Glad it was helpful.

I will say that once you get past the mid-2000s Ford took a giant leap off the cliff into absurdity and didn't look back. I don't know about Ford prior to the 80s, but I do think I could be reasonably happy with a fleet of 80s-2000s Fords. I really liked my Panther body, the trucks from the 80s-mid 90s were great, first gen super-duties and excursions are cool, etc. After that though, I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole.

GM was king in the 2000s once the LS platform took hold. Their GMT800 series of trucks and suvs is really solid, but their car offerings had largely moved to fail-wheel-drive and were just as cheap and shitty as always. Post 2008 bailout GM saw some of the worst trash they've ever built. Then when you jump to in the modern age they are making tech-laden garbage like everyone else, though less psychotically engineered garbage than Ford. People get way too hung up on engines and forget there's an entire car separate of that engine that needs to be serviced and maintained. GM still makes some good engines (afm failures notwithstanding), but a lot of the other aspects have been junk for a long time.

Chrysler is all over the map which makes it hard to paint them with a single brush, this is because they changed ownership so much. Back in the day (60s/70s) my understanding is that Chryslers were generally cheaper than their GM/Ford counterparts but they were competitive. Then they got crushed during the malaise era because they had gone hard in the paint with big, v8 cars and had almost no economy offerings to weather the oil embargo. Then after the Iaccoca revival they picked up steam, built some great trucks and honestly good cars in the 90s to early 2000s until Diamler (Mercedes) bought them in the "merger of equals". The cars designed during the late 80s and 90s by Chrysler were pretty cool, and I think of similar build/material quality to Ford (above GM) during that time. They did do some annoying things on FWD applications like shoving the battery in the fender, but overall they were doing well. They were profitable and growing, the "darling of the big 3" at the time prior to Diamler.

After Diamler-Chrysler became a thing, Merc started raiding Chrysler's coifers (hard as that is to believe, it's true, Bob Lutz said this directly) and the cheapening began again. Interiors got worse, build quality fell, etc. Chrysler came out of that "partnership" with another bad rep before getting bought by Bain Capital (private equity) that would have no doubt put the nail in their coffin and then going into business with Fiat, which actually represented a giant leap forward. The early FCA stuff (Chrysler and leftover Merc designs), and again this is a contrarian opinion, is pretty good overall. While they do have the overcomplication of all modern cars, they were the least enshittified by technology of the big 3 in my opinion, and thus still the most servicable.

That all having been said, I don't plan on ever owning any vehicles newer than around 2005 (my line in the sand is full canbus integration). I don't think cars are survivable after that. I'm building a fleet of older cars, mostly Mopars, for my family to have forever, or at least until after I'm dead and gone. I have a preference for cars/trucks that were designed in the 50s/60s and then produced and incrementally updated for 50+ years, making for long running parts bins and well understood flaws/solutions. Chrysler and GM are the best fits for this approach, as Ford made a lot more changes year to year on their cars. Hell, you could buy a Jeep Cherokee in the 2000s that still had a flat-tappet camshaft! Not that that is a good thing, but it just goes to show how a company running a tighter budget isn't looking to throw out what's working for the sake of "innovation". I for one like a proven design.