Kinda on the same subject but a little different. One of my conspiracy theories:-).
When gas went so "high" at the time there were many that commuted long distances for work. Yes they had gas guzzlers. But along comes Toyota and Datsun giving twice the gas mileage as American cars. Many commuters bought one just for the savings on gas. Not only that they were racking up many more thousands of miles than the American counterparts without the costs of maintenance and parts. They were lasting far longer and required less maintenance than US vehicles. American cars were needing maintenance at 40000miles where the Japanese were going to 80000. Word got out and Toyotas and Nissans are very popular cars today. Japanese car makers never heard of "planned obsolescence" and it took GM Ford etc years to learn that lesson. In the meantime the cat was out of the bag so to speak.
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