While I’m sure the musclecar fans amongst us would go wild for all manner of classics from my storied birth year of 1968, I’ll confess that muscle machines have never really been my thing. I suppose if I had to choose something from the category, I would be quite happy with a Shelby “King of the Road” GT350 or GT500. I’ve always appreciated the Mustang as being the smaller, more sports-car-like machine of the muscle era, whether or not that was always true.
What I’d really like from 1968 is a Volkswagen Beetle. As much as I loved my 1974 Super, I always wished it were the slimmer, flat-windshield “regular” Beetle. And for non-Super Beetles, 1968 is considered a great one. Totch knows infinitely more about best years for Beetles, but I don’t think you can go wrong with a ’68.
Now let’s check in with Antti Kautonen and Mark Tucker:
Antti
As a former Peugeot 205 driver and enjoyer, I’ll nominate the 205 GTI. While the full-force 1.9 GTI was only introduced later, the 105-hp 1.6 GTI was new for 1984. It also brought the iconic three-door side window shape to the 205 model palette, as the 205 was initially launched with five doors.
The 205 GTI was a great hot hatch and one of the best of the genre. It was light, willing, versatile and perfectly fine to be used as the only car, and importantly, it also looked immensely cool. The 1.6 GTI only came with the 14-inch pepperpot wheels, so you can differentiate those from the 1.9 cars with the 15-inch wheels with a different design. My ideal 205 would be the carbed 1.3 Rallye, but those were also sold from the first light facelift on. My 205 was a warmly sporty 205 XS, so it was spiritually closer to the Rallye as it had a TU engine instead of the bigger, backwards-slanted XU of the 205 GTI.
Mark
1973 … lots of good choices, actually. Big American cars: boat-tail Riviera, fuselage Chryslers, first-year GM Colonnade coupes. Smaller sportier numbers: Datsun Z, Opel GT, Triumph TR6, Fiat 128 Rally. If I’m dreaming big: Pantera.
Top graphic image: Bonhams
I would just like to say that I was born in 1974 and therefore presumably have one of the least favorable starting positions for this question 😎
Man, someone could do a bit of damage with the things we discuss here. “Hey, my first car was [car], I was born in [year], here’s how I transported [pet name] back when I first had a pet and we drove down [street I grew up on]…”
I think I’m the oldest so far. I can’t choose between a 1956 Porsche 550 Spyder or a Lotus Eleven so I will take both.
Some 1974 model year vehicles I’d love to drive today:
76 had some options but for me it would be the Mazda Cosmo.
I limited my choices to vehicles introduced in 1975, as the list would be too hard to swallow otherwise. As such I went with the goat, the 1975 Ferrari 308GTB
What is wild is I could have also chosen a Gurgel Itaipu
Lancia Stratos!
Also is this all part of a long term ID theft strategy? Next up:
Cars that share their name with your mother’s maiden name
Cars that remind you of your first pet
Shoot, you beat me to the punch and did it better.
Which car did you cruise down the street you grew up on (and what was that street)?
What was the coolest car in the high school parking lot that you graduated from and is there a car named after their mascot?
What are the last 4 digits of your VIN?
1969? Too many to list. Highlights:
BMW 2002
Air-cooled VWs from Beetle to Squareback to 411 to bus
MGB and Midget
Triumph Spitfire and TR6
Rover P6
Series Land Rovers (maybe I get my hands on a very early Range Rover at the end fo the year)
Fiats galore
Alfa Romeo Spider and GTV
Alfa Romeo sedans
Lancia Fulvia
Anything and everything Mercedes made at the time from Pagoda to w114 200D to 300SEL 6.3
Peugeot 504 or 404
Renault 16
Citroen DS, ID, or 2CV
Saab 99 or 96
Volvo 140
Any Ferrari
Any Maserati
Various “Etceterinis”
Chevrolet Corvair just sneaks in – I’ll take a last of the line Monza convertible otherwise I don’t care much about American cars
Datsun 240Z
Datsun 510
My Boxster and I are a year apart, though my own date of manufacture would place me in the same model year as it if I were a car.
