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Thread: Why is the average Joe car so ugly and boring compared to pre 60s?

  1. #16
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    60s, meh. 70s for Oz cars was pretty cool. Also the 70s BMWs were nice. 70s US Muscle cars looked cool. There are a lot of absolutely gorgeous modern cars though.
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    Egg Nogg 02-04-2005, 05:07 AM

  2. #17
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    An interesting take on the whole shebang (from the American perspective): My mother claims cars were more recognizable 60 years ago. I analyze decades and disagree (Part 1) - Newark Classic cars | Examiner.com

    Fleet, comparing domestics to imports from the '60s is apples and oranges; they weren't selling in the same market class. The Japanese sold compacts and the Americans sold anything but. Saying that they were easy to tell apart back in the day is a bit facile; a Suburban is still easy to differentiate from an iQ. In the years since the '60s, the Japanese and Germans have seen greater penetration in the American market and have started making cars in the larger classes that were previously only made by American companies. American companies have also gone smaller to meet the market, so now you have all those companies who previously made differently-sized cars co-mingling in the same market classes.
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  3. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Big time View Post
    Maybe

    - Downsizing and weight reduction including crappy materials


    The great big American cars of the '50s and '60s came about because we didn't know what we now know about materials science and mechanical engineering. So your average Joe Engineer would just design a car based on data from a book and toss in a heavy safety factor, and presto change-o, you have a hulking mass of candy paint and steel.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ferrer View Post
    The 80's are the single best decade for cars. By then they had gotten reliable and fast and were mostly well engineered; they drive like normal cars. They are cheap to buy and run for the most part. And best of all they still had the uniqueness that has been lost today.
    I half-agree. Like Lukeno52 said, the '90s represented the maturation of the dreams of the '80s. Look at the Audi Sport Quattro, for instance. It had hideous turbo lag and atrociously violent handling, whereas the Lancer Evolution and Impreza WRXs that came a decade or so later were less brutal yet still performed about as well.

    Plus Japan's awesome bubble economy kicked into high gear towards the cusp of 1990. What the Japanese didn't spend on property they spent on motorsports so we ended up with Honda Civics running high-revving VTEC engines, Toyota Corollas with twenty valve engines, Le Mans winning Wankel rotaries, and all that other really good stuff. The offerings in the '80s were nice, but the stuff in the '90s was better.
    I'm dropping out to create a company that starts with motorcycles, then cars, and forty years later signs a legendary Brazilian driver who has a public and expensive feud with his French teammate.

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by kingofthering View Post
    I half-agree. Like Lukeno52 said, the '90s represented the maturation of the dreams of the '80s. Look at the Audi Sport Quattro, for instance. It had hideous turbo lag and atrociously violent handling, whereas the Lancer Evolution and Impreza WRXs that came a decade or so later were less brutal yet still performed about as well.

    Plus Japan's awesome bubble economy kicked into high gear towards the cusp of 1990. What the Japanese didn't spend on property they spent on motorsports so we ended up with Honda Civics running high-revving VTEC engines, Toyota Corollas with twenty valve engines, Le Mans winning Wankel rotaries, and all that other really good stuff. The offerings in the '80s were nice, but the stuff in the '90s was better.
    I can see your point and agree to an extent, there are many excellent (early) 90's cars, amongst them pretty much all the Group A homologation specials, which come to think of it was a brilliant way of getting terrific road cars. Also, many of those were the brainchild of 80's ideas.

    However, in terms of uniqueness, differentiation and plain preposterous ideas with some of the most annoying quirks and reliability faults ironed out, the 80's are hard to beat. Think of those:

    • CX vs XM
    • 75 vs 155
    • Classic 900 vs NG 900
    • Rear wheel drive V8-engined SD1 vs Front wheel drive Honda 800-series
    • Light and agile MR2 vs Heavy and bloated MR2
    • 205 GTI vs 206 GTI
    • Golf II GTI vs Golf III GTI


    All of the 80's examples were better than their successors, they were more faithful to their roots and more different from each other, while the 90's cars tend to be soulless front wheel drive boxes which are fat and slow.
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  5. #20
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    Perhaps with those examples (although I'd take the 155 over the 75, and the XM is way better than the CX), but there are plenty of cases where I'd take the 1990s car over the 1980s one:

    Escort RS Cosworth over Sierra RS Cosworth
    Ferrari 355 over any of the older V8 Ferraris
    Renault Clio Williams over Renault 5 GT Turbo
    BMW M5 E39 over the older M5s
    Subaru Impreza WRX STI/Mitsubishi Evo over Audi Quattro
    McLaren F1 over pretty much anything
    Even things like the Renault Megane Coupe over the Renault 19, or the Laguna over the Renault 21.

