What is your favourite "era" of vehicle design?

[DrSebWilkes]

By that, one can tell some quite distinctive changes between the 50s and 60s, for example, in design of cars. So for sake of simplicity, we'll base each "era" to be a decade. 

For me personally ... it'd have to be the 70s. All my favourite cars come from the 70s. I just love their aesthetics: I see them as the precursors of cars today, with largely advancing shapes that plots the course towards efficiency, ease of construction and usability. It's almost as if they're a modern car, but not quite right - ergo, that's a good thing. 

In my opinion, before this, cars had a very different design premise and more resembled the one thing they killed: horse & carriage. It's harder to see the evolution from a car in the 50s to the 70s than it is from the 70s to 90s, if you ask me. 


(Albeit, the car I own is a non-distant descendant of the 70s, so in its heart, my car a is 70s car) 

[MkX]

Soooo difficult!

I plumped for 60's since so many of the cars I lust after came from that era but there are so many beautiful, remarkable & characterful cars from every decade.

[keithyboy]

In terms of usability I think there was a peak in the late 90s. They were reliable, fairly safe and ok to drive. Since then we've added a lot of weight and complexity. In terms of looks, I can't separate the 60s and 70s.

[Llewelyn_]

I like "80's cars" the best... However, if you take the "design era" I would have to choose the '70s because a lot of those cars were designed in the '70's....

Eg:

512BB
DMC 12
928
Esprit
Countach


Yes I am sports car biased. I've got no interest in daily's or family cars personally!

etc etc

[ratchart]

Really hard to pin it down to one particular era because there are things I like from every period up to the present day, but I think the cars I'm most drawn to come from a ten year period between 1955 and 1965. mind you car design progressed quite radically between those years so it includes a wide range of cars to suit most tastes and styles. I mean you can go from Oval window Beetle to gull-wing Chevy El Camino, to MK1 Lotus Cortina and many stops in between

[TurboDieselWeasel]

I don't think I can pin it on a specific era... The other way around; my interest has a massive drop after the 80's, there's hardly anything in and past the 90's that wets my appetite

[ProjectBobcat]

late 70's and 80's for me so I voted 80's. It's a nostalgia thing as that's when I was growing up.

[Mercdan68]

Can't afford to indulge in 60s stuff anymore but that's my favourite era..but I like anything from 50s to mid 90s

[mikeymk]

From the 1940s to the 1970s very little really changed. The focus was largely on developing the monocoque body shell. By the '70s we had cars which were light, cheaper than ever to produce and relatively aerodynamic but technically they were a slow evolvement, but for layout experimentation.

The '80s brought in the next era of development. Electronics came in thick and fast, with trip computers, digital dashes, engine management, and the safety aspect with airbags in the states.

For me it's difficult to define a precise era. But it's probably around where the refined grit of the 1970s was still abundant in the 1980s, in cars which didn't reflect poitically turbulent times or have all the '60s character washed out of them, before the electrics put a short circuit in the works..

[composimmonite]

I had this mental debate with myself recently and settled on 1950 as with the most cars I'd like to own. As already said every decade has interesting models and for me, with being born in 1950's, I think these are the ones I associate with that were around when young.
When I'd had a clear out of my bikes I intend using some of the proceeds towards a MG Magnette

[MkX]

Here's some examples of why I find it difficult to find particular merit in one decade.  Just looking at one marque, Jaguar, when you rule out the unaffordable supercars like the D Type, XJ13, XJ220, etc.


1920's
Austin 7 Swallow 2-door saloon ;

(OK, perhaps we're not off to a very auspicious start with this one but I bet it looked hot in the 1920's!)


1930's
SS1 Airline saloon ;

(Getting very much better very quickly!)


1940's
Jaguar Mark V drop head coupé ;



1950's
Jaguar XK120 drophead coupé ;



1960's
Jaguar E Type s1 convertible ;



1970's
Jaguar XJ12C pillarless coupé ;



1980's
Jaguar XJRS coupé ;



1990's
Jaguar XKR coupé ;



2000's
Daimler Super V8 saloon ;



2010's
Jaguar F Type, (coupé & convertible shown) ;

[keithyboy]

I may be biased but I can't think of an ugly Jag.

[bmcnut]

Authough i grew up with cars from the 70's (in the 90's) I find that astheticly, i prefer more cars from the mid fifties to the late 60's, and i prefer driving mostly cars from the 60's and 70's, so id have to say my favourite decade was the 60's.

As for the jags, they probably have a more consistant showing for great cars over the decades, and the smell of wood and leather in an old jag, or infact most pre 70's cars with wood and leather, is probably the best smell in automotive history, mabie even better than castrol r.

[fordperv]

Jul 24, 2016 15:35:08 GMT keithyboy said:

I may be biased but I can't think of an ugly Jag.

I can

[MkX]

Jul 24, 2016 15:35:08 GMT keithyboy said:

I may be biased but I can't think of an ugly Jag.

Although not out & out revolting the Jaguar Mondeo X Type and the 'new' S Type don't do a lot for me.

[keithyboy]

Jul 24, 2016 16:23:11 GMT fordperv said:

Jul 24, 2016 15:35:08 GMT keithyboy said:

I may be biased but I can't think of an ugly Jag.

I can

By the looks of it, that's a rendering. I don't really like big 4x4s that much but by 4x4 standards it's not bad at all to my eyes.

[joem83]

I can't pin point it, depends a lot on the car more than the era, that said not a massive fan of pre war stuff. Apart from American tin and some Italian stuff.

I must say the F pace is rather nice looking.

[retroandproud]

I think I can safely say there are at least a couple of cars from each decade that make me go oooofff!!! If I have to make a definitive choice, it would be very close between the 50's and 60's, with the 60's just edging it.... There were so many stunning cars built in that decade, many of which I would personally love to own.....

[carledo]

I'm a biig fan of anything old, but practically speaking pre-war stuff leaves me a bit cold. They don't go or stop well enough for use in modern traffic. I've plumped for the 60s cos most of my favourite cars come from there, the 66 Pontiac GTO, 67 Iso Grifo Lusso, Triumph 2000, GT6, and the Triumph 1300FWD, which is the forerunner of the Dolomite Sprint and my Toledo.
But I do like cars from other eras too. What I do see as a firm cut off date is the end of 1995. This is when the MkIII Cavalier went out of production and it marks the end of car development that IMPROVED the beast and the beginning of development by accountants and tree huggers. In many ways, I regard the MkIII Cav as the ultimate in car design (don't laugh) It has enough electronics on board to make it reliable, comfortable, reasonably economical and civilized, but not so much as to make it unreliable and an expensive and complicated nightmare to repair. The shape is fairly aerodynamic and pretty timeless. It's just a shame they never made a station wagon version. Everything made since then is downhill from that pinnacle.

Steve

[igor]

Once again hard to pick a decade.
I have a soft spot for the upright styling of the 1920's. Anybody who remembers the Beagle Boys black sedan in the old Disney comics will understand. I'd stretch that period into the mid '30s for some things. I had a lot of fun on VCC outings with a friend who had a '36 Morris 8. Stock as a rock but she still managed to get 60 mph out of it on a few occasions including shooting a three span single lane bridge and making a P6 Rover back off.
I've had cars from a 1951 Standard Vanguard to a 1991 Ford Falcon as dailies including a lot of BMC stuff and a couple of Jappas and would still daily any one of them now. Early '90s is pretty much the cut off point for me as far as interesting vehicles go though. As others have said after that the electronics and other unnecessary bs just became ridiculous. Give me a pushrod motor with a carby and a dizzy with points and I have some chance of making it go. Modern stuff forget it and call the mechanic out.