Sid is sure right about the Vega. In our parts business they were known as the "50,000 mile engine". Cool looking but a piece of junk. A friend of mine put a 427 big block in one, after beefing up the suspension and transmission. Like another friend who bought a Mustang with a 428 cobra jet, that required you pull the block out of the engine compartment in order to change spark plugs.

It was the "take our junk or else" attitude of the American car companies that allowed foreign car makers to have such inroad in the US market by the late 1970s (our 1979 Buick Station wagon was garbage. An undersized metric transmission that would go out sometimes as early as 40-50,00 miles. The better business bureau had a legal suit against GM for the tranys and the fuel system, which GM lost. When our transmission went out, GM ended up paying most of the costs of replacement). I read somewhere that former football player and actor, Brian Bosworth, worked a GM (?) assembly line for a while and thought it was cool to drop his empty beer cans into the lining of the doors. What was the old saying - never buy a car built on a Friday? The American auto companies shot themselves in the foot. Now they are building cars that are, quality-wise, as good as any made in the world. But their near demise was of their own making - when they forgot about the consumer.