The Golden Age of automobiles is...

Now.

I would argue that. There is more power, refinement, breaking and luxury in todays family cars than the muscle cars of old. (few exceptions of course)

Lets look at a plain jane old engine available this year.

4.3l Ecotec3 V6 from Government Motors (I ked)

285 hp and in a truck getting 24 mpg.

Now lets lookjust a few years back to the previous gen Camaro.

LT1 with 5.7l (350 cu in) in the mean mullet machine had... 275 hp and boy we were a flyin'!!! Fuel economy with a 6 speed in the slick bodied Camaro? 24 mpg.

There is no replacement for displacement, except maybe direct injection and VVT.

What a wonderful time we live in.

Mid to late 60s. Every kind of car, coupe, wagon, sedan, convertible. Engine options galore. Option options galore. Want a wagon with a 427, radio delete, and A/C? You got it. I think the wistfulness we have toward those years comes from the ability to truly have the exact car we wanted.

In reply to Flight Service: I fully agree with you, so many minivans now would smoke any classic muscle car, outbrake, out corner and carry the kids, dog, shopping and grandma while doing it.

Supercars now are up to DD status.

150hp economy cars are considered inadequate but in 1985 a 12a RX7 made a princely 115hp.

300K is the norm on a car, 100K in 1970 was considered very good.

Every 2014 V8 makes over 350hp.

the 90s or now, I cant decide till I see how the now cars are holding up in 20 years.

Early- to mid-2000s were great:

Lancer Evo VIII and IX

WRX and WRX STI

Forester 2.5 XT

RX8

E46 M3

M Coupe and M Roadster with S54 power

E39 M5

GT3 and GT3 RS

S2000

Sentra SE-R and SE-R Spec V

Mustang GT

C5 Corvette and Z06

Lotus Elise S2

Mazda 3

Tons and tons of cool cars, many of which you could actually afford to own and drive.

I forgot to mention another cool thing about the early 2000s ... many of our favorite cars were available for peanuts.

You could buy a solid E30 M3 for $5-7k and even the cleanest examples rarely broke $12k. A good 964 RS America could be had for under $25k. And my personal favorite, the 190E Cosworth, was basically a disposable car at that point. You could find a solid runner for $3.5k all day long and $5-7k would net you a cherry.

if you look at what the cars and trucks of today are capable of and how few compromises they had to make to get them to where they are, then yes, this is the golden age..

if you look at the amount of technology that is being put into new cars and trucks for the sake of putting technology into them- like most of the nanny state stuff that takes the driver more and more out of the "driving" part of driving a new car and truck, then we are most definitely not in the golden age..

novaderrik wrote: if you look at what the cars and trucks of today are capable of and how few compromises they had to make to get them to where they are, then yes, this is the golden age.. if you look at the amount of technology that is being put into new cars and trucks for the sake of putting technology into them- like most of the nanny state stuff that takes the driver more and more out of the "driving" part of driving a new car and truck, then we are most definitely not in the golden age..

^^This.

Working on your 2013 BMW 3-series in 30 years will not be nearly as easy or cheap as working on a 1983 BMW is today.....

I would say overall the 90's for japanese cars mostly. It was the first time that fuel injection and modern computing was figured out and using largely the same technology a lot of those cars are still competitive today. Supras, DSMs,NSX, RX7s...

For American cars I would say the 60s or right now. No doubt the current stuff being offered here is the best stuff in a LONG TIME.

irish44j wrote: ^^This. Working on your 2013 BMW 3-series in 30 years will not be nearly as easy or cheap as working on a 1983 BMW is today.....

I doubt that. When fuel injection came along folks decried it as the end of hot rodding. There is no way you could work on that in your garage. Then when obd1 and obd2 arrived people said the same thing. Now you can get a cheap phone app and a generic Bluetooth adapter to do anything you might need. In 20 years who knows what will come along but it will be so easy that the idea that these cars will be difficult to keep going will be just as laughable as fuel injection being the death of hot rodding.

Gearheads will find a way. We always do.

...Fifteen years from now.

-Low-priced electrics with fairgrounds ride acceleration

-Composite structures that can be built at assembly-line speeds

-Sufficient weight savings elsewhere in the vehicle to eliminate all power assistance if wanted

-Precise calculation of tire and vehicle characteristics to make every vehicle handle right out of the box

90's Japanese performance cars for me. Grew up wanting all of them and still do.

Cars now are absolutely quantifiably the best they've ever been.

What I enjoy most isn't always the "best" in quantitative terms, but that's a different story.

JacktheRiffer wrote: 90's Japanese performance cars for me. Grew up wanting all of them and still do.

+1 to this!

1990-2005 or so, prior to that, the late 1960s.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: 1990-2005 or so, prior to that, the late 1960s.

there was some good stuff in the mid 80's, that built the foundation for what was to come... 1984 brought a 4 barrel carb and dual exhaust to the Mustang GT and sequential fuel injection and distributorless ignition to the turbocharged Buicks.. there was also the Mustang SVO and a few random little Chrysler K cars that Carroll Shelby got his fingers into, as well... it might not have been the "golden age", but it showed what was coming along later from the big 3 domestic auto makers..

I suppose we need to define whats "golden", Performance? Quality? Efficiency? Safety? Id say on an average all of that peaked/hit diminishing returns in the mid 90s.

mid 80s to now.

Cars no longer rust as bad, most have good handling, cars have decent suspension and ride quality, later on every car has very good power even basic models, every car is comfortable and easy to drive.

There is a reason why some cars early than the 80s are sometimes called "a more modern car" when discussing them, because cars from back then and earlier were almost all terrible.

