s cars had truly weird styling-and I think this is because the guys who did the designs for Detroit were getting old-and a little soft in the head. For instance, Ford seemed to think that everything could be improved by slapping fake woodgrain plastic on everything-they even managed to put it on the radio knobs and buttons. Then there was the (hideous) crushed velvet interior style-your car looked like a whorehouse on wheels.
And, the big 3 kept working with old body and chassis designs-which is why Detroit’s “compact” cars were as long (in some cases) as the full sized cars.
Add to it the jerry-built emission systems (caused stalling and rough idling, and low HP output)-and you have someof the worst vehicles ever produced.
Which is why there are very few collectable 70’s and 80’s cars.
Some 80’s cars, like Fox body Mustangs, have actually gone up in value since the 80’s. I’m a Ford person. They never did a great job at making economy and boring cars, but any truck or rear wheel drive v8 was reliable. You can run them well beyond 200,000 miles. The more modern 4.6l Ford vehicles have gone over 300,000 miles with only wear items and maintentance items being replaced.
My aunt bought an 84 Escort new off the lot, and the shoft knob fell off as soon as got home from the dealership. I was seven years old at the time, and remember that vividly.
Make that “shift.” Darn quick reply.
My dad had a K car and the thing just fell apart starting on day one.
It wasn’t until pretty recently that the American makers figured out how to attach plastics to each other. My first car was a ‘93 Accord with 87,000 miles on it. Every single interior trim piece was still where it was supposed to be, except for those little plastic covers that go over seat belt pillar attachment points.
When that car died in 2002 (not its fault - a relay in the cooling system failed and I drove it all the way from Ohio to Florida with no cooling fans, and blew a head gasket) I went to look at new cars in the Toyota Corolla class.
Drove a Civic, a Focus, a Neon, a Corolla, an Elantra, and a Pontiac Sunfire. I think I tested a Mercury Cougar and an Acura Integra too.
The Neon (which had 3 miles on it) had a rubberized storage tray in front of the gearshift, from which the rubbery applique had peeled all the way around the edges. There was a button missing from the stereo, and the interior lamp cover had fallen off. The Sunfire’s transmission failed pretty much the second I drove it off the load, jamming in what felt like third gear. The Focus was okay, but every piece of trim rattled. It was like driving a band box.
Naturally, the Civic, Corolla and Elantra didn’t rattle, and nothing had fallen off.
I drove a current-generation Focus last month. It was a million times better.
The rust problems of America cars from the seventies and early eighties wasn’t new. Cars from the fifties and sixties rusted just as badly.
The seventies was a time of very massive cars with no real interior or trunk room. Buick Regals, Olds Cutlasses, and Chevy Monte Carlos come to mind.
My first car was a 1973 Datsun B210. It also was a rust bucket and fell apart, but it did last 10 years, which is more than comparable car would have lasted, if it were from Detroit.
Shoft knob. 
My first ride was a 1978 Chevy Nova which I inherited from my grandmother. On the third day driving it someone backed into me in a parking lot, hitting the car right around the passenger side rear wheel well at all of about 1mph. There was so much rust in there that the body shop just laughed at me about getting the dent repaired. They put it up on the lift and the entire underbody was coated in rust.
That car sucked so hard, but it was my first and I’ll love it forever. I’d love to buy a 'Murrican truck one day, but the pricing on them is stupid high (can anyone explain why a Chevy Colorado costs over $25k? It’s a tiny little pickup truck) but for the time being I’m a Japanese/Korean only guy.
My first car (not counting the Fiat my parents bought for me, and which didn’t deserve the name “car”) was a 1982 Dodge Omni.
It lacked features that were standard even on low-end imports - like a rear window defogger, and adjustable seat backs.
Its clutch died within 2 years.
The engine, when I started the car, stood a decent chance of refusing to start (instead, emitting that screeching sound you hear when you try to crank a car that’s already running). It stubbornly refused to display this behavior when near a mechanic, until the warranty was over. Fortunately, I’d paid for an extended warranty - usually a ripoff but in this case it saved me.
I gave Chrysler another chance in 1996, purchasing a Dodge Caravan. I wound up essentially replacing the entire A/C system within 5 years (a known problem with other Chryslers of that time period, and the subject of a “hidden warranty” for everything but the Caravan). After 10 years, the car started having electrical system problems which 2 months and a thousand dollars in random repairs failed to solve.
We own two Hondas now.
I had a 1984 Ford Escort that blew up. I had an engine fire one night. I pulled over, was unprepared to deal with it (no extinguisher, etc.), and went to try to get help at a nearby house. The fire broke through to the passenger compartment, burned everything to a crisp, and then the car fucking exploded.
I don’t mean “had a big fire”. I mean WHOOOOOM, massive explosion, including a Hollywood-style gas ball, with debris that flew for many, many yards.
Wow.
At least you got a way better story out of it that most mid-80s American-car owners!!!
I can just imagine the call to the insurance company.
You: My car is totalled
They: Do you have a police report from the accident?
You: Um, no, not exactly
They: Where was the car towed to?
You: Last I heard, the fire department was scraping pieces of it out of someone’s front lawn
They: ??? Can you explain what happened
You: not really. It just… blew up.
I had a 1981 Chevette in which the timing belt went out within 30,000 miles (the car was bought brand new), and the crankshaft pulley bolts sheared off, also with less than 30,000 miles (but not at the same time the timing belt broke).
Piece of crap that car was.
It was one of the more surreal things that has ever happened to me. I just sort of wandered around for a few minutes after it happened, thinking, “WTF?” before it ever occurred to me that I should call the cops or something. Luckily, someone passing by on the highway (or maybe someone in one of the nearby houses; I never got the straight of it) had already done it.
I bought my first car around 1987 or 1988. Looking for an econobox for around $1000, I ended up with a 1981 Isuzu I-Mark. Wasn’t a bad car for the money.
The American cars for around the same: Chevy Cavalier, Chevette, Ford Escort… and I had friends with these cars and they all sucked. Chevettes in particular. People who didn’t have cars would talk shit about you if you had a Chevette. Even my homegirl who had a Hyundai Excel got props compared to the hottie that had the Chevette.
The only American vehicles worth a damn were the trucks. Most of my friends bought Fords or Chevys, and short of being ugly they were good vehicles.
All of us ended up buying Japanese/Korean: Toyota Corollas, Honda Civics/Accords, Hyundai Excels, Suzukis, Mazda 323s, etc.
It’s also true that most cheap American cars were ugly as shit. I had friends who drove mid-70s American cars, fixed them up, and they looked great. That wood-grain shit, as well as the grid decals that were so 1980s THE FUTURE! looked horrible.
I think they got a bad rap because people didn’t appreciate the comfort and luxury and were looking for smaller better handling cars with better gas mileage. Also I ha e had great luck with American cars while on the other Han have had very unreliable Japanese cars. I had a 2006 accord that fell apart and was very unreliable. I will only purchase American made cars.
Back in the pre-oil embargo days, an American car that got to 100K miles was a big deal. Most people traded their cars in around 60K miles. My 1971 Super Beetle got 156K miles before it died.
AND the American cars were built for the era of 30¢/gallon gasoline, getting maybe 16 miles per gallon. When the 1973 oil embargo hit, most American cars were suddenly dinosaurs, while the Germans and Japanese had cars that got good gas mileage. When the American manufacturers tried to build econo-cars back then, they didn’t seem to know what they were doing.
Comfort and luxury are great when you can afford them, but all of a sudden the comfort that American cars were offering came at too high a price.