In a couple of entries under the "transportation" tag, I've kvetched about GM in the past.
This tasty number comes to mind. Well, PRI's This American Life has answered a lot of my nagging questions about how GM came to become such a sprawling crap factory in their recent episode,
NUMMI.
It turns out that GM had the opportunity to learn from Toyota's success way back in 1984, but only a fraction of their workers embraced the lessons learned from that venture. If you've ever wonder why the quality of American-built cars suffers to this day, you really must hear this story.