The Sorry State of Affairs in Automobilia in the 1970s, 80s and 90s

[PHLBOS]

BTW, your Taurus pic isn't showing up.

I've since replaced the pic. with another one.  Does it show up now?

Nope. Just an "Image hosted by Tripod" panel.

I've since replaced that Tripod photo with one from Wikipedia taken at the Henry Ford Museum.  Hopefully, that one will remain viewable.  That's the 2nd time I've had to redirect/replace a photo of the 1986 Taurus.

[Max Rockatansky]

Documentary on the AMC Pacer:

[GCrites]

I've since replaced that Tripod photo with one from Wikipedia taken at the Henry Ford Museum.  Hopefully, that one will remain viewable.  That's the 2nd time I've had to redirect/replace a photo of the 1986 Taurus.
[/quote]

I blame Robocop.

[Max Rockatansky]

I've since replaced that Tripod photo with one from Wikipedia taken at the Henry Ford Museum.  Hopefully, that one will remain viewable.  That's the 2nd time I've had to redirect/replace a photo of the 1986 Taurus.

I blame Robocop.
[/quote]

This is the commercial for the Taurus we should have gotten:

Came out better than the 6000 SUX Commercial did:

[D-Dey65]

BTW, your Taurus pic isn't showing up.

I've since replaced the pic. with another one.  Does it show up now?

Nope. Just an "Image hosted by Tripod" panel.

I've since replaced that Tripod photo with one from Wikipedia taken at the Henry Ford Museum.  Hopefully, that one will remain viewable.  That's the 2nd time I've had to redirect/replace a photo of the 1986 Taurus.

Thanks.  Wow, that thing is in really nice shape!

I used to like the Taurus until they changed over to the bug-faced model in 1996. Bleagh! After this, I started to appreciate the 1991-96 Chevy Caprice. And I thought there wouldn't be anything uglier until the 2002-2005 Hyundai Sonata! I'd rather drive a Pontiac Aztek than either of those.

[Max Rockatansky]

BTW, your Taurus pic isn't showing up.

I've since replaced the pic. with another one.  Does it show up now?

Nope. Just an "Image hosted by Tripod" panel.

I've since replaced that Tripod photo with one from Wikipedia taken at the Henry Ford Museum.  Hopefully, that one will remain viewable.  That's the 2nd time I've had to redirect/replace a photo of the 1986 Taurus.

Thanks.  Wow, that thing is in really nice shape!

I used to like the Taurus until they changed over to the bug-faced model in 1996. Bleagh! After this, I started to appreciate the 1991-96 Chevy Caprice. And I thought there wouldn't be anything uglier until the 2002-2005 Hyundai Sonata! I'd rather drive a Pontiac Aztek than either of those.

I believe the analogy you are looking for with the post 96 Taurus is "jelly bean" styling.   I seem to recall that term for late 90s styling started to catch on as time went by.

Pontiac Aztek you say?

I remember visiting my sister up at MSU in East Lansing and saw a GM tester Aztek in the parking lot at Meijer.  I think my commentary on it at the time was that it looked like someone took a pick axe to the front clip.  Got to love that nasty hard plastic grey body moldings for an extra tinge of ugliness....even harder to believe that made it over the Chevy Avalanche years later.   

[cpzilliacus]

That was one tough, reliable engine.  I think they ran forever.  Probably emissions killed it along with weight. 

The old Chrysler slant 6 paired with the 727 transmission was another tough combination.  Back then we used to always say Chrysler had 200,000 mile power trains in 50,000 mile bodies.   

I had a 1981 Ford pickup truck with the 300 CID (4.9L)  straight six with carburetor.

I also had a 1990 Ford Bronco, same motor, with fuel injection.

The difference between a carburetor and fuel injection was dramatic - the injection provided more power and better fuel economy.

Unfortunately, Ford stopped building that 4.9L motor, which was stout in terms of torque and bulletproof in terms of reliability.

That was one tough, reliable engine.  I think they ran forever.  Probably emissions killed it along with weight. 

The old Chrysler slant 6 paired with the 727 transmission was another tough combination.  Back then we used to always say Chrysler had 200,000 mile power trains in 50,000 mile bodies.

Yes, I think emissions reduction requirements killed the Ford 300 CID (4.9L) I-6 and the Mopar 225 CID (3.7 L) Slant Six, though the Ford motor held on into the 1990's before it was discontinued. 

[Stephane Dumas]

Yes, I think emissions reduction requirements killed the Ford 300 CID (4.9L) I-6 and the Mopar 225 CID (3.7 L) Slant Six, though the Ford motor held on into the 1990's before it was discontinued. 

