volvo

A Swedish car company, currently owned by Ford, that in the 1960s got a reputation for making safe, reliable, and mostly ugly (except for the 1800 series, Volvo's only good looking car, made from 1959-74, and most known as the car Roger Moore drove in The Saint TV series) cars. The quality took a huge nosedive in about 1975 like the quality of many other cars. Almost overnight Volvos became completely unreliable and prone to breaking down almost on a daily basis. For some reason, Volvo's reputation amongst consumers wasn't affected much for years. They coasted on their reputation for what seemed like two decades, of course people unlucky enough to buy one would know that any Volvo made after 1974 is a pile of crap best suited for a junkyard. Not until the Japanese entered the luxury car market in the 1990s did people start to realize what pieces of shit Volvos were, and as a result their target market largely started buying Lexus and Acura. One of THE most expensive cars to repair, and you'll need to repair it often.