Edmunds.com | Inside Line | Auto Observer Your Account | Help | Directory
You are here:
![[F]](http://a332.g.akamai.net/f/332/936/12h/www.edmunds.com/media/townhall/webxicons/site.gif){kind=small}
Forums
Automotive News & Views Inside Line Article Comments Edmunds turns 40 - guess the most significant car from each year!
349 messages, Last post on Feb 27, 2007 at 5:26 AM
You are in the Inside Line Article Comments Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
Edmunds Most Significant Vehicles, 1966-2006
|
Replying to: xwesx (Jul 24, 2006 10:46 pm) |
|
|
For a decent '80s entry...the 1981 DeLorean DMC-12. Seemed to capture the zeitgeist of the 1980s so perfectly! 
|
|
|
Replying to: 210delray (Jul 24, 2006 7:14 pm) Also, those old Volvo 240 DLs or whatever they called them were considerably smaller inside than something like an Aspen/Volare, and still had that spartan, bleak, European look to the interior that still turned alot of people off. I remember they had a really high beltline too, and just seemed like something out of the 60's, even if they were all-new for '75. In fact, I'd always thought they WERE just facelifted 60's cars! As for the '85 Maxima, maybe it couldn't be a BMW competitor because of the drive wheels, but I do remember it certainly became a BMW competitor when it comes to poseurism! The 1981-84 810/Maximas were almost invisible, but suddenly those '85-88 Maximas seemed EVERYWHERE! It's like if you couldn't afford a BMW, you got a Maxima. I guess they were alot of car for the money, too. My old 1985 Consumer Guide lists them at around $14K, and that's just about fully loaded. I think the only option was the tranny. The 318 started at over $16K for a stripper. I guess the main reason I like the 1983 Camry is that I can fit comfortably in the front seat of it, yet, with that seat all the way back, can still sit in the back. I wasn't able to do that with the Accord until the 2003 generation! So to me they were in a different league, but maybe to the average buyer they weren't. I guess in 1983 terms, to me at least, comparing a 1983 Accord to a 1983 Camry is like comparing a Cavalier to a Citation back then. I also agree that 1985 was when GM started to lose it. Their best cars by that time were the ones that had first been introduced 7-8 years before. If nothing else, I guess that reinforces how groundbreaking the '77 big cars were! As for trucks, I agree that the 1980 F-series was a major step from the previous style, but I think Ford was about 7-8 years late to the game here. I think the 1972 Dodge was the truck that finally brought pickups out of the 60's, and the '73 Chevy/GMC took it much, much further, with a nicer, more car-like interior, better seats, more interior room, etc. I had an opportunity to sit in a 1980 F-150 recently, and I don't see it as an improvement over the '73-87 Chevy/GMC trucks. Ergonomically I'd say it was worse...dashboard was a designer's nightmare, seats seemed thinner, and the cab just seemed more cramped. At least, comparing standard-cab to standard-cab. Ford did offer an extended cab, which GM didn't offer until 1988. Now the F-150 certainly looked modern in 1980, with that prow-shaped front-end and wedged-back headlights slightly reminiscent of a '75-76 Caprice, and its crisp, angular styling. And the 300 straight six was bulletproof, possibly moreso than Chevy's 250 inline six. But I think all that redesign did was finally make it a worthy competitor to Chevy/GMC, as opposed to setting the new standard for pickups. |
|
|
Replying to: andre1969 (Jul 23, 2006 10:26 am) I think the Big 3 were getting leery at this point about trumpeting HUGE hp numbers.
|
|
|
Replying to: au1994 (Jul 25, 2006 8:32 am) I remember an old Popular Mechanics issue where they tested out a 1968 or so Ford, Mopar, and Olds to see what kind of hp numbers they really put out at the wheels. I can't remember what Ford or Olds they tested though, although I remember the Mopar being a 340 with 275 gross hp. The 340 actually put out the closest to its rated hp, somewhere around 240-250, IIRC, and is actually about what that engine would have been rated in NET hp! So for it to put out almost that much at the wheels shows it must've been really under-rated. I think the Ford put out about what its net hp would've been. Or about a 20-25% loss over gross. The Olds was the biggest disappointment though, I think it only put out about 60% of its gross rating at the wheels. I'm not sure about the Ford engines, but I know the 340 was under-rated on purpose because otherwise it made some of Mopars big-blocks look a bit embarrassing. What year did the insurance companies really start cracking down on high performance cars? Was it 1970? 1971?
|
|
|
Replying to: andre1969 (Jul 25, 2006 8:48 am) 
|
|
|
Replying to: au1994 (Jul 25, 2006 9:38 am) Wouldn't dropping the compression ratio cause the hp to drop? Or is what I found out here simply evidence of how they would get a little "creative" with the hp numbers back then? I remember the Mopar 225-1bbl slant six stayed at the same compression ratio around that timeframe, which was something like 8.4:1. And its hp was 145 in 1968 and 1971, and 110 in 1972 under the net system. So I wonder if with something like the 318, perhaps it really did have 230 hp in 1968, but when the compression got cut maybe it went down to something like 200-210, and they just didn't bother to advertise that fact? I just thought it was interesting that in the gross-to-net transition, the slant six only lost about 24% of its hp (110/145), while the 318 lost about 35% (150/230). Or did bigger engines just tend to lose a larger percentage in the gross-to-net transition anyway? For instance, I think the Chevy 307-2bbl went from 200 to 130, a 35% loss. And the 350-2bbl went from around 250 to 165, about a 34% loss. But then some under-rated engines, like the Mopar 340, only lost about 11%, dropping from around 275 to 245 hp.
|
|
|
Replying to: andre1969 (Jul 25, 2006 10:24 am) That and it was not a badge of honor anymore to have pavement shredding power as a selling point. |
|
| My vote goes to the Saab 900 Turbo convertible, which, along with the GM buyout, could be one of the only reasons Saab is still alive today. | |
| ...I'd nominate the Cadillac Seville STS - the car that began Cadillac's revival. | |
You are here:
Forums
Automotive News & Views Inside Line Article Comments Edmunds turns 40 - guess the most significant car from each year!