The Ford straight six menaged to get a longer lifespan in Australia who was even available in turbo-charged version. http://fordsix.com/archive/OZsixes.php http://www.classicinlines.com/history.asp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_straight-six_engine

[Max Rockatansky]

This has to be by far the worst car I've driven in the last ten years:

I had one in a rental trip to San Diego back in 2010.  The driver's door latch actually broke and I couldn't get the door closed without a lot of trying.  I spent the whole weekend climbing out the passenger door and looking like an idiot.

[Max Rockatansky]

Documentary on the Chrysler Turbine cars:

Love the bits about the "hybrid" powertrain in the beginning, the Highway of Tomorrow and nuclear powered cars leading a meltdown on Main Street. 

[D-Dey65]

I believe the analogy you are looking for with the post 96 Taurus is "jelly bean" styling.   I seem to recall that term for late 90s styling started to catch on as time went by.

No, I meant "Bug-faced."


I wish I had a better example.

Pontiac Aztek you say?

I stand by my previous statement.

[Max Rockatansky]

It just dawned on me looking at the Aztek still shot that it doesn't have a fuel cap lid...what's up with that?  Yeah now I see the bug face look, extra classy with the ovid styling on the rest of the Taurus.  I seem to recall people were upset about the conservative styling and review falling way the Accord in addition to Camry.

[PHLBOS]

I used to like the Taurus until they changed over to the bug-faced model in 1996. Bleagh!

You're not the only one.  Prior to the '96 redesign, the Taurus was the best selling new car for a few years.  Midway through the '96 model year; many at Ford realized that what worked for '86 (making a daring, bold move with styling) backfired when they tried it again a decade later.

[briantroutman]

If you're interested in Taurii (I'm not, particularly, but I enjoy a good business drama), check out the book Car by Mary Walton. The author was "embedded"  with the 1996 Taurus team for its two-year development cycle, and her account goes into incredible detail on the benchmarks, decisions, and personalities that made the ovoid Taurus–for better or worse–what it is.

[GCrites]

I used to like the Taurus until they changed over to the bug-faced model in 1996. Bleagh!

You're not the only one.  Prior to the '96 redesign, the Taurus was the best selling new car for a few years.  Midway through the '96 model year; many at Ford realized that what worked for '86 (making a daring, bold move with styling) backfired when they tried it again a decade later.

I had a friend who drove one of those. She called it the "Clitaurus" since it had so many bean shapes.

[Max Rockatansky]

Some new Motorweek Retro reviews came out today.

1990 Corvette ZR1

-  Holy crap 4.3 to 60mph and 12.8 1/4 mile time is fantastic for 1990 standards.

1990 GM W-bodies

[Max Rockatansky]

Still would have beat the Pontiac 1000/Chevy Chevette in a drag race:

[GCrites]

1990 GM W-bodies

They sold a trillion of those. Almost none are left on the road -- maybe a Lumina or two. A major difference between the '80s and up and say the '60s is that there are some mainstream cars that you'll never see again once they are 20-25 years old.

[formulanone]

1990 GM W-bodies

They sold a trillion of those. Almost none are left on the road -- maybe a Lumina or two. A major difference between the '80s and up and say the '60s is that there are some mainstream cars that you'll never see again once they are 20-25 years old.

I'm not exactly sure if they're still in production, but 2014 and 2015 W-body Impalas still roam the rental car lots. And that's the nicest thing I can say about them.

Reading through this thread, it seems that so many of these excrescences are American cars. That said, its easy to pick on these old vehicles, of which probably 90% of them aren't running any longer (save the ZR-1 Corvettes, other sporty specials) and declare them crap against today's best. That's what we had, and it's today's hulking masses which have improved technology and power, but increased mass and limited gains in fuel economy because of that imbalance.

The automotive press usually has very little nice to say about any vehicle once the next model appears, unless they totally miss the boat on everything with the newest iteration.

[GCrites]

1990 GM W-bodies

They sold a trillion of those. Almost none are left on the road -- maybe a Lumina or two. A major difference between the '80s and up and say the '60s is that there are some mainstream cars that you'll never see again once they are 20-25 years old.

I'm not exactly sure if they're still in production, but 2014 and 2015 W-body Impalas still roam the rental car lots. And that's the nicest thing I can say about them.

Oh, I was referring to the '89-'96 generation.

[Max Rockatansky]

Here's something different:

I remember my Dad had to get rid of the Caravan when it came out in 1985..he actually had to wait until 1987 to not go underwater.  That was actually one of the few mini-vans that actually was somewhat "manly" looking and that along with the 4.3L V6 was the reason he got it.  That thing had a crap ton of utility, we even had a rigged up TV/VHS combo for road trips down south.  Strange to think that Chrysler was so far ahead with the front drive platform back in those days....those vans along with the K Car probably are the reason they are still around.  I would kill to see a RWD bulky Mini-Van like the Astro these days...possibly with a V8 option...but alas I think the CUV crowd has consumed the market.  About the closest we ever really got to the Sports-Van was the R-Class R63 AMG.

