I think it was written by John Deloran, who was a big-wig at GM before he started his own failed car company. I think there was a chapter on the Vega, which, if my memory serves me correctly, was designed as a pretty "kick butt" small car, but the GM leadership started cutting corners to the point it turned into a neat little car with a craptacular engine. They eventually installed steel cylinder liners (as was initially designed), but it was too late to save the car.

Still remember reading a Car & Driver small car shootout, and the Vega was the best handling car in the bunch. It was also the slowest car in the bunch, but it's handling allowed it to finish third (out of seven) around the track. GM later built the "Iron Duke" 4-cylinder which was a decent engine. One has to wonder how the Vega would have turned out if it had a decent engine from the start. One thing some crazy owners started doing were engine transplants. Specifically 350 & 327 V8 transplants. Those were some really fast cars.