  6. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lukeno52 View Post
    Perhaps with those examples (although I'd take the 155 over the 75, and the XM is way better than the CX), but there are plenty of cases where I'd take the 1990s car over the 1980s one:

    Escort RS Cosworth over Sierra RS Cosworth
    Ferrari 355 over any of the older V8 Ferraris
    Renault Clio Williams over Renault 5 GT Turbo
    BMW M5 E39 over the older M5s
    Subaru Impreza WRX STI/Mitsubishi Evo over Audi Quattro
    McLaren F1 over pretty much anything
    Even things like the Renault Megane Coupe over the Renault 19, or the Laguna over the Renault 21.
    I'm sorry, but I almost stopped reading when you said you preferred a Fiat Tipo over a proper rear wheel drive Alfa sports saloon.

    As I said, yes, there are some good nineties cars, in the same way that there are good cars today, but they all stray for uniformity. Thanks to ever tightening regulations, massive economies of scales (and the volumes associated with them) and fierce competition all cars tend to follow the same formulas and technical solution. Heck, even BMW will produce a front wheel drive car and the latest RenaultSport Clio is automatic only.

    I also like, in a way, the excess of the 80's. It is a decade when everything was possible, and no excess was too excessive or kitsch. We also saw the lairiest motorsport cars and the Group C regulations brought us the best endurance racing since the 50's. And as Pimento said, we topped the double ton.

    But anyway, my main point of fondness for the 80's is not crazy power outputs or out and out performance. What I really like about that decade is that mostly cars could cater to an individual needs through different technical solutions. Mercs were still grossly over engineered, Saab thought that what you needed most of all was a turbocharged front wheel drive hatchback, Alfa Romeo cared about weight distribution and handling and Citroën believed that massive barged with oleopneumatic suspension were all in.

    Let me put it this way, I would like to have a small collection of eighties cars, but I wouldn't have one of nineties cars.
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  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ferrer View Post
    Let me put it this way, I would like to have a small collection of eighties cars, but I wouldn't have one of nineties cars.
    Not even a tiny-tiny collection?

    Now I'm 99% sure that you are a bot. No human being can hate the 1990s so much.

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ferrer View Post
    Let me put it this way, I would like to have a small collection of eighties cars, but I wouldn't have one of nineties cars.
    Really? So you don't like the Mazda RX-7, neither of the R34 or R33 GT-Rs, the NSX or the McLaren F1?

    Wow, that's a real big blanket statement there.

    Personally, I think the 90's were the best for Japanese cars. The 80's were great too, but I think they really pulled together in the 90's.

    Haha, Revo, I think Ferrer is just being an old man again. And I thought I was an old thinking guy.

  9. #24
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    Ferrer just likes being different; he's the type to show up to a Sierra Cosworth meet in a Olds Cutlass Ciera.
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  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revo View Post
    Not even a tiny-tiny collection?

    Now I'm 99% sure that you are a bot. No human being can hate the 1990s so much.
    Oh no I've been discovered! Buy chinese discount supplies cheap galore blockbuster!!!!

    As I said, yes there are great 90's cars (as far as I'm concerned, the M5 E39 is the best sports saloon that has been made and will ever be), but I do not have the urge for them, at least now.

    There's another thing for 80's cars, they are plentiful and cheap.
    Quote Originally Posted by NSXType-R View Post
    Really? So you don't like the Mazda RX-7, neither of the R34 or R33 GT-Rs, the NSX or the McLaren F1?

    Wow, that's a real big blanket statement there.

    Personally, I think the 90's were the best for Japanese cars. The 80's were great too, but I think they really pulled together in the 90's.

    Haha, Revo, I think Ferrer is just being an old man again. And I thought I was an old thinking guy.
    I find rotary powered cars interesting from engineering point of view, but as an actual proposition I probably wouldn't have them; too much fuss in terms of liquids consumption and reliability. Same goes for the F1, nice car, but slightly unreachable.

    As for the Skyline, I can appreciate the witchcraftness of it, but I'm not the sort of chap that takes an interest on them.

    I definitely would have an NSX though.
    Quote Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13 View Post
    Ferrer just likes being different; he's the type to show up to a Sierra Cosworth meet in a Olds Cutlass Ciera.
    I would definitely do that. I'm the sort of chap who takes a fancy for Subaru because they have diesel boxer engines and stuff.
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
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  11. #26
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    I'm with Ferrer, there are more 'everyday' type cars in the 80s than the 90s that I want. The 90s had some great sportscars, but the average hatchback was just getting blobby and fat by the end.
    Life's too short to drive bad cars.

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