The best decade for cars?

[AmuroRay]

Originally Posted by JayML

90’s!

Supra
300zx
RX7
NSX
Type R
MR2
S2000
Prelude
Mitsubishi 3000GT
Mitsubishi Eclipse
Lancer EVO
Etc Etc

Boom!

This

Twin turbos, 4 wheel steering, active aero (early 2000s) 9000Rpm redlines. Yeah. Mid 90s to mid 2000s was the hay day.

[AmuroRay]

Originally Posted by chassis

Agree on good streaks and bad streaks for all brands, years and models. Do we agree the comparison is vs contemporaries and not a 1972 model vs a 2025 model?

Lambos for the ages:
60s 400GT
70s Muira
80s Countach
90s Diablo
00s Murcielago
10s Aventador
20s any of them

Audi/VW is and always has been garbage - but they did make Lamborghini less of a joke. It’s still a joke, but not the unreliable, poorly built, poor handling joke it used to be.

[AmuroRay]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

Corvettes have been outdoing their rivals in every performance metric since the C4 was introduced. Ha doing, braking, acceleration, top speed... Not at all one trick ponies, and the only real drawbacks is they seat two, and once the c5 came around their interiors were way below the luxury competitors (who were way more money).

They make up for it with performance and hassle free ownership. Literally oil, gas, tires, nothing fancy, and any Chevy dealer on the planet can repair it.

Ehhh, the JDMSa were more than enough to handle the C4. The Supra and 300ZX were better packages at the time.

[chassis]

Originally Posted by Donatello.

That's awesome.

I love my Hellcat, and all the funs cars I have had in my lifetime, but I still want a 66-67 Chevelle. Granted, I also want to drop an LS in it & go the pro touring style build route lol

One more - another guy in high school had a 1970 Nova 2-door with a tweaked 350 that sounded great and went pretty well.

[NickyC]

I have to say the 1990s, such nice cars were made after the horrid 80s. JDM was the best it was ever going to be, and the E36 M3 was available along with the Z3M Roadster and Coupe. Ferrari F50, Mclaren F1, XJ220, I could just go on and on and on. What a time to get your license and learn to drive a car, with dreams of what could be. Hell even back then I went mad over car logos alone, the "Supra Turbo" font kept me up at nights thinking about it! I ran through some many cars in the mid 90s to early 2000s, I had a different car every 6 months it seemed. Had all the big hitter JDM cars except for the 300Z TT which I never got around to buying. Loved the VR4, was the first in my area to have a MKIV Supra with a T78, MR2 turbo with a 16G, boy were those the days. I miss them so much!

Gotta be the 90s hands down. Never felt the same magic since then and never will with the way things are going. It's just a bygone era.

[Davil]

Originally Posted by AmuroRay

This

Twin turbos, 4 wheel steering, active aero (early 2000s) 9000Rpm redlines. Yeah. Mid 90s to mid 2000s was the hay day.

Definitely the best era for Japanese cars. Don’t forget the WRX!

[RM7]

Originally Posted by AmuroRay

Ehhh, the JDMSa were more than enough to handle the C4. The Supra and 300ZX were better packages at the time.

Not in a straight line at higher speeds, the torque of a V8 would definitely pull...but everywhere else...everywhere that mattered...yes.

[RM7]

The NSX, WRX, MR2, Supra, Celica GT4, 300ZX, 3000GT, Evo, Skyline, all of these were loads of fun in all the right ways. I had a WRX and it was super fun. US automakers lost their way after the 60s. They were making land yachts and it just got worse and worse as the 70s went into the 80s. They might have started to figure this out in the 90s, but it was a long road to get back to reality. I could stomp a 225hp "V8" mustang to 60 in my WRX and while part of that was using the engine as a flywheel to 5000rpm with AWD launch...the US manufacturers just didn't get it and didn't produce serious competitors IMO. Best was in the early 2000s IMO.

The thing about a lot of these cars was their power/acceleration from 0-100 or so. Sure, a large displacement engine would pull on them above 100...but who's going to do that on a road? The most fun is going to be below that, accelerating and hooking turns.

The other thing about DI and increasing power, that just served to gunk up intake manifolds for years and years. The simpler stuff before DI was better IMO.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by AmuroRay

Ehhh, the JDMSa were more than enough to handle the C4. The Supra and 300ZX were better packages at the time.

The Supra Turbo was faster than the LT1 C4, the 300ZX Turbo was not, and they were hugely unreliable cars. The C4 is rock solid. The Supra was also WAY more money, and not that much faster in a straight line.

