Hahah. One of my buddies in high schools first car was a Vega. This was mid 80s time frame.. not sure what year the Vega was. At that age a car was a car...
A HS classmate’s parents bought one the first year they came out (1970). Disaster for them. Chevy mercifully threw in the towel on them in 1977.
You overheat one of those aluminum blocks and that engine is gone.
Detroit shoveled out a lot of embarrassing quality cars in the 70s. My 1978 Le Mans was my first brand new car and my last Detroit car until my 1996 S10 which I bought used. And that experience finished off my relationship with Detroit forever.
I did buy a 1988 Nova new, but only because it was a Toyota Corolla with a Nova nameplate so I did not consider it a US car. I bought it because it was about 20-25% less than the (essentially) identical Corolla. By the time I traded it ten years later its value was the same as the Toyota.