Yes, but the Big 3 was closing that gap by the mid to late 1980s-that was on them, its harder to compete with companies that have other inherent advantages that aren't as easily to compete against with 

Interesting article on today's Autoline Daily:   "It almost sounds hard to believe but Volkswagen, which generated €347 billion in revenue last year, is running out of cash. The situation is so dire that its supervisory board just slammed the brakes on any capital investments for the rest of the year. VW is short on investments it has to pay off next year by about €11 billion and the board is practically looking under the couch cushions for spare change. In its Q3 filings, VW reported that it generated zero free cash flow this year, which is what management usually likes to tap to fund investments. All this has got analysts talking about the need for VW to sell off non-core assets, and that makes us wonder if Scout could be in trouble?"

Going from 6 switches for normal driving to 12 switches for more power is exactly like going from 4 cylinders to 8 cylinders and nothing like changing gears.

They also built high quality and fuel efficient vehicles. The big three had neither at that time.

https://cnevpost.com/2025/11/13/ford-to-start-pre-sales-electric-bronco-china-nov-18/   More details in the article about it also

It's just one of those times when one product does basically everything better than the other, which is pretty rare. The bronco looks better, it's more reliable, it's much better around town, it has better tech, it's cooler because we basically just got the bronco back, compared to the wrangler that's been around for decades, and it seems to be better at high speed off-roading. Unless your idea of fun is driving up a rock at half a mile an hour, the bronco is the one to buy.    Our airport rental had a 4 door bronco. Even with the skinny tires, I kinda liked how it looked. Once you throw on wider proper off-road tires, the bronco looks fantastic. I've never felt that way about a wrangler.     

Yes, you are wrong-in the early 1980s the Japanese had an advantage in manufacturing costs and the strength of the yen. They could sell more affordable vehicles and make more profit on them due to the weakness of the Yen at the time.     

It's a designer project. 

It's more like a gearbox than Cylinder deactivation. 

The new Corolla is screaming 1980s to me.