Maybe I’ve done a little bit of cherrypicking…and thrown in a couple bikes, but I think the point stands.
commies_get_out
When people refer to that fact that 80s cars sucked, they’re referring to ordinary passenger vehicles.
dbgzeus
American cars sucked in the 80’s, everyone else was doing fine.
MoparMonkey1
IROC-Z is missing
patricebergeron
These are all +3 standard deviation on the bell curve for 1980s cars. Cherry picking is putting it lightly.
jakestertx
Point taken
oracleofnonsense
Meh. Best “cars” from the ‘80s were SUVs.
Key_Analysis_9401
What’s your point? They all suck
Tovarich_Zaitsev
Aussie cars were on fire in the 80s, VL Turbos, XD and XE Falcons, VH and VK Commodores and of course the VN Commodore. It’s just American cars that were sucking in the 80s.
Fit_Purchase_1021
GNX is a dream car. Had an 87 grand national roll through my shop I got to cruise it across town to a specialist. Have had a hard on ever since.
jd2cylman
Honda 87/88 Magna are missing as well. Excellent cruiser bikes.
Illustrious-Set-9230
I had a ‘86 300E – total beast! Loved that car
SeattleBrother75
With the exception of the Natty and a few others, most American cars during the 80’s left a lot to be desired
Substantial_Diver_34
84 VW GTI 16v
Haunting_Bit_3613
I’m pretty sure a modern Civic type R will outrun that whole list.
discussatron
Midway through the decade, things had turned around and improved greatly. The 80s had some *outstanding* performance cars; the second half of the 80s, anyway.
MolonLabeMF
V Max will try to kill you!
godofwine16
#MITSUBISHI STARION
Biggycheesy2
My weird cars that i actually like are the mustang IIs, the 1980 Camaros, that look and Shelby chargers.
Lost_Yogurt_4990
I’ll take the Z and the Fox Box body
cateraide420
I don’t mean to be the boring guy at the party, but the “malaise” era was arguably the worst for the automobile industry. You can look up why. If we’re talking about design aspects and not engineering that’s subjective. I, myself, love some of the designs and some of the ones you’ve posted. My favorite bike of all time is the Bimota YB7. We also have to remember all of the research from every era is a lesson for future designs and engineering.
janzeera
Yeah, my brother lost his license speeding around in that Mustang. Hard to keep your foot off the pedal in that car. Plus it was red. He was just asking for it.
Big_Acanthaceae951
300zx is a 90s car.
Diogenes256
I was a service station attendant in the late 70s and early 80s as a kid in a small town. I pumped gas, changed oil, lubed chassis, fixed tires. Some observations: The domestic cars used to piss me off even as a child compared to European and Japanese cars. The interiors were so nice—they didn’t fall apart—at all! They had center consoles and really nice bucket seats. So many things were so obviously stubborn and dumb about American cars. As a kid that cleaned windshields, it really amazed me when the imports—all of them had wipers that could flip up and stay in a cleaning position. Impossible on domestics across the board. They were all under the edge of the hood and you could only lift the wiper a couple of inches. The doors, my god the doors were huge. You had to slam the shit out of them and that didn’t work. They all had the same crappy mechanism on every model. The import gas caps were logically placed with a nice high quality door. (Sometimes domestics had a cool gas cap setup hidden maybe behind the plate, but usually pretty bad) all of the hardware, panel gaps, just common sense engineering all over the place was garbage. There were cars that a mechanic could stand in front of the engine in the engine bay easily—I get that now for styling, I guess, but no. I seem to remember big Dodge and Chevy V8s with small single barrel carbs. Volvos actually were the first car I ever saw with a six digit odometer and it was a very big deal. I have always loved cars and I loved cool American ones that would pop up like Thunderbirds and the Toronado, maybe a Vette, but that almost never happened. Most of those cars were actually shameful. Falling apart right off the assembly line even when built to spec. I knew even as a kid that “Buy American” meant being somehow proud of garbage product and really just taking it in the shorts to let lazy industry limp along. Without foreign competition showing us a better way to do things it would not have changed. I’m not extrapolating to the current day or other machines although I do have opinions.
SicilianUSGuy
Sixth generation Mercury Cougar 1983-1988 were pretty sweet. Albeit they sucked in the snow (rear wheel drive), they were a quiet drive. Very comfortable and if you got lucky, had a wing window. The doors curved over the roofline, neat newish look. I liked the looks!
