Question of the Day: What's Your Favorite Era?

Jurisb: I beg to differ. I don't care that the cars of today are more reliant, have better quality, are more comfortable, have more power and safety unheard of in those days. What they lack, however, is a soulful character, beauty and prescense. Somehow, somewhere, the beanconuters ditched the spirit in favour of streamlined production. A Soul can not be bought. But it can be sold. And the difference from yesteryear is a giant sellout. I would chose a Lotus Elan over a Mazda Miata any day of the week. A '61 Conti has more class and sophistication than any Lexus will ever achieve. Any Ferrari from the 60's have more beauty than all Ferraris from the last 30 years. The last one that had any prescense was the original 308 GTB. I know your points are valid, but I don't care. When I have finsished the restoration of my Citroen DS, that's the last car I will ever have the need of. I will happily live in bliss, wafting away in that flying carpet of a car, with a smile on my face.

Jurisb: First of all I too was born well after my chosen golden era of car making. Second, fit, finish, and precision stamping of parts do not beauty make, at least not for most people. The beauty is in the flow of the design. I don't know what it is, but most of what I consider to be beautiful cars were made prior to 1970. And, it seems that most people would agree that the flowing lines of a 1966 Impala are significantly more appealing than the closer tolerances of a 2006 Impala. Trucks from the 1930's up through the late 50's were actually beautiful. Not many people can look at a 2004 Ford F150 and say "Wow, what a gorgeous truck." While nobody can argue that modern cars are better mechanically, I'll still take the 50's or 60's as the Golden age of car making, based both on style and the technological advances of the time.

My favourite era is also before I was born. In general most of my favourite cars are from 1949-1971, including 50's style custom cars. There are few cars before or after that era that I'd really like to own. Also, in general, I'm more fond of American cars than foreign cars. I come to TTAC because I find current automotive news and technology entertaining; most new cars themselves don't interest me.

There were some interesting cars built before I became of driving age: the Studebaker Lowey coupes are simply beautiful, I've always had a soft spot for the second-generation Kaiser Manhattan and the '55 DeSoto. British roadsters of the 60s and 70s are delightful, as is the Karmann Ghia. The Avanti is heartbreakingly beautiful, the Corvair is clever and innovative. I'd love to own some of them, but I wouldn't drive them much, because modern-day driving dynamics have spoiled me. The first new car I ever bought was a 1985 Honda CRX. A part of me wants to say the 1st gen CRX was the pinnacle of automotive design and it's been all downhill ever since. But I know better. There are cars built today with incredibly superior reliability and performance. Not all of them have personality like the ones we look back on fondly--but not every car built in the "golden age" (whenever you think that might have been) was all that lovable, either. Anyone waxing nostalgic for the '53 Hudson Super Jet, or '58 Packardbaker, '62 Star Chief, '71 Vega or '73 Galaxie or '76 Chevette Scooter, or '84 Yugo GVX?