[Max Rockatansky]

1990 GM W-bodies

They sold a trillion of those. Almost none are left on the road -- maybe a Lumina or two. A major difference between the '80s and up and say the '60s is that there are some mainstream cars that you'll never see again once they are 20-25 years old.

I'm not exactly sure if they're still in production, but 2014 and 2015 W-body Impalas still roam the rental car lots. And that's the nicest thing I can say about them.

Reading through this thread, it seems that so many of these excrescences are American cars. That said, its easy to pick on these old vehicles, of which probably 90% of them aren't running any longer (save the ZR-1 Corvettes, other sporty specials) and declare them crap against today's best. That's what we had, and it's today's hulking masses which have improved technology and power, but increased mass and limited gains in fuel economy because of that imbalance.

The automotive press usually has very little nice to say about any vehicle once the next model appears, unless they totally miss the boat on everything with the newest iteration.

The W-Body Impala Limited is still available through fleet sales until the end of the 2016 model year and then it's done.  Safe to say that GM really got it's money's worth out of the platform with almost 30 years of production runs on it.  It actually had some diamonds in the rough like the LS3 Grand Prix/Impala/Monte Carlo and the Pontiac Grand Prix GTP.  My sister actually had a 97 GTP in college and for the time it was pretty damn fast being a 14.5 car with the 240hp on top of 3,400 pounds of curb weight. 

Personally I actually find the 70s, 80s and 90s cars more fascinating because they are less known in addition to all the compromises that were made for safety, economy or emissions.  Every once in awhile you really find a true diamond in the rough that was way ahead of it's time and would probably make an intriguing collector's piece on the cheap.  The real disparity in reputation is with the muscle car era cars...at least in the form they existed in stock.  Those were cars that were built before the change in 72 to net horsepower so the numbers they present in gross don't stack up to a lot modern mundane vehicles.  Not to mention they were absolutely terrible in regards to economy, emissions and worst of all safety.  There are so many of those cars that had rear drum setups trying whoa down big blocks or high output small blocks.

That's not to say that the muscle cars are junk or worthless because they aren't.  The one thing they have that the 70s, 80s and 90s cars won't for most part is style and feel that you were in something powerful...whether that was actually true or not.  The 70s, 80s and 90s cars with some exceptions like say the Grand National, Corvette in addition to some other rare models always felt like a compromise.  Automakers had so many things working against them in the post OPEC era...whether it be escalating gas prices or ever increasing federal standards for safety.  The great irony is that a lot of the weight increases you see today are from federally mandated increases in safety standards....air bags ain't light on curb weight...  It really begs the question with increased CAFE standards around the corner...is the end of the second muscle car era around the corner?  How can automakers sustain 400-500hp cars in such numbers with 54.5MPG CAFE looming?  I don't think any amount of low volume models, hybrids, trickery or engineering advances in the next decade can compete with that number...

[jwolfer]

1990 GM W-bodies

They sold a trillion of those. Almost none are left on the road -- maybe a Lumina or two. A major difference between the '80s and up and say the '60s is that there are some mainstream cars that you'll never see again once they are 20-25 years old.

I'm not exactly sure if they're still in production, but 2014 and 2015 W-body Impalas still roam the rental car lots. And that's the nicest thing I can say about them.

Reading through this thread, it seems that so many of these excrescences are American cars. That said, its easy to pick on these old vehicles, of which probably 90% of them aren't running any longer (save the ZR-1 Corvettes, other sporty specials) and declare them crap against today's best. That's what we had, and it's today's hulking masses which have improved technology and power, but increased mass and limited gains in fuel economy because of that imbalance.

The automotive press usually has very little nice to say about any vehicle once the next model appears, unless they totally miss the boat on everything with the newest iteration.

The W-Body Impala Limited is still available through fleet sales until the end of the 2016 model year and then it's done.  Safe to say that GM really got it's money's worth out of the platform with almost 30 years of production runs on it.  It actually had some diamonds in the rough like the LS3 Grand Prix/Impala/Monte Carlo and the Pontiac Grand Prix GTP.  My sister actually had a 97 GTP in college and for the time it was pretty damn fast being a 14.5 car with the 240hp on top of 3,400 pounds of curb weight. 

