Worst Car Decade? I Vote '70s.

thats only in America. The rest of the worlds auto production was put on hold for a little longer. Factories were destroyed. Design work halted for nearly a decade. European automakers took more than a few years after the war to get back on their feet. When they did resume production materials were hard to come by, economies were depressed so sales suffered.

a disaster of a decade all the way around.

 

Was never a big fan of the 80's and early 90's, boxy cars with zero design.

 

Are you saying that you prefer the lozenge (cough drop) shaped cars of the mid 90's and up?
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I always thought they looked like used bars of soap

To think, in the 80s this was a performance car.
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Great thread. I agree with the mid 70's-mid 80's crowd if you happened to live in NA. Guardrails front and back, primitive smog gear and worst of all, the end of annual stamping changes. Those who purchased (American) cars in the 50's and 60's, saw something every year which looked dramatically different, exciting stuff even if they were basically the same underneath. I can't imagine the devout from that age group being enthralled by the sight of new wheel covers five years in a row after witnessing complete restyles every year.

Not to hijack, but in what decade did the Europeans surpass the US in quality and advanced technology?

 

I say 1955 to 1965 - Mercedes 300SL while we made that Blue Flame 6 Corvette, Porsche from the 356 and then the first 911s, Jaguar XKE, VW beetle lit the economy car fire, and so on. Yes, American cars had them out-powered in general, but that was cubic inches, not technology.

 

Funny, as I was reading this thread, I had the same thought. Then, I thought about it a little more. I think 80-85 trumps anything, you can keep the 70's. There is just too much terrible about those five years, who needs to add another five?

 

I agree with that pretty much. Since the question was for a full decade though I figured I would push it back a bit to the VERY END of the muscle car era and go 10 years forward which covers most of that time, hence '73-'83... '75-'85 might be more fitting though... Cars REALLY sucked at that time! They got TERRIBLE gas mileage AND made NO HP! Most were barely crash worthy and if they lasted more than about 100k miles you would just count yourself lucky.

James
Austin, TX