My Miata and A4 Quattro were both of generations that overlapped with my birth, but in configurations that did not. The Miata was an earlier 1.6L and the A4 was a later drive-by-wire car. In both cases, a bit of me wishes I had my own year, a 1.8L Miata for the sturdier crankshaft and a cable-throttle A4 for smoother shifting.
If I had a genie in a lamp to grant me ownership of a car of my birth year, it’d be hard to turn down an RX-7 just to satisfy a childhood dream, though I wouldn’t mind a Series 1 Elise or a Renault Sport Spider. The second-gen Viper would be fun, but I think I’ve pretty well found my niche in little roadsters.
If the genie is feeling stingy and only offering one-time drives, the McLaren F1 was about to wrap up production, and I’ve heard auto journos say it’s a rare case of a supercar that drives like a sports car, something I’d absolutely love to experience once.
I’ll take a ‘88 Mustang GT, please and thank you. Anything from Japan would also be fine.
I actually did own a 1993 Mercedes-Benz 500 SL (which turned out to be a disaster), but I’d drive pretty much any 1993 Mercedes-Benz.
1966 Bonneville, 230SL, Fleetwood Brougham, Shelby GT350, Continental.
1993 was a fun year, whether we go by production start or announcement date (based on the criteria you apply, you may view some of these as ’92s or ’94s): Aston Martin DB7 – and if I have to pick one, this would be my pick as it was one of my favorites in NFS 3: Hot Pursuit, BMW 3 Series Compact, Citroen Xantia, Donkervoort D8, 4th gen Mustang, W202 C-Class, Peugeot 306, Porsche 993, and more.
Some that I have already driven and would be open to driving again: B4 Passat, 1st gen SsangYong Musso, 1st gen Fiat Punto.
The BMW M3 E30 started production a couple of months before I was born. I think it would be a very fine choice.
Skyline GT-R Hakosuka (KPGC10)
This prompted me to search for cars from 1989, which led me to this catastrophe which I’ll share with you all.
Used 1989 Honda Civic LX For Sale $3,995 | Cars.com
NO HAGGLE PRICING JUST HONEST UPFRONT DEALS
Oh. My. God.
..the fuck is this?
This is what we call “redneck engineering”.
1971 Mustang Mach 1.
In yellow.
’97 Xsara VTS
1975 was a pretty dark automotive time.
I’ll go with a Porsche 911 Carrera because it was good then and is still good now.
1991: F40, 964 911 Cup, LM002, Diablo. So many good options.
Syclone, Vector W8, 500 E, 959, ZR-1, EB110…
Triumph TR4A, Lotus Europa, Lamborghini Miura, Cobra…
’81, so at the tail end of Malaise.
I’ll take an ’88 Saab 900 Turbo, thank you.
Honestly there’s a ton of stuff from ’88 I’d love to own. Pretty awesome year.
My god man! Spring for the SPG!
Am I allowed to dream that big?
I suppose this is a hypothetical so yeah give me the SPG. Though I feel like nearly all of them are black?
Color selection was limited, and varied by year. In ’88, SPGs were either black or gray.
The annoying thing about SPG ownership is that part of the package was the removal of all the “turbo” badges, so everyone (except those seriously in the know) always thought I was a poseur with a body kit on a NA car. The kid I sold mine to promptly put the badges on in all the locations standard Turbo cars had them.
Also, the way those SPG body panels are attached is seriously janky, and when one falls off (which they very easily can), you’re in for an expensive hunt. They do look cool, though.
1975 isn’t the greatest birth year for the enthusiast, but I will totally slip into some rich Corinthian leather and float unreliably down the road.
Mercedes 300 SLC, Thunderbird, Chevy Nomad, Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz, Chevrolet Cameo Carrier, Ford Ranchero, Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder, Jaguar XK 150, Willys CJ 5 and Willys Station Wagon.