Case in point: I've restored a Daihatsu Trevis, a small Japanese budget car, and after working on it and bringing it back up to the standard required to pass a salvage title inspection (which is a higher standard than the original one where I live, you have to book an inspection for the vehicle that takes several hours and that will have cross frame measurements and all kinds of assessments to make sure that the vehicle is safe) I decided that this is not a car that is suitable for many kilometers of highway driving. A crash in that car that would be survivable in even the cheapest Golf or Skoda would be lethal in that little car. So I ended up passing it on to people that only drive in the city and got an elderly Golf instead.
And a Golf was definitely not the high end of safety at that time, but it was tons better than the much more modern Trevis.
That car was often a butt of many jokes as people thought its chassis was made off "recycled paper" (in fact it was one of the first composite chassis cars). It was called a plastic-soap-box, but it was so simple to repair one needed a push bike set of tools to fix anything (until once a suspension strut in a rear wheel failed). Then all it took to be able to get back home slowly was to wrap it with some steel wire... Fun little car. Unfortunately it was scrapped against my will when I was abroad (my parents weren't happy I drove it). Today many people consider it a classic and it has quite a following.
Why do I compare an old "upper class car" with a modern "lowest tier"? Isn't this unfair? No, because that is usually the choice people have. If they can afford just the cheapest of new cars, there is likely a much better one that is not new available for the same price or a lot cheaper.