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

Weren’t American cars better in the 1950s?

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Thevy29 · 41-45, M Best Comment

Cars were much more stylish back in yesteryear.

XenonRush · M

Agreed. Why do you think they are not made like that anymore?
@Thevy29

Thevy29 · 41-45, M

@XenonRush Mass production, means cheaper materials and lower build quality. Also Aerodynamics, speed and fuel efficiency. Things they didn't know of back then that are morphing the cars shape so you can no longer tell the difference between car makes.

whowasthatmaskedman · 70-79, M

@Thevy29 Cars were a different thing back then. In terms of status.. And in terms of how many months wages it took to buy one...😷

easterniowegin · 51-55, M

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.

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AthrillatheHunt · 51-55, M

@easterniowegin all my buddies with ‘Stangs got laid in HS. Lol

easterniowegin · 51-55, M

@AthrillatheHunt lol. Yep. And had big competitions with the IROC guys.

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spjennifer · 56-60, T

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 😖

TheSentinel · M

@spjennifer I loved the '70s muscle cars.

pdockal · 56-60, M

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

XenonRush · M

I mean like, weren’t cars built better back then? I mean like, they had a nicer look and they actually had style to them, do you know what I mean?
@pdockal

pdockal · 56-60, M

@XenonRush looks yes ... otherwise i have no clue what your talking about . ... like i said above

Dino11 · M

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

kodiac · 22-25, M

They were better

Virgo79 · 61-69, M

@kodiac these you could actully repair, if needed

kodiac · 22-25, M

@Virgo79 Yup

AthrillatheHunt · 51-55, M

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 .

BarbossasHusband · 36-40, M

50's were the best!

SW-User

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.

[image deleted]
(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 [i]now[/i].

spjennifer · 56-60, T

@SW-User That's not even a fair comparison, you can't compare hand built super cars costing up to 10 times what mass produced American cars cost at that time and only a couple of thousand of them at best were built every year so of course they were more stylish but had many problems too. A more apt comparison would be Fiat, how often do you see Fiat's from the 50's, 60's, 70's on the road these days?

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