Automobiles: What decade would you say American cars began to decline in quality?

Cars were much more stylish back in yesteryear.

Cars were bigger and heavier in the 50s. That doesn't inherently mean better.

60s cars started catering to younger drivers, with more horsepower.
70s were rough and cars began to be smaller, lighter, and under-powered.

My current everyday driver has over 309000 miles
My last truck was hit and totaled at 260000 miles so I'm not sure what your blabbering about

Five toyota models are in the top 10 for lasting over 15 years.

They were better

Up until about the late 1960's then things started to decline very quickly, early 70's Fords would rust away long before they wore out and GM and Chrysler weren't far behind. The 70's and 80's really were the worst for crappy American cars 😖

50's were the best!

We really propped up Japan after WW2 and told them to get producing .
Their cars were shit until about 1990.
Our quality didn’t decline , their quality got better .

What exactly does "better" mean to you, specifically? Is it just a matter of visual styling and nothing else? In that case, in the 1950s Italian cars were light years ahead of US cars in terms of visual aesthetic beauty.


(1953 Maserati A6GCS/53 Berlinetta)

American cars were horrible gas hog land yachts without seat belts in the 1950s.

Apart from looking gorgeous, even Italian cars from seven decades ago had similar faults. 1950s cars are part of why the planet is going to sh-t today. Beauty is skin deep.

If anything, maybe Americans are slowly, finally learning how to make a reliable, safe and efficient car now.