I_Command_Thee_KNEEL
My favorite car is an ‘87 Buick Grand National GNX
Longjumping_Drag2752
I’ve come around to late 70s malaise and early to mid 80s normal person cars. “Buicks, fords, Oldsmobiles, mercurys, and Chryslers” they’re boring looking yea, slow yea, but they are so comfy. Most get pretty good gas mileage. I’d drive one of those across the country any day.
It is certainly true that by the latter 80s all cars were getting some their performance back. It is also true that from 1974 through most of the 80s, the only cars with any real performance were too costly for anyone but the wealthy to afford, including most of the cars on your list.
It is also true that the Japanese car industry saved American cars. Even though performance and drivabilty for all mainstream cars was seriously compromised by emission regulations, the Japanese were showing the world how to build a high-quality product. What the Japanese did was to build mainstream cars whose quality was light years ahead of anyone else’s similar product. The rest of the world could either emulate the Japanese or die. Yes, those late 80s mustangs and Grand Nationals had some real giddyup, but their build quality and materials were abysmal, while the cheapest Toyota was built like a fine watch and would outlast any American car.
fivehunsky
The 80s was an incredible time in auto making. So many new technologies were coming out. A lot of really cool Cars were produced.
fiddlythingsATX
I think most of the 80s hate is on big 3 US cars, mostly passenger cars – the Germans were putting out some incredible stuff for the era. Also lot of the ones pictured here weren’t exactly common.
thegameristadotcom
Those are my favorite Mercedes models. So clean looking.
Either-Durian-9488
The spreadsheet warriors think these cars suck.
mr_lockwork
young_double
I fuck with the grand natty, the fastback, and the baby Benz.
Two4theworld
And only two are American.
Gold-Perspective5340
Ford Fiesta XR2 was an absolute scream and the Peugeot 205 GTi. At the other end of the scale, when it worked an XJ12 was always a beautiful car to drive/be driven in. Granted, they weren’t the “average car” but 80’s cars didn’t always suck.
ThirdSunRising
Ya missed the Ford Tempo
devilsbard
Fox body mustangs are still the ugliest mustangs. In fact, I think we’re mostly looking at these nostalgically because we are getting old. A lot of them are still the ugliest versions of their respective models.
![[MULTI] saw some wild prototypes at an exhibit](https://www.evshift.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/ubgl3auhr7ud1-770x515.png "[MULTI] saw some wild prototypes at an exhibit")
40 Comments
Maybe I’ve done a little bit of cherrypicking…and thrown in a couple bikes, but I think the point stands.
When people refer to that fact that 80s cars sucked, they’re referring to ordinary passenger vehicles.
American cars sucked in the 80’s, everyone else was doing fine.
IROC-Z is missing
These are all +3 standard deviation on the bell curve for 1980s cars. Cherry picking is putting it lightly.
Point taken
Meh. Best “cars” from the ‘80s were SUVs.
What’s your point? They all suck
Aussie cars were on fire in the 80s, VL Turbos, XD and XE Falcons, VH and VK Commodores and of course the VN Commodore. It’s just American cars that were sucking in the 80s.
GNX is a dream car. Had an 87 grand national roll through my shop I got to cruise it across town to a specialist. Have had a hard on ever since.
Honda 87/88 Magna are missing as well. Excellent cruiser bikes.
I had a ‘86 300E – total beast! Loved that car
With the exception of the Natty and a few others, most American cars during the 80’s left a lot to be desired
84 VW GTI 16v
I’m pretty sure a modern Civic type R will outrun that whole list.
Midway through the decade, things had turned around and improved greatly. The 80s had some *outstanding* performance cars; the second half of the 80s, anyway.
V Max will try to kill you!
#MITSUBISHI STARION
My weird cars that i actually like are the mustang IIs, the 1980 Camaros, that look and Shelby chargers.
I’ll take the Z and the Fox Box body
I don’t mean to be the boring guy at the party, but the “malaise” era was arguably the worst for the automobile industry. You can look up why.
If we’re talking about design aspects and not engineering that’s subjective. I, myself, love some of the designs and some of the ones you’ve posted. My favorite bike of all time is the Bimota YB7. We also have to remember all of the research from every era is a lesson for future designs and engineering.
