I agree.
Unfortunately the 1.6 I bought, which was a rep's car and so falls into the 'safe' category, belonged to an internationally famous name in the hair care industry and I found out where they saved the pennies. There were some rings left in that engine, but not many. The guy who exchanged it for a 2 litre had to go up three sizes in pistons when he bored it.
The moral of the tale, which modern drivers don't understand is that they don't realise how lucky they are. It was routine to have alternators and starters fail regularly and when they invented pre-engaged starters it was always the solenoids that took the whack.
Ignition systems didn't like the cold and damp and once Piranha after market electronic ignitions became fashionable in the '70's it was still the HT side that went out of flunter. Most mechanical auto-advance and vacuum-advance systems never got 'serviced' and performance suffered like crazy.
Auto-choke systems didn't work on the first cold mornings of the year and then all the neighbour's car batteries went dead with all the cranking. Wheel bearings and ball-joints didn't last forever like they do these days (can't believe I just typed that) and a four-year-old car had more rust than steel.
Friend's grandkids don't know they are born, their little 'first cars' will still be going in 20 years time; my ten year old first car was on its last legs bodily and the rest wasn't far behind. I knew the big ends were going and had a new set in the boot when all hell broke loose on the M6 one dark and rainy night.
I just drove it onto a couple of bricks, got underneath on the hard shoulder and pulled it all apart. I called the AA because I didn't have a torque wrench nor any oil and when the guy arrived he couldn't believe what he was seeing. But, that's how you had to keep your cars running back then.
And we think the odd thing going wrong these days is the end of the world 😎