Better packages? The 300ZX did offer a 2+2 which was nice, but supra was tiny inside and uncomfortable. Neither was as robust/reliable as the C4, neither handled as well, and I think you'd have a hard time saying either was a better package.

[FC4]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

The Supra Turbo was faster than the LT1 C4, the 300ZX Turbo was not, and they were hugely unreliable cars. The C4 is rock solid. The Supra was also WAY more money, and not that much faster in a straight line.

Better packages? The 300ZX did offer a 2+2 which was nice, but supra was tiny inside and uncomfortable. Neither was as robust/reliable as the C4, neither handled as well, and I think you'd have a hard time saying either was a better package.

Corvette was mostly irrelevant to the performance world until the C5 Z06 came out...where it then dominated. C5 and C6 Z06 were legendary, but the C4 shouldn't even be in the same conversation as the JDMs. There is a reason why they're not worth anything.

[BManBimma]

I agree on the 90's

[FC4]

I'll just leave this here...

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by FC4

Corvette was mostly irrelevant to the performance world until the C5 Z06 came out...where it then dominated. C5 and C6 Z06 were legendary, but the C4 shouldn't even be in the same conversation as the JDMs. There is a reason why they're not worth anything.

The reason they're undervalued is they all are still running and didn't have catastrophic failures or rust.

The C4 Corvette was literally KICKED OUT of racing it was so dominant, and they had to create the Corvette Challenge as a one make series for it because it had walloped everyone else so badly. That was with the L98 motor, before the LT1 even came out. If anything, the C4 was a victim of its own success, it ran for 12 YEARS. By the time it came out with the LT1 in 1992 it was already 8 years into it's lifecycle.

And that's just the run of the mill C4s, not even talking about the ZR-1 that had a 400hp, DOHC, 7000rpm motor in the ~1990 time frame. Guys with ported intakes, heads, and cam upgrades were well into the high 500 horsepower realm totally drivable in the early and mid 90s.

You're right, the C4 doesn't belong in the conversation with the JDMs. It so thoroughly trounces them it's far beyond them. Anyone who doubts the performance credentials of the C4 just doesn't know what they're actually dealing with (which to be fair, ranges from 205hp in 1984 to 340hp (underrated to not eat the cake of the to be released C5 LS1 motor) in 1996, again most counting the ZR1.

[3798j]

Originally Posted by FC4

Corvette was mostly irrelevant to the performance world until the C5 Z06 came out...where it then dominated. C5 and C6 Z06 were legendary, but the C4 shouldn't even be in the same conversation as the JDMs. There is a reason why they're not worth anything.

Hate seeing a post that has no truth to it...so some straight poop, read this on the C4 Corvette...

"In 1988, the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) outlawed all Showroom Stock Corvettes from its racing events. The reason? The Vettes had not been beaten in three years of racing against the world's best sports cars, and their competitors complained so loudly that the sanctioning body finally had to act."

https://www.motortrend.com/events/ve...tte-challenge/

[Donatello.]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

You never dealt with american sports cars have you?

Corvettes have been world class performance since the early 80s in handling, acceleration, top speed, everything. They're also incredibly easy to maintain. Gas, oil, tires, nothing crazy.

Since way before the 80s.

[ASAP]

2010 thru 2020 was phenomenal... enormous amounts of performance was unlocked

[Prossx]

Originally Posted by Davil

I watched this video today. He thinks the 90s was the best. It was certainly an amazing decade. He has some great points.

It got me thinking. And thinking. I think maybe 2000s or maybe 2010s. 2000s had just the right amount of tech but the cars were still analogue feeling. 2010s things got faster but you’d still get some noise and some connection though it was the beginning of the end of an era for man and machine, varying a lot between manufacturers.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ppVDeIXJO_E

He missed a major part of this era as the (not Corvette) domestics (Mustang Cobra, GM F-bodies) exited the HP malaise of the 80s into the early 90s with new engines and bold new styling. They made an impact in that you could get a legit high performance car nearly on par in some aspects with the much more expensive 300ZX and Supras of the time that had become nearly exotic. Was an exciting decade.

