Topic: Friday Fun: Icons of the 1970s

[sacrat]

If I'm not mistaken, a real 70's GTIs was never available in North America.  As I recollect the first real GTI available on this side of pond was the 1983 "Rabbit" GTI, superseded by the type 2 Golf GTI in 1985.  There was a 79 GTI in Canada but it was cosmetic only, i.e.: running gear was identical to the regular NA Rabbit.  I remember because of how disappointed I was given the giant killer rep the European car had.

This 1980 Rabbit commercial should warm the hearts and memories of you Volkswagen fans out there. The "victim" car even fits this article

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKndJfH62B4

[sacrat]

i say my pacer still gets more looks than any other on the list... even non-car people still look twice...

then they laugh, but they looked first.

My first car was a 1970 Gremlin (apparently named for the electrical system which was full of the little critters  ). Tooscoops, I'm wondering if you remember "Hey lady, what happened to the rest of your car" commercial that came out at the time. I haven't been able to find it online anywhere...

[ajay]

I really liked the 240 and the 280 .
In the 280 with my brother driving doing 100 mph in the pouring rain in Vancouver he shut off the windshield wipers . We were going fast enough that you didn't need them on .

[tinnemeneer]

I had never heard of the Bricklin SV-1 but I like the looks of it. Anyone here ever seen one of them driving ?
Of all the cars in this list I've only seen The VW, BMW and Datsun when I was a kid. My parents drove a Ford Escort. It had a 1.1 engine and when on vacation my brother and I had to get out on steep hills and help pushing the car and trailer. Those were the days.

Even though there are some fantastic looking cars from that era (Stingray, Z300) I personally prefer the '68 and '69 models.
But what I remember most of the 1970's is that cars were ugly, well, at least they were in my neighbourhood.

[tooscoops]

i say my pacer still gets more looks than any other on the list... even non-car people still look twice...

then they laugh, but they looked first.

My first car was a 1970 Gremlin (apparently named for the electrical system which was full of the little critters  ). Tooscoops, I'm wondering if you remember "Hey lady, what happened to the rest of your car" commercial that came out at the time. I haven't been able to find it online anywhere...

yeah, I've found most of the old ads and put them on a dvd... purchased most of the pacer print ads as well... for the pacer, my fav was the guy making a giant sub in the back. i found a matching gremlin to my iveroy green pacer for sale a while back, but though 7 grand was too much to pay for a joke.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I had never heard of the Bricklin SV-1 but I like the looks of it. Anyone here ever seen one of them driving ?

I'm from New Brunswick originally and used to see them pretty frequently and knew a guy that worked at the plant. The whole story was a pretty sad affair.

[Mike]

I had never heard of the Bricklin SV-1 but I like the looks of it. Anyone here ever seen one of them driving ?

I'm from New Brunswick originally and used to see them pretty frequently and knew a guy that worked at the plant. The whole story was a pretty sad affair.

Could be worse...he could have been busted smuggling drugs...

[quadzilla]

I knew somebody that had a '76 Pontiac Formula Firebird with the 400 under the hood that I got take out a few times. Burned up a lot of gas in that car. Almost bought it but my Dad talked me out of it, probably for good reasons that I didn't fully understand back then.

Saw a Torino last week with the full S&H pain job.

I'm sure Wayne's World did wonders for the Pacer and its polarity.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I knew somebody that had a '76 Pontiac Formula Firebird with the 400 under the hood that I got take out a few times. Burned up a lot of gas in that car. Almost bought it but my Dad talked me out of it, probably for good reasons that I didn't fully understand back then.

Saw a Torino last week with the full S&H pain job.

I'm sure Wayne's World did wonders for the Pacer and its polarity.

When I lived in Bathurst, the local Ford dealership brought in a bunch of Starsky & Hutch clones. The front row of the lot was basically all S&H Torinos. They sold out in a matter of weeks. My schoolbus used to pass by every day, and everyday there'd be a few less. I tried talking dad into getting one, but he's way too practical for that kind of thing.

He did have a company car that was a Torino, but it was a four door, lime coloured and not nearly as cool.

[johngenx]

Not everything in the 1970's sucked.

From 1971-73, Ferrari made 122 examples of perhaps the most desirable car to ever travel the earth: the 365 GTS/4, also known as the Daytona Spyder.  An open air V-12 front engined car that personally, I would take over any other car ever produced by Ferrari.  Or made by anyone.

Chevrolet replaced the Camaro with the Gen II model in 1970, and what a move forward.  Sure, it still had a live axle in the rear, but the chassis was 100x better than the outgoing 67-69 models, and the new Z28 was fast of the floor, and with not a lot of work, could be made to run a road course with some pretty big dogs.  People lust after the 67-69 models, but the 1970 was a much better driver's car.

Porsche dropped the now-iconic 911 turbo on us in 1976.  The Big Three has begun to neuter their V-8s and it looked like performance was dead.  Then Porsche said "no, it ees not.  We use zee turbo thing and make zee car very fast."

In 1975, Mercedes introduced the 70's version of the Muscle-Sedan, the 6.9.  While I'd prefer to own an earlier 300SEL 6.3, the big 6.9 is a thing to behold.

In 1978, Bruce Springsteen sang "Racing in the Street."  For those of us that spent a lot of effort to make our V-8 muscle/pony cars appear NOT fast for strip/street nights, the song was our anthem.  Thanks to the many 5.0L Mustang owners that were victimized by my small-block Camaro, and the bankroll they padded.  The most complicated thing about life was tuning the Holley...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXwzG_4cmes

[Mozeby]

If I'm not mistaken, the Countach and the 308 Ferrari both were introduced in the 70's, not the 80's so that should put them into this decade.  Also while I appreciate the home team mentality, the Bricklin is hardly an icon.  I would include a Detomaso Pantera before that car any day of the week.

[blur911]

.  Also while I appreciate the home team mentality, the Bricklin is hardly an icon.  I would include a Detomaso Pantera before that car any day of the week.

The Bricklin was certainly an icon if you lived in NB in the '70s.  Pantera's if you lived in Toronto and liked hockey and bad coffee maybe, but I've seen more Bricklins. 

[gosteelerz]

The true icons of the 70s were the personal luxury coupes.  There were Montes, Cordobas and T-Birds everywhere.  They were the CUV of that generation.

IMO the 2002 was more mythical than iconic as they were almost non-existent.  I became obsessed with cars starting around 1980 and never remember seeing one on the road.  At the time I could pretty much identify model and year of any car so I would have noticed if they were around.

[johngenx]

I owned a 74 2002tii. Amazing car for the day. Too bad BMW hadn't discovered galvanized body panels...