Lamborghini Countach, Ferrari F40, Zakspeed Capri – these were the posters I had on my bedroom walls when I was a kid in the 80s.
What were your dream cars?
For me, the 80s was one of the best decades for cars – as well as music and movies.
Yes, sometimes they may not have driven as good as they looked – but my god they looked great!
From my perspective, cars were iconic: posters were for sale in most shops, you could buy toy cars of almost any car, almost every other advert on TV seemed to be a car. Who remembers a Peugeot 405 driving through flames to “take my breath away” – my dad worked at Peugeot at the time, so maybe it’s just me!
Cars caught our imagination, and that’s why so many iconic television series and films used recognisable cars – We Tom Selleck driving a Ferrari 308 GTS in Magnum, the A-Team driving around in a GMC van, the V8 Interceptor in Mad Max, the Bluesmobile in Blues Brothers, Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters, the Ferrari 250 GT California in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Batmobile from Batman, General Lee, KITT, and of course the DeLorean.
As well as so many iconic cars across media, we had so many cars available to various walks of life.
Hot Hatches
It was such a great decade for cars, we’d seen the birth of hot hatches in the 1970s, with the Renault 5 Alpine and the Golf GTI – but it wasn’t until the 80s that hot hatches really took off!
We had the Mk2 Gold GTI, the Peugeot 205 GTi, Renault 5 GT Turbo, The Vauxhall Astra GTE, Ford Escort RS Turbo, Lancia Delta Intergrale, Ford Fiesta XR2, Citroen AX GT and so may others. Even the likes of Mazda, Talbot, and Suzuki made hot hatches.
Yes, I might be writing about these cars from a United Kingdom point of view, so were hot hatches prevalent in your countries?
Fast Saloons
We had the E30 M3 – which is probably my favourite M3 ever, we also had both the Sierra and Sierra Sapphire Cosworth, and someone decided to throw a V12 in a XJR-S. There were loads of fast saloons during the 80s, I’m sure I’ve missed loads or maybe even your favourite car of all time?
Super Cars
Super cars have been around since the 1950s, pretty much when Mercedes released the 300SL, however in my opinion it wasn’t until the 80s that these cars caught the imagination of children and car enthusiasts.
We had the Ferrari 288 GTO, Porsche 959, Lamborghini Countach, Ferrari Testarossa, RUF CTR Yellowbird, Ford RS200, Lotus Esprit Turbo, and of course the Ferrari F40. I think I had a picture of most of these on my bedroom walls.
Racing Cars
Where do I start? The Audi Quattro, Nissan Skyline R32, McLaren MP4 (numerous versions), Lotus 98T, Williams FW11, BMW M1 Procar, Zakspeed Capri, any Group C car, the list could go on and on.
There’s too many to mention and I literally could talk about iconic 80s racing cars all day. I loved that there was insane turbos on some of these cars, I loved that aerodynamics took a giant step forward in this decade and I loved that BBS wheels were on pretty much everything!
Can another decade rival the 1980s for cars?
The great thing about most of these cars, is that they are available for you and I to drive today in a racing sims. Yes, I love driving modern day race cars, but for me there’s something special about stepping (virtually) into so many iconic cars of my childhood.
What cars would you like to see in a sim?
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