[heavyD^2]

The 80's had some really cool vehicles surrounded by heaps of trash from domestic manufactuers. The 90's were probably peak where there were a lot of technological advances that didn't come at the cost of simplicity and weight. The 2000-2010 decade brought a lot of homely vehicles and probably the worst ever era for interiors when lots of manufacturers went away from soft touch materials to hard plastic dashboards and vehicles from almost all brands turned into rattle traps. I actually think the current decade is probably going to rival the 90's as maybe the greatest when all is said and done when you consider how fast, capable, and efficient vehicles are today and probably the last for most vehicles being all ICE.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by heavyD^2

The 80's had some really cool vehicles surrounded by heaps of trash from domestic manufactuers. The 90's were probably peak where there were a lot of technological advances that didn't come at the cost of simplicity and weight. The 2000-2010 decade brought a lot of homely vehicles and probably the worst ever era for interiors when lots of manufacturers went away from soft touch materials to hard plastic dashboards and vehicles from almost all brands turned into rattle traps. I actually think the current decade is probably going to rival the 90's as maybe the greatest when all is said and done when you consider how fast, capable, and efficient vehicles are today and probably the last for most vehicles being all ICE.

I think this decade will go down as one of the worst, with soulless steering, and tons of tech that will age out. 2010-2020 as well.

Cars now are putting tech as their focal point. Tech is what ages out the fastest. Nobody plays an NES and is like "wow this is great", you think "wow we have come so far". Cars up to now tech has been a "also there" thing.

I think in the future this decade of cars will be lamented as overall too focused on stuffing in tech and power, and not enough on engagement, fun, and polished packages. And then they're all gonna get turned off via OTA updates because some bureaucrats decided they needed to never work again.

[heavyD^2]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

I think this decade will go down as one of the worst, with soulless steering, and tons of tech that will age out. 2010-2020 as well.

Cars now are putting tech as their focal point. Tech is what ages out the fastest. Nobody plays an NES and is like "wow this is great", you think "wow we have come so far". Cars up to now tech has been a "also there" thing.

I think in the future this decade of cars will be lamented as overall too focused on stuffing in tech and power, and not enough on engagement, fun, and polished packages. And then they're all gonna get turned off via OTA updates because some bureaucrats decided they needed to never work again.

100% disagree. Electronic tech ages but that's more related to EV's and solid state devices. Today's ICE engines are the best they have ever been as are transmissions. As good as the 90's were, transmissions were largely mediocre to downright terrible for automatics and while there were a handful of jewel engines in those times, today's engines in Corvettes, BMW's, VAG, Porsche, Ford Shelby, etc are absolutely amazing as we have had domestic flat plane crank engines which used to be reserved for exotics. We even have Toyota 3-cylinder engines making 300 hp. It's peak ICE right now and in future decades the 90's will look prehistoric in comparison. People that say today's cars aren't fun simply have revisionist history of older decades. It's amazing what you can do these days in even simple cars like the GR86 which will run circles around a lot of 90's cars or what Honda has done with a FWD platform with the latest type R. It's peak ICE. Older generations always pine for the past and it's no different today than it was in the 90's where plenty of small block fans in those days despised Japanese sports cars with their small engines and turbos just as old men today hate the new tech. I believe today's vehicles are just so impressive from top to bottom and no decade has come as close to the complete package as they do now.

[Donatello.]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

I think this decade will go down as one of the worst, with soulless steering, and tons of tech that will age out. 2010-2020 as well.

Cars now are putting tech as their focal point. Tech is what ages out the fastest. Nobody plays an NES and is like "wow this is great", you think "wow we have come so far". Cars up to now tech has been a "also there" thing.

I think in the future this decade of cars will be lamented as overall too focused on stuffing in tech and power, and not enough on engagement, fun, and polished packages. And then they're all gonna get turned off via OTA updates because some bureaucrats decided they needed to never work again.

Yea, my ND MIata & Hellcat are the opposite of fun to drive.

[Donatello.]

Originally Posted by Prossx

He missed a major part of this era as the (not Corvette) domestics (Mustang Cobra, GM F-bodies) exited the HP malaise of the 80s into the early 90s with new engines and bold new styling. They made an impact in that you could get a legit high performance car nearly on par in some aspects with the much more expensive 300ZX and Supras of the time that had become nearly exotic. Was an exciting decade.

I did enjoy my 90s F-Bodies and Cobra Mustangs, but no desire to sell what I have nor for them. If I found a great deal on a Pacific Green Cobra, I'd likely add it to the fleet, though. My previous Cobras were Rio Red & Mystic.

No desire to own another LT1 F-body with the opti spark bs & hell on Earth job of changing plugs. I'd own another LS1 F-body, but the prices are lol you have to be hardcore to pay them