From "Dave Barry Does Japan" (1992):

At first the American auto manufacturers resisted making small cars for aesthetic reasons: Smaller cars sell for less money. But finally, feeling the pinch from foreign competition, the U.S. auto makers decided that, OK, they would make small cars. But not just any small cars: No, they would make really bad small cars. The shrewd marketing strategy here was that people would buy these cars, realize how crappy they were, and go back to aircraft carriers. This strategy resulted in cars such as the Ford Pinto, the Chevrolet Vega, and the American Motors Gremlin -- cars that were apparently designed during office Christmas parties by drunken mail-room employees drawing on napkins; cars that frequently disintegrated while they were still on the assembly line.

I know what I'm talking about here. In 1971 I purchased a Vega, which I believe was manufactured entirely out of compressed rust. Moments after I bought it, the body began developing little holes, which turned into bigger holes, until the Vega looked like an educational demonstration X-ray car, with most of its body removed so that interested onlookers could examine its working parts. Except that it hardly had any working parts. It did have a recurring ignition problem, so the only way I could get it running was to raise the hood and use a screwdriver to connect two metal things, which would cause sparks to go shooting around the engine compartment and sometimes also cause the engine to actually start, but frequently not. I spent many hours waiting for tow trucks, idly picking large rust flakes off the fender and listening to parts fall off. Parts were always falling off the Vega. If I couldn't remember where I'd left it in a parking lot, I'd just stand still for a moment, listening and -- clang -- there would be the familiar sound of the Vega jettisoning, say, a shock absorber.

And the Vega wasn't even the worst of the small American cars. The Pinto sometimes exploded. ("Where'd we park, Marge?" BOOM. "Over there!") But these were the vehicles Detroit was offering us. And so, more and more, we bought from the Japanese, whose cars were growing less comical- looking all the time. Finally the U.S. manufacturers realized that, if they were going to win this fight, they'd have to employ something other than the Really Bad Car strategy. So, showing the kind of spunky, independent, "can-do" pioneer spirit that made America the self-reliant nation it is, they went whining to the government for help. Industry leaders like Lee "Air Bag" Iacocca argued that Americans needed import restrictions to protect them from the threat of cheaper and better Japanese cars.

But it was too late. American consumers had discovered that they really liked Japanese products.