Well, years ago I was in my home, and heard shouting outside. Go to window and look out, there is a Mk1 Ford Escort 1600 Sport stopped at the light, with smoke coming from the engine bay. Pick up the phone right there and call the fire department. While dialling there is a tow truck driver there with a dry powder fire extinguisher, aiming it under the bonnet to try to put out the fire. fire deparment answers, and, before i could even finish giving them the address of the vehicle both driver and tow operator were running away from the rapidly spreading pool of fire that had suddenly appeared. Still on the phone and first the one front wheel exploded, then the other. Put down the phone and watch the show, around 30 seconds later the fire is at the rear, and growing, and there are another 2 bangs before the spare pops open the rear. Glass breaks from the heat, interior well aflame, and after 3 minutes the fire brigade roars up, to put out the remains to protect the road.
Those early 1600 Escorts, and pretty much every ford with the same engine, had a well known fault, in that the fuel line ran right over the exhaust going to the carburettor, and if there was a fuel leak, or the hose rotted from the heat, you would have a fire. I made sure after that to check and replace fuel lines on my vehicles, so that I would not suffer the same fate.
But, my Ford/Mazda, with the Ford CVH engine, was pretty reliable, did the clutch on it, rebuilt the engine, did CV joints, did lifters and cambelts, and the only stock fault they had was a weakness in the ignition module, which might fail after a few years of being toasted on the distributor. I carried both a spare tested module, a 7mm spanner and a little pack of white grease in the vehicle, and had another completely rebuilt distributor in the tool box at home as well. Those modules were cheap as pattern parts, around $7, so were not an issue to keep.