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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
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Edmunds Most Significant Vehicles, 1966-2006
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I know the '94 Mustang has already been mentioned a couple of times, but thought of another reason for its inclusion: It was the car that ushered in the era of retro styling. From what I can remember, it was the first car that incorporated retro styling themes. Now, just about every domestic car company (and a few imports) has some retro-themed vehicles, but at the time, it was a pretty radical departure from the prevailing soap-bubble orthodoxy. |
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The 94 Mustang was merely their deciding to get back to normal after the disaster of the mid 80s. The car that started the current retro trend, of course, was the New Beetle.
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Replying to: plekto (Jul 31, 2006 9:33 am) Mid-1980s were hardly disaster times for the Mustang. Style-wise, it was right for the times and fit right in while maintaining the Mustang ideal. |
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You seriously are talking about this?: http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.jsp?car_id=205846113 It was a castrated piece of tin compared to the previous Mach 1ear machines. No power, horrible reliability, small, and very clumsy handling. Compared to a Z or a Trans Am, it was a total piece of junk. http://www.mustangspecs.com/years/85.shtml Nasty, though not horrible. http://www.mustangspecs.com/years/78.shtml Of course, this was even worse. Possibly the worst excuse for the name ever. Heavy and no power. A stock Buick Riviera could eat it for lunch. Shoot, a Volvo 240 was faster, with 20+ more HP and several hundred less pounds. The early 90s looked sort of like an older model, but it was only skin deep. My cousin has one and it's nothing like the old classic ones.
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I'd say the 1994 Ram is what really started a retro trend. Sure, it was a truck and not a car, but the lines tend to blur these days. I'd say the Beetle is more of a continuation of the "cutesy" small car trend that was started with the 1995 Neon. |
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Replying to: plekto (Jul 31, 2006 10:24 pm) Sure, I agree that an '80s Mustang wasn't on the same level as say a '69 with a 428 Cobra Jet, but Mustangs always have to be viewed within the time period they inhabit. Compared the '60s, the 1980s were overall a bad time for performance for just about every car, not just Mustangs. And as far as the GM F-bodies go, the 1980s were a great time for the Mustang, relatively speaking. A 5.0 Mustang GT had pretty much the same performance as a Camaro IROC-Z with the larger 5.7 engine, but cost significantly less. But my point on the style of the '94 Mustang is that it was a total deviation from the look of the '80s Fox Body. The '94 brought back the signature Mustang door panels, the twin-pod cockpit, pronouced side scoops and the whole galloping pony theme (something that surprisingly had been missing for most of the 1980s). Yeah, the taillights went the wrong way, but that was corrected a few years later. But it really was the first car to consciously mimic an older, classic model. So this, combined with the huge sales boost and interest the '94 inaugurated is why it deserves the '94 spot in my mind.  Andre, I'd also agree with the '94 Ram in terms of the retro style...that thing really did strike a distinct note when it appeared. One could even say it ushered in the era of testosterone-fueled truck design too... 
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what would have been faster? A... 1979 Camaro with a 180 or so hp 350 1979 Trans Am with a 200 hp (IIRC) 400 1979 Roadrunner/Aspen RT with a 195 hp 360 1979 Mustang with a 140 hp 302? At first the Mustang seems like it would be seriously overmatched by the other three, but it definitely had a weight advantage on its side. Funny thing about the F-bodies as the 80's wore on...initially the 305 and the 302 were pretty evenly matched, but then when they started using 350's, it seemed like the 305 got wussed down a bit, IIRC.
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Replying to: andre1969 (Aug 01, 2006 7:47 am)
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| ...I'd say either GM's downsized A-bodies or Dodge's Li'l Red Express truck. | |
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Replying to: bumpy (Aug 01, 2006 8:16 am) Really? A buddy of mine had a mid 80's RX-7, and it couldn't keep up with my '89 Gran Fury copcar! Of course, this was around 2000, so they were both old cars, and how they'd been cared for probably had something to do with it.  Also, his RX-7 wasn't a turbo. I tried looking up some old 0-60 times, and found a 1979 RX-7 could do 0-60 in 9.2 seconds. Which was good for the time. The site (http://www.albeedigital.com/supercoupe/articles/0-60times.html) also lists a 1978 Trans Am at 0-60 in 6.5 seconds. That sounds awfully optimistic though for that time, doesn't it?
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