In my family it was a running joke that anything that broke in an alarmingly unsafe or surprisingly stupid way, "Must have been made in the USA." Through the 70

In my family it was a running joke that anything that broke in an alarmingly unsafe or surprisingly stupid way, "Must have been made in the USA." Through the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, many categories of products, including autos, made in the USA were terrible. That's been mostly resolved, I think. There are still really cheap products made in the USA, of course, but I think on the whole there's been a real effort to modernize, automate, and improve quality across the board. Japanese and later Chinese manufacturers pretty much made it mandatory, I think. The US companies that didn't make those changes likely didn't survive. One fun example of this "must have been made in the USA" joke (which turned out to be correct when we checked the label) was when my dad was installing a gas fireplace for my mom. It had a faulty shut-off valve, so it'd turn the fire off pretty much at random, but it wouldn't shut off the gas completely. So, the fire would go out, the pilot would go out with a loud pop, but gas would continue to flow slowly. Luckily it did it while we were testing it rather than some time later when no one was paying attention. US-made cars were pretty much universally awful through that era, as well. (My mom's Dodge van during that era tried to kill her multiple times through comically catastrophic failures. My dad drove a Toyota.)