Personally I actually find the 70s, 80s and 90s cars more fascinating because they are less known in addition to all the compromises that were made for safety, economy or emissions.  Every once in awhile you really find a true diamond in the rough that was way ahead of it's time and would probably make an intriguing collector's piece on the cheap.  The real disparity in reputation is with the muscle car era cars...at least in the form they existed in stock.  Those were cars that were built before the change in 72 to net horsepower so the numbers they present in gross don't stack up to a lot modern mundane vehicles.  Not to mention they were absolutely terrible in regards to economy, emissions and worst of all safety.  There are so many of those cars that had rear drum setups trying whoa down big blocks or high output small blocks.

That's not to say that the muscle cars are junk or worthless because they aren't.  The one thing they have that the 70s, 80s and 90s cars won't for most part is style and feel that you were in something powerful...whether that was actually true or not.  The 70s, 80s and 90s cars with some exceptions like say the Grand National, Corvette in addition to some other rare models always felt like a compromise.  Automakers had so many things working against them in the post OPEC era...whether it be escalating gas prices or ever increasing federal standards for safety.  The great irony is that a lot of the weight increases you see today are from federally mandated increases in safety standards....air bags ain't light on curb weight...  It really begs the question with increased CAFE standards around the corner...is the end of the second muscle car era around the corner?  How can automakers sustain 400-500hp cars in such numbers with 54.5MPG CAFE looming?  I don't think any amount of low volume models, hybrids, trickery or engineering advances in the next decade can compete with that number...

I would like more diesels here in the USA but with while vw emissions  scandal it's not gonna happen. They can get 45 50 mpg.

Speaking of VW i really likes the Eurovan looked really manly to me but they were overpriced. The routan is just a friggin caravan. 

I saw a Eurovan in New York on eBay motors that gave me a boner, it was a Eurovan weekender(the semi camper) with a TDI and a 5 speed.. apparently it was imported from Germany by original owner, even had km/h speedometer. The ad said it was street legal etc

[8.Lug]

Those days were suck city.  It all was started in 1971 when compression started coming down because of low to no lead.  Then in 1973 the looks went away with the 5 mph bumper, then 1975 the catalytic converters started putting the nails in the coffin.  From there with only a few exceptions it was all down hill compounded by the oil embargo.  A lot of the cars then became performance cars by just adding some paint, letters, and/or numbers.  Almost all were dogs and fell apart.

What I remember is that GM/Ford/Mopar's only trick was throwing more cubes at an engine to make power instead of actually doing some R&D. And now I still hear people talking about how all those restrictions somehow were the reason they were so down on power - even though the europeans and the japanese had no problem at all making power with these very same restrictions.

The restrictions weren't at fault, the Big-3 were.

[Max Rockatansky]

Well a lot of corporate arrogance came into play during the 70s and 80s with the American automakers.  Basically they didn't want to build small cars or invest in them because they were low on the profit margins.  So basically they did so many cost cutting measures, hardly did any really R&D and worst of all let platforms last way past their expiration date.  I mean hell...could anyone really imagine an F-body lasting for 11 years or a Corvette platform for 15?...that's what was happening post OPEC.  So basically you had overweight, under-powered and outdated cars that opened the door for Japanese/European to exploit the small car markets.  The leg up the Europeans and Japanese had was that they had a lot of engineering already done with smaller cars in their home markets.

The real amazing thing is to listen to some of the sales numbers thrown out during those Motorweek videos as the years press on.  I want to say it was the 1991 Toyota line where they talk about them possibly going past one million sales for the first time and having 6% market share.  Basically the Big Three....even AMC kept turning out the same crap that people didn't want through the 70s and were below the standard in the newer markets they tried to crack into by the 80s then 90s.  About the only real success that any of the Big Three had in making something small like compact or a new class was Chrysler with the K Car in addition to Mini-Van.  The Big Three thought people would stay loyal no matter what...no matter how much quality really fell behind hey finally lost enough market share to drive GM and Chrysler to bankruptcy.  The good news is that you have American, European and Asian automakers all playing on a much more level field.  That's nothing but a win for the consumer because it drives competition for improvements...that atmosphere didn't exist in the 1970s.

That Eurovan sounds like a rare bird, out of curiosity what were they asking?  Despite the VW scandal I really think that diesel has finally found a small niche in the States.  Even the emissions scandal were not talking anything near the debacle of some early American diesel attempts....the Olds diesel comes to mind..   A lot of small truck and SUV buyers swear by diesel already...I would imagine it will continue to translate over to people who are particularly interested in European cars in the short term.  Besides the way I see the Volkswagen Diesel scandal is kind of similar to the GM Ignition Recalls, Ford and Hyndai fudging mileage numbers and some of the other recent scandals....completely overblown in comparison things like exploding Pintos of yesteryear.