We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember The Natural Philosopher
saying something like:

Japanese cars didn't have dodgy electrics. British cars did.

Rubbish.

Oh they did.

I was there.

I fixed em.

And modified them so they would not.

I was there too, you know.

In general, the quality of most British vehicle electrics was superior
to Italian and Japanese, especially in the quality of the main wiring
loom. The real problem lay with clueless owners, as always.

The Italian faults didn't generally tend to be the wiring (although I've
seen a few FIATs on fire), but componentry and it cost an arm and leg to
replace Magnetti Marelli parts, they also had pretty crap light and
switch connectors /switchgear.

The Japanese were the first to introduce re-cycled copper in their
mass-market looms, which led to all sorts of mysterious faults in the
wiring in later years. It took a while for Japanese reliability to
become established - early on, in the main period we're referring to,
they were nothing special for reliability.
If the cost of Italian parts made an owner blanch, the pricetag
associated with Japanese electrical bits would lead to him passing out.

Fortunately, there were/are usually workarounds for a 'genuine' part.