Protectionism of the 80s was a response to the complacency of the 60s that slowly eroded preeminence in the 70s due to demand for economy cars which Detroit was loath to produce.

Moreover, Detroit cars didn’t get worse but rather stagnated in comparison with Toyota/Deming’s continuous improvement model.

I was an auto mechanic in the 80s. American cars in that period were no worse than they ever were. But they weren’t any better, either, which is why Toyota, Honda, et. al., ran rings around them on quality. As you point out, there was no drop in quality but rather stagnation that looked quite poor in light of a Honda Civic.

To be fair, that ‘81 VW camper in our driveway doesn’t fair much better. I’d rather rely on an ‘80s Chevy Citation to get me home than that piece of parts-bin shit. Part of the problem for a lot manufacturers were 70s-era emissions controls, which is a small part of why a 4000 lb. vehicle has an engine that put out 68bhp.

Who says 90s American cars are bad? They're the majority of cars my family has had and they've been fine. I really like my 99 Grand Cherokee 4.7. Almost 200k miles and still running fine. Powerful, comfortable, practical, reliable enough and easy to work on when something needs to be done.

>Who says 90s American cars are bad?

The well 20-something yuppies who got dragged around in their parent's well cared for 90s Japanese cars and look back fondly on those days.

The edge between manufacturers is very, very, small. 20+yr and 3+ owners later how a vehicle is treated will completely dominate who made it when it comes to how reliable it is going forward. 90s domestics definitely ignored the sedan and compact market a little, after all, minivans then SUVs were where they money was. They didn't innovate. But they gave their car platforms the same sets of tech and systems that the flagship SUVs got so they're no less reliable. The "hurr durr domestics are unreliable" tropes that HN loves comes from the fact that they're cheap (compare MSRPs of the day if you don't believe me). So people bought them with the intention of treating them as disposable. So then they don't hold their value, so then they get sold to people who can't afford to do maintenance. And the cycle continues.

Eh our Toyotas have always been bulletproof, our mid 90s Chrysler minivan was a constant string of major problems ranging from total transmission swap to AC failures to electrical issues, including my favorite, the dashboard just going intermittently dead during a long road trip, with all needles dropping to 0. Or the time that the radiator fan stopped working one summer road trip so that we couldn’t stop for any length of time without the car overheating, like a very lame version of Speed. It wasn’t even that old when most of these issues cropped up, so there wasn’t a lot of maintenance that could’ve been skipped. Anecdotal/small sample size, but it did nothing to persuade us that the stereotypes weren’t true. And back to Toyota we went.

I think a similar story happened to a lot of American families, and the stereotype grew.

Gotta disagree with you there. 80s and 90s domestics were a shame.

It was a great time for body design if nothing else.

I'm familiar with some 90s Ford vehicles that came equipped from the factory with a disdain for problem free operation. Constant histrionics from those cars.