Cars are decreasing in quality because manufacturers are trying to cut down on cost of production. This has not always been the case for most manufacturers.
There's no doubt that cars of today are more fuel efficient and they require less maintenance than cars of the sixties and seventies.
The major problem of cars of today is the quality of materials used to make some components in a car. Examples are bumper, engine bays and interior part of cars.
The process of assembling all the components of most cars is automated and not hand assembled as they use to be. This also gives room for possible errors. Which decreases the overall quality of a car.