If I were to pick a 10 year period it would be 1986-1996. 1996-2006 would be a close second. Why it's a second is because a bunch of good cars stopped being sold here like RX7, Supra, and Turbo Mr2 in that period. Most of the same cars are what would be considered downgrades from Asian companies but everyone else offered good cars still. Also bloat was starting to be a problem. 2006-now is third, we have a few very high power cars but everything weighs a ton and Japanese companies stopped selling decent GTs completely and every concept from them is a supercar or something lesser than what they sold in the 90s. Ie. IDX vs Silvia/180SX or FRS vs MR2, comparing to world models not what was sold int he US in the 90s.

Late 80s is HIGHLY underrated for cars. Fox Mustang, C4 Corvette, MK3 Supra Turbo, Z31 300ZX, FC RX7 Turbo, Mr2, E30, 190E, M5, Civic CRX, 944, Galant VR4, Starion, Celica Alltrac, Buick GN, etc. All of those are awesome. In the early 90s you have almost all of that but improved. Best 10 years ever.

Overseas that period is even better and now they are gradually becoming more and more legal for import. In a few years Escort Cosworths, GTRs, cheap FD Rx7s, Delta Integrale Evos, Euro M3s, a rally homologation car from every Japanese company, Stagea 260RS.....

i don't know what part of the country you are in, but here in MN pretty much anything that's over 10 years old has rust on it- my 01 Grand Prix has no rockers underneath the side skirts.. Chevy truck cab corners and rear fenders start rotting out when they are about 7 years old.. you just flat out don't see any disposable economy cars of any brand that are more than a decade old on a very regular basis, and if you do they are looking pretty rough..

the plastic interiors also fall apart after about a decade of our annual tropical to arctic temperature swings, but the cars do run forever these days..

novaderrik wrote: i don't know what part of the country you are in, but here in MN pretty much anything that's over 10 years old has rust on it- my 01 Grand Prix has no rockers underneath the side skirts.. Chevy truck cab corners and rear fenders start rotting out when they are about 7 years old.. you just flat out don't see any disposable economy cars of any brand that are more than a decade old on a very regular basis, and if you do they are looking pretty rough.. the plastic interiors also fall apart after about a decade of our annual tropical to arctic temperature swings, but the cars do run forever these days..

Well theres a difference between 2001 grand prix rust and 1988 toyota celica rust. Or 1970s Fiat rust, where they are rusting on the showroom floor.

I remember in the 90s I saw a late 80s celica that was barely even a car anymore. I lived in Chicago until 2008.

Sure hope "breaking" doesn't prove to be a Freudian slip. Lots of electronics to break.

(sorry, I don't like to be a spelling dick.. but the amount of electronic gimmicks is at an all time high and rising sharply, and I don't look forward to the cost when they break down. My grandfather's 1995 Park Avenue ultra was bad enough)

I think we might be close to the peak of gasoline only cars. Super cars are going hybrid. Look at the Porsche 918. Hell, look at the Tesla. There are distinct performance anvantages to adding at least some electric power to cars. If you look at the Volt or the Prius, there are also distinct economy advantages. The barrier is cost. On very high performance cars cost is less of an obstacle than on regular cars, so I expect that the very high end will soon be made up of cars with a significant electrical component. These will be better in pretty much every way, but we will lament the loss of our gas only super cars.

Depends on your tolerance for technology. I would argue that we are in a declining period since the same electronics that brough miracles to performance and comfortin, the 90's , are now taking over in the form of electronic nannies. It has been well proven that any data that can be stored is going to be used against you in some way and this will be no exception. Can you think of any technical obstacle to this vision: Speeding is illegal. There are fines issued. If you happen to be speeding the car will use the GPS and electronics to note the event and calculate the appropriate fine. When you next fuel up, the car will transmit the data to the pump and it will be added to the bill. The same event will be downloaded to the insurance company who will then adjust your premiums and add the increse to the same bill.

I loved the 90's and early 2000 years, before antilock brakes became mandatory and traction control took over control of the throttle. And I certainly ant say enough rude things about tire pressure monitors.

The golden age of engines is as far into the future as possible - I think that's what you were trying to say. Engines always get better because they don't have to meet safety regulations and aren't much subject to fashion and consumer whims. The golden age of cars, maybe not.

We're definitely DEEP into the range of diminishing returns on ICEs but we're clearly not too close to the peak. Some big technologies that could help immensely I can think of off the top of my head are aerodynamic piston rings (use a shockwave of air for sealing instead of actual rings), pneumatic/electromagnetic valvetrains like the one Koenigsegg is testing right now and heat recovery tech like BMW's turbosteamer technology. All those will make today's engines look like crap in the future. Hybrid tech is here to stay and it can be worth it purely from a performance standpoint in a KERS-type configuration, like you'd see on the McLaren P1 or Porsche 918...or an F1 car.

Right now, I'd say the golden age of Japanese cars was definitely late 80s - late 90s. They weren't as high-quality as they are right now but I'd say that's worth the lower weight and vastly cooler looks. Maybe in the future if materials advances can gain on never-satisfied, ever-increasing safety regulations (unlikely) and we get some cool hyper-futuristic styling combined with updated engines, I'd revise that.

The golden age of American cars might be right now. '60s~'70s muscle cars were cool-looking and made cool noises, but they were mostly heavy bastards (close to the weight of modern cars) that handled like dump trucks and got the kind of power from a V8 that you might expect from an average everyday NA I4 today (or a sporty turbo I4 at most) - while making fuel disappear at a terrifying rate.