People love nostalgia, be it remembering something from your youth or simply looking back to an unfamiliar time. The automotive industry is no exception, with countless people referring to “the good old days” and the fact that cars were made better back then.Well, that just isn’t true. Like most industries, the automotive industry has taken several leaps forward over the past 50 years or so, most notably removing lead from fuel, crumple zones being built into cars, and having ABS as standard fitment. These are all life-saving/preserving steps. 50 years is a significant amount of time, and if there was ever a decade that could get singled out as the “bad old days,” we would point towards the 70s.Stagnation, cost-cutting and a lax approach to safety were a big part of the problem, and not one, but two oil crises to contend with, provided the real dagger in the heart for a truly terrible decade for carmakers. It did however force a few to come up with solutions, so it wasn’t all doom and gloom for these classic cars.
10 Ruined: Ford Mustang
Ford will refer to the Mustang II as “the right car for the time” and judging by how many of these putrid things they sold, they are right.
It does not change the fact that the “right car” back then was awful. Arguably the worst take on a muscle car in automotive history, with pathetic underpowered engines and one of the worst designs to ever get approved for production.
9 Cool: Lancia Stratos
While American carmakers were trying to figure out how to make their big cars more environmentally friendly, European carmakers were all just trying to make theirs go fast on dirt.
Enter the first car to ever get designed from the ground up to take on the WRC. As a road car, the Stratos was painfully rare, and even more painful to drive, but what these cars could do in the right hands truly captured the imagination.
8 Ruined: Chevrolet Corvette California
Not everyone liked the look of the C3, but we would argue that the design was the one aspect of the car they got right.
Powertrains were hit-and-miss, the big miss was the California though. It was so underpowered it actually gave the entire Corvette lineup a bad name.
7 Cool: Datsun 240Z
As a brand, Datsun/Nissan might be the only carmaker to get it right then quickly pivot and get it spectacularly wrong with their follow-up.
The 240Z is arguably one of the best sports cars, let alone Z cars, ever made. Beautiful flowing lines coupled with a capable, revvy engine. Such a shame, they replaced it with the woeful 280Z.
6 Ruined: Dodge Charger
After establishing itself as one of the leading muscle car brands, Dodge and by extension the Chrysler corporation completely lost the plot over the course of the next two ill-fated generations.
It just went from bad to worse as the cars lost all of their design integrity. They were slowly getting fatter and fatter, and then lost pretty much all their performance on top of that. By the end of the decade, the Charger charged no more.
5 Cool: VW Golf GTI
The simplest solution is often the best, and during the oil crisis, the best car you could get was a small, efficient car. VW knew they could no longer rely on their dated Beetle for sales, so they introduced the Golf (or Rabbit) at just about the perfect time.
Add to that the hot little GTI just a little while later, which was more than capable of showing all the so-called muscle cars of the time a clean pair of heels.
4 Ruined: Triumph TR-7
Some might even baulk at the thought of the Triumph ever being a “good” car, but in so many ways the TR-6 was a very good (if unreliable) little sports car. Selling cars in North America is always important for smaller manufacturers, so Triumph bet big and satisfied all the regulators and necessary crash tests to get into the US.
By the end of it all the little car looked bulky and awkward, reliability was never anything to write home about and thanks to the oil crisis sports cars were actually the last thing anyone in the US were buying.
3 Cool: BMW 2002
To say that BMW knocked it out of the park with the 2002 is a massive understatement. It was the first truly exceptional small sedan to ever get made.
It was as practical as anything made back then, it had the handling of a sports car, the finish of a luxury car, and a price tag that was still attainable.
2 Ruined: Ferrari Mondial
It all went a bit wrong for Ferrari while developing their 2+2 sports car. Sales of any sports cars were already pretty slow, so it was important for them to get this entry-level Ferrari right.
Sadly they didn’t. With just over 200 horsepower, the car struggled to keep up with the aforementioned GTI, and pricing was still pretty steep.
1 Cool: Porsche 911 (930) Turbo
Porsche saw what other manufacturers were doing with turbos and clearly didn’t think they were doing it right.
While other manufacturers tried to make more efficient engines, Porsche just went for more horsepower. It made an already dangerous car downright deadly in the wrong hands. In the right hands, well it still is an absolute badass of a sports car.