all manufacturs have their faults, some it was cosmetic, some it was mechanical, they all suffer from it from time to time. look at the new chevy pickups, ugly as hell, dodge has the best motor with the cummins, in the heavy trucks, and fords look like a semi. and in the 80's i dont care, all cars sucked. as far as mechanical. thats part of the reason why i blew the motor in my 85 monte carlo ss, those 305's are junk, so i got an older 350 for it, knowing those will last a bit longer, but i had a old 302 that had 3 pistons cracked and no compression on them, and that thing still ran and i drove it for a few years like that. if you want a tough motor small block mopars would be the strongest. those in a durby car kill! they run cool, and if you loose your radiator they still will run. the chevy 350 was actually built around a ford flathead. and they took the faults of that motor and made it better, ford then copied that design along with mopar. ford changed the heads alot and they flow a little better. same with mopar. thats where chevy looses alot of power. any more, all motors are about equal. they all run the same, all last about the same length, the biggest thing now is going to be the hybrids and deseals. its just all a matter of personal preference. if i had any car though it would have to be a shelby cobra, or an old GT-40 (note: the only american car to win lamans, and did it in 1, 2 and 3 for a few years) or a Yenko Camaro or Nova.