Did they feel that way about car loans back then? Did everyone buy cars without a loan? A lot of people wisely buy a car with home equity loan rather than a car loan since it is tax deductable.
Of course the best action is to only buy a car you can afford to pay cash for, but I would not count everyone who uses a car loan or home equity loan to buy a car to be a bad money manager, especially if they did it to avoid drawing down their large Roth IRA.