I more or less agree, at least that I passionately hated what happened to North American cars during the nineteen seventies. First, the drop in compression ratios and the introduction of the "smog motors". Then there was a decline in the individual styling of the cars, everything took on a kind of generic look, IMO. Then came the 85 MPH speedometer!
What more do I need to say?
There also was an overall drop in quality across the board, peeling paint, door handles coming off, etc. In North America, we were watching our cars getting smaller and smaller, while our roads were being invaded by small import cars at the same time. Most of those turned into oil burning rustbuckets within a few short years, at least that was my observation of the first Japanese cars anyway. We had a few small cars of our own, like the Pinto and Vega. You can say what you want about those two, but at least they were rear wheel drive. When I walked into a display of new cars for 1979, my first reactions were disbelief and disgust. I found myself looking at a couple of compact North American cars with their engines facing the wrong way and the wrong wheels driving the car. I also found myself looking at a 1/2 ton Pick-up truck with several 3" holes all along both frame rails. That is when I knew it was over.
To this day, I can't find myself getting very interested in any car that was manufactured after 1973. There have been a few cars made since then that I kind of like, but generally that is the cut-off point for me. I have to give "The Big-Three" some credit though for having brought back some excitement into the designs. The first bright spot IMO was the 1990 Chevy SS454 (truck), then some of the Mustangs of the early '90's. There was the Dodge Viper in '94 and, of course, the retro Mustangs, Challengers and Camaros of the Y2K decade. There's no denying that performance has returned and the quality has improved since the mid '80's, but I still can't feel the same as I did for a '68 Charger, if you know what I mean.
Yes, my DD is a front drive 4-cyl car. It's generally a pretty good car and it has it's good points. One of them is not it's ride, however. It's rougher than hell, a trade off for handling, I guess. I've often said that if I drive over an ant I'll feel it. I drive lots of newer vehicles at work too, they're okay for the most part, although a couple of them are just complete garbage (I won't mention the brand). Overall, though, compared to what we used to drive, everything these days seems like a compromise. But then, if you ask me, just about everything these days, in one way or another, seems like some sort of compromise.
Wow, I guess that's my rant. :laughing7:
