I think his point was more along the lines that "honda did it first"
Sure you had toyota, but it was by all rights, a fluke that their crap was anywhere near as reliable as anything else. And it wasn't until they were half way established that they even started to make cars that could handle more than 100K.
AND, more to the point.
Only the cheap shit got exported to other countries. They sent the econobox reliable cars over here to compete with the big fat domestic cars of the time.
And technically, looking at history, the only reason it paid off is because of the first "oil crisis" when everyone jumped out of their built like a tank cars and into the cheap toyotas.
Honda was actually one of the few that would have survived without that happening.
My personal 2 cents, toyota would have failed, or at the very least, been a minor player in the game if it wasn't for that time period.
So yeah, in effect, they all did it, but many of them did it out of change, not out of planning. Honda seemed to be the only one that actually built their company around that plan. Hyundai did the same. But, just like "back in the day" If the price of a gallon didn't jump up over 3 bucks, pushing 4 bucks a gallon years ago, Do you think Hyundai would be where it is now?
Things we think about....