What Is The Quintessential 1980s Car?

Let me jump right in and say that everyone is free to interpret “quintessential” as you like, never mind that a dictionary will tell you it means (in our context) the “most typical” or “best example of” a 1980s car. It would be easy to go by best-sellers, and that’s certainly a way to do it, but hardly the only way. Cases in point, the choices from Antii and The Bishop:

Antii Kautonen

Giugiaro’s folded-paper styling was one of the most recognizably ’80s designs, something he used on a variety of cars but never in such an iconic way as on the DeLorean. Partially thanks to that one movie franchise, partially because of the movie star life John Z. DeLorean himself lived, the DMC-12 embodies both ’80s excess and ’80s nostalgia. The car might not be the supercar it wants to look like, but not all lasting automotive phenomenons are about straight-line speed

The Bishop

Most Americans have forgotten about the Galant Sigma sedan that Mitsubishi brought over to compete (unsuccessfully) with the likes of the Camry and Accord. Still, every square inch of this thing screams “eighties” even if you don’t know anything about cars. That angular wedge profile, “upscale” chrome-framed grille, and checkerboard taillights? Yes! The fact that the optional V6 was advertised as a magical powerhouse is also perfect for the time.

Bring a Trailer

Ah, but inside the Sigma was where the eighties flag flew high. Flippers and identical rectangular buttons on “satellite pods,” a fluorescent HVAC pictogram and equalizer-looking sliders on the stereo are symbolic of the time. Plus you could get a very-eighties “adaptive” suspension that I’m sure you couldn’t tell “firm” from “soft” apart except for the changes on the cool Millennium Falcon dash lights.

Bring a Trailer

Pete

I went with a much more popular car for my choice, but popularity isn’t why I chose it. Instead, I just went with what hit me first, and that was the original Ford Taurus. My memories of the 1980s are only getting fuzzier, but I feel like that the “futuristic” Taurus, staid as it looks now, really shook things up in a decade-defining way. In an era when the still-very-70s Oldsmobile Cutlass was a top seller (true, incredibly) the Taurus really gave me a “the 80s have truly arrived” feeling. And I still like the blanked-out grille with the floating oval.

Your turn:

What Is The Quintessential 1980s Car?

Top graphic image: RM Sotheby’s