Yeah, my brother lost his license speeding around in that Mustang. Hard to keep your foot off the pedal in that car. Plus it was red. He was just asking for it.
300zx is a 90s car.
I was a service station attendant in the late 70s and early 80s as a kid in a small town. I pumped gas, changed oil, lubed chassis, fixed tires. Some observations: The domestic cars used to piss me off even as a child compared to European and Japanese cars. The interiors were so nice—they didn’t fall apart—at all! They had center consoles and really nice bucket seats. So many things were so obviously stubborn and dumb about American cars. As a kid that cleaned windshields, it really amazed me when the imports—all of them had wipers that could flip up and stay in a cleaning position. Impossible on domestics across the board. They were all under the edge of the hood and you could only lift the wiper a couple of inches. The doors, my god the doors were huge. You had to slam the shit out of them and that didn’t work. They all had the same crappy mechanism on every model. The import gas caps were logically placed with a nice high quality door. (Sometimes domestics had a cool gas cap setup hidden maybe behind the plate, but usually pretty bad) all of the hardware, panel gaps, just common sense engineering all over the place was garbage. There were cars that a mechanic could stand in front of the engine in the engine bay easily—I get that now for styling, I guess, but no. I seem to remember big Dodge and Chevy V8s with small single barrel carbs. Volvos actually were the first car I ever saw with a six digit odometer and it was a very big deal. I have always loved cars and I loved cool American ones that would pop up like Thunderbirds and the Toronado, maybe a Vette, but that almost never happened. Most of those cars were actually shameful. Falling apart right off the assembly line even when built to spec. I knew even as a kid that “Buy American” meant being somehow proud of garbage product and really just taking it in the shorts to let lazy industry limp along. Without foreign competition showing us a better way to do things it would not have changed. I’m not extrapolating to the current day or other machines although I do have opinions.
Sixth generation Mercury Cougar 1983-1988 were pretty sweet. Albeit they sucked in the snow (rear wheel drive), they were a quiet drive. Very comfortable and if you got lucky, had a wing window. The doors curved over the roofline, neat newish look. I liked the looks!
My favorite car is an ‘87 Buick Grand National GNX
I’ve come around to late 70s malaise and early to mid 80s normal person cars. “Buicks, fords, Oldsmobiles, mercurys, and Chryslers” they’re boring looking yea, slow yea, but they are so comfy. Most get pretty good gas mileage. I’d drive one of those across the country any day.
I think you made an error here. [You didn’t include a Yugo.](https://www.reddit.com/r/JudgeMyRide/s/wpv2y7hw38) It’s ok I forgive you.
Only a collection like this one. 🔥⚡
It is certainly true that by the latter 80s all cars were getting some their performance back. It is also true that from 1974 through most of the 80s, the only cars with any real performance were too costly for anyone but the wealthy to afford, including most of the cars on your list.
It is also true that the Japanese car industry saved American cars. Even though performance and drivabilty for all mainstream cars was seriously compromised by emission regulations, the Japanese were showing the world how to build a high-quality product. What the Japanese did was to build mainstream cars whose quality was light years ahead of anyone else’s similar product. The rest of the world could either emulate the Japanese or die. Yes, those late 80s mustangs and Grand Nationals had some real giddyup, but their build quality and materials were abysmal, while the cheapest Toyota was built like a fine watch and would outlast any American car.
The 80s was an incredible time in auto making. So many new technologies were coming out. A lot of really cool Cars were produced.
I think most of the 80s hate is on big 3 US cars, mostly passenger cars – the Germans were putting out some incredible stuff for the era. Also lot of the ones pictured here weren’t exactly common.
Those are my favorite Mercedes models. So clean looking.
The spreadsheet warriors think these cars suck.
I fuck with the grand natty, the fastback, and the baby Benz.
And only two are American.
Ford Fiesta XR2 was an absolute scream and the Peugeot 205 GTi. At the other end of the scale, when it worked an XJ12 was always a beautiful car to drive/be driven in. Granted, they weren’t the “average car” but 80’s cars didn’t always suck.
Ya missed the Ford Tempo
Fox body mustangs are still the ugliest mustangs. In fact, I think we’re mostly looking at these nostalgically because we are getting old. A lot of them are still the ugliest versions of their respective models.