The 1980s was a crazy decade. A time of wealth and excess colliding with the first wave of personal computers and bright-eyed excitement for what could be done with technology. Music, fashion, culture, and of course, car design, were all over-the-top, wacky, wild, and optimistic for the future.
Nowhere is this more apparent than the concept cars of the era. Concepts are always a good way to remember a certain automotive era because it gives you the full, unrestricted impression of a designer or design group's vision for what the car of the future could look like.
Looking back at old concept cars nowadays also lets you trace a car's lineage back to where it began, where the first hints of what would be the final design were worked out, experimented with, and put on display for the world to see. We owe some of the best cars of the last few decades to these 1980s concepts.
This list will cover some of the craziest, wildest, and most rad concept cars of the 1980s.
15 Pontiac Stinger – 1989
This neon green beach buggy of the future looks like it could be the beginnings of the Aztek: a quirky "lifestyle" vehicle made to look like it had off-road capability. The difference here is that the Stinger actually would have been a decent off-roader if it had made production. It also came with a lot of the goofy accessories that trickled their way down to the Aztek, like a detachable cooler and camping gear.
14 Oldsmobile Aerotech – 1987
The Aerotech predates the McLaren Speedtail by more than 30 years, but the principles here are the same: an extremely aerodynamic car designed for absolutely blistering straight-line speed. However, unlike the McLaren's twin-turbo V8, the Aerotech was also a showcase piece for Olds' Quad 4 inline-4 turbo engine, which produced in excess of 1,000 horsepower. It was able to achieve a top speed of an astounding 275 miles per hour.
13 Citroën Karin – 1980
The memory of this wild triangular machine was stoked recently because people couldn't help but compare it to the equally wild triangular Tesla Cybertruck. Tesla's rig is cool, but this concept predates it by 40 years and still looks wild today. It had a center-mounted steering wheel and a three-abreast seating configuration, presumably for aerodynamics, but more likely so the designers could create this car's wild prism shape.
12 Ford Maya – 1984
You'd be forgiven for thinking this was some kind of BMW M1 tribute car or a copyright-free rendering of an "'80s supercar" for a video game, but this was a real design concept that Ford commissioned from Italdesign to gauge US market interest in a Targa top sports car from Ford. Powering it was a version of the 3.0l Yamaha-developed V6 that would eventually make its way into the production Taurus SHO.
11 Lamborghini Athon by Bertone
Of all the car design houses in the world, few were more prolific in the '80s than Bertone. They penned some of the most iconic designs of the decade, and along with Italdesign and Pininfarina, were almost singlehandedly responsible for the wedge-shape trend of the era. This concept is no exception. Looking like something straight out of Blade Runner, the Athon is the Lamborghini for the future we never got, although traces of its design did make it into production Lambos like the Jalpa and even the Gallardo.
10 Italdesign Machimoto – 1986
The name of this insane concept is a mashup of the Italian words for "car" and "motorcycle," which explains why every one of this car's six seats was a motorcycle saddle that you strapped yourself to like one of those moto-coaster amusement park rides. Despite this, the car was based on a fairly pedestrian VW Golf platform, using a 1.8l 4-cylinder that put out just under 140 horsepower.
9 Bertone Ramarro Corvette – 1984
This sharp sports car was the result of a collaboration between Chevrolet and Italian design house Bertone. Chevy wanted to showcase the C4 Corvette to a European audience in the mid-80s, but it knew the car's American design would not win them any favors. So, they gave Bertone a whole C4 'Vette chassis and told them to design their own body for it. The Ramarro (Italian for "green lizard") was the result.
8 Citroën Xenia – 1981
While many American firms were pushing for performance-oriented concepts in the 1980s, Citroën was busy developing people-carrier concepts like the Xenia. It looks like a very early sketch of a small MPV, a segment that was rising in popularity in Europe thanks to cars like the Renault Espace.
However, Citroën had intended this car for the American market, where it would have had to compete with such people-carrying stalwarts as the Dodge Caravan and later, GM's "DustBuster" vans that this thing bears an unfortunate resemblance to.
7 Aston Martin Bulldog – 1980
Interestingly enough, this wild wedge-shaped creation came out a few years after the Lagonda sedan made production in 1976, despite it looking like the design concept that would have led to that insane sedan. Rather, it was built as a way for Aston to show off its new engineering capabilities and also to make an attempt at a fastest production car record. Its 5.3l twin-turbo V8 managed to push it to a verified 192 miles per hour, which didn't quite set the record but is still mighty impressive for a car of this era.
6 Nissan NX-21 – 1983
My immediate thoughts on seeing this car were that it looks like what the Hyundai Prophecy concept would have been if it was drawn up in the early '80s. The NX-21 is a surprisingly good-looking thing, with smart proportions and a generally clean, streamlined design. It's still loaded with '80s quirks, like the split-folding gullwing doors and a ceramic gas turbine engine mounted in the back driving the rear wheels. If only Nissan could produce something this exciting today...
5 Buick Questor – 1983
While most popular '80s car designs were sharp, angular wedges, streamlined smooth shapes like this one led to some very good-looking production cars. You can see elements of future Buicks and other GM cars that came out later in the '80s and '90s in the Questor's design. It's like an EV1 coupe about 15 years before its time. The Questor had a very tech-heavy interior, including a laser key system, a voice-activated phone (long before the days of Apple CarPlay), and cameras instead of mirrors.
4 Chrysler Lamborghini Portofino – 1983
There was a period of time in the 1980s and into the '90s where Lamborghini was under the watchful ownership of the Chrysler Corporation. Obviously, the potential for producing some pretty incredible cars was there, but nothing really became of it, at least not for Chrysler anyway. This Portofino concept was meant to showcase what a potential four-door Lambo could have looked like, but instead, the only production car we got with a hint of the Portofino's DNA was the much-maligned Dodge/Chrysler Intrepid. Yikes.
3 Chevrolet Corvette Indy Concept – 1986
Cars like this Corvette Indy concept show that the 2020 mid-engined C8 Corvette was a long time coming. This concept used some seriously high-tech materials in its construction, including kevlar and carbon fiber, both of which were basically unheard of in-car construction at the time. It had Lotus-tuned active suspension and was powered by a 2.65l twin-turbo V8 from an IndyCar (hence the name) that put out over 600 horsepower.
2 Pontiac Banshee – 1988
By the end of the 80s, it was clear that the design trends of the future would move away from the sharp, angular lines of the past to make way for a return to long, smooth curves and round, aerodynamic shapes. Pontiac's Banshee concept was the precursor to the fourth-generation F-body Firebird, which became one of the most popular and tuner-friendly muscle cars of the modern era.
1 Chevrolet Express – 1987
Before Chevy started calling its cargo vans "Express," the name was used for this truly outlandish concept car. Its craziness was also far more than just skin-deep. It used a full carbon fiber construction, an opening roof section to enter and exit the cabin and it was powered by a gas turbine engine that could propel the car to 150 miles per hour. Its crowning achievement, however, was its cameo appearance in Back to the Future II, where it can be seen driving around in the film's fictional depiction of the year 2015.