I'm in danger of going off topic now, but I have to defend Merkur's quality both the Xr4ti and Scorpio are great cars when you compare them to other cars of their era...my '88 XR is a daily driver, will eat 5 liters all day, gets great gas mileage and is pretty darn crash worthy (personal experience unfortunately).
And I totally agree with the comment about Toyotas...look at the mid 80's Celica's....UGLY.