I'll try to make my point a little better. I get annoyed when insults come out of left field. Usually it's the signal that I've won an argument. But we weren't arguing, so ... I'm confused. Things change. The worst car on the road today is better than the best in 1985. Japan has lost a step to the US. Germany is in the toilet. I'll give you all of that. Let's narrow the field. Ford. Today. Which vehicle is most likely to be reliable? Number one is the F-150. The last financial analysis of Ford that I read valued the F-150 business higher than the entire company. They can't let it fail, so it's going to get a lot of attention and resources along with the best engineers. What's number two? Where else is Ford allocating the very best engineers? There are clues. Having worked decades in corporate America, no guesswork is required. Ford made a huge bet on EVs. Not only did they drink the KoolAid, they helped mix it. That's where all the cool kids want to work, the future of the company, the future of the world.
That's where the big effort is going, along with the best people. The effort might even be so great as to threaten the F-150. What's left? The B team. The trainees. The FNGs. The diversity hires. That's the crew designing anything that isn't an F-150 or an EV. But they're on a tight budget. I wouldn't touch any Ford that's not an F-150 or a Lightning with a ten foot pole. And I wouldn't touch an EV with a ten foot pole. You can do what you want. If a Ranger is your dream vehicle, roll the dice. Why not? But you should always know the odds before you play.
Edit: 1985, not 1895.
Edit again. Forgot about diversity hires. Not that Ford would stoop to that!