The game-changers of each decade.

David09

If you could nominate one car from each decade that was different to others and set new benchmarks in styling, engineering and was influential on others, what would they be?

Here's my choices, and I've done my best to avoid any personal biases.

60's : Renault 16.

First mainstream 5 door hatchback. Modern styling that still looked fresh 20 years later.

70's : Fiat ritmo.

A controversial choice. It was revolutionary in terms of styling and was one of the first cars to be built entirely by robots. It should have been good, but was a disaster in terms of quality control. It was a lesson in manufacturing quality to all others.

80's : Peugeot 205.

It set the pace for small cars that despite being cheap could be well built and excellent to drive. The gti was iconic.

90's : Ford focus.

Demonstrated how a mundane family car could have pin sharp handling and excellent driving dynamics that blew all others out of the water. Styling wise, the original still looks fresh 16 years later.

00's : vw Passat.

Not much can be said about the car itself, in that everything about it was run-of-the-mill in terms of styling and engineering, but the pd engine under the bonnet was a game changer in that it proliferated diesel power and proved that economical could also be reasonably powerful with little trade off for comfort.


Those are my nominations. What are yours??!

W123-80's

80’s : E30 & 190E
The first of the mid sized exec saloons. Created a whole new market in terms of marque motoring and owing a prestige brand.

bazz26

David09 wrote: »

00's : vw Passat.

Not much can be said about the car itself, in that everything about it was run-of-the-mill in terms of styling and engineering, but the pd engine under the bonnet was a game changer in that it proliferated diesel power and proved that economical could also be reasonably powerful with little trade off for comfort.


Those are my nominations. What are yours??!

Not sure I'd agree that PD was ground breaking. The original TDI introduced in the early 1990s were pretty ground breaking for diesel at the time but most of the competition were moving over to Fiat's designed Common Rail injection system by the early 2000s while VW pursued Pumpe Duse. VW eventually moved to CR later on too.

wonski

Fiat Bravo (1995-2001) would be my candidate.

Right in the middle of the decade, but it was a cracking looking car in the 90's.

The Passat doesn't fit he bill, if you aked me.

visual

Renault Laguna 2001

First with 5 star NCAP and at time rated one of the safest cars on the road.

Joe 90

60s:
BMW 2002, Lotus Elan and Jaguar XJ6.

2002, the first real sports saloon.
XJ6, probably the first big saloon that had good road behavior.
Elan, one of the best small sports cars ever.

70s::
Porsche Carrera RS Lightweight. The reason that Porsche still make lots of money from the 911.

Golf GTi.

Porsche 944.

80s:
Cosworth Sierra. Last desirable Ford.:)

90s:
Elise.

mister gullible

Alfasud

visual

Joe 90 wrote: »

60s:
BMW 2002, Lotus Elan and Jaguar XJ6.

2002, the first real sports saloon.
XJ6, probably the first big saloon that had good road behavior.
Elan, one of the best small sports cars ever.

70s::
Porsche Carrera RS Lightweight. The reason that Porsche still make lots of money from the 911.

Golf GTi.

Porsche 944.

80s:
Cosworth Sierra. Last desirable Ford.:)

90s:
Elise.

Golf GTI and the 205 GTI where game changers

to a lesser extent Renault 5 turbo

These set the stage for cool fast hatchbacks

visual

80s

audi quattro took the rally world by storm

Joe 90

visual wrote: »

Golf GTI and the 205 GTI where game changers

to a lesser extent Renault 5 turbo

These set the stage for cool fast hatchbacks

Not to forget the Renault Turbo.


This ones a Turbo 2.

Zcott

And no mention of the Renault Espace?

visual

Zcott wrote: »

And no mention of the Renault Espace?

There you go.. 1984 First Espace

wasn't a great success for Renault at launch but it set the bench mark for people carriers

Moneymaker

For Ireland, surely the Toyota Corolla in the 80s and 90s set a standard in reliability and build quality that every other car is compared to.

Buzz Killington the third

Fiat Multipla changed the game because it literally made EVERYTHING else on the road look good!

ba_barabus

W123-80's wrote: »

80’s : E30 & 190E
The first of the mid sized exec saloons.

You're forgetting the Triumph Dolomite SPRINT of the 70's was the car which created this class.

90's, while a controversial choice I'd like to nominate the Rav4 for creating the softroader class now popularised by the CashCow and Juke.
Going back:

30's Citroen Traction Avant - Contains many features still considered modern

50's Citroen DS - Still modern in many ways

60's - Toyota Corolla - The beginning of reliale, cheap family motoring and the rise of the Japanese

70's - Golf GTI - The first hot hatch, everyday fun and useable transport

80's - W124 - Over-engineering at its finest.

90's - Rav4 as above

00's - Veyron - A technical tour de force

10's - Tesla - The acceptable electric car and revolutionary in every way the company is run.

visual

1960 was the decade of the Morris Mini-Minor or Austin Min or Leyland Mini or simply just called Mini

starting production in 1959 and ending in 2000

I had the more common 850 as my first car and dreamed of 1000cc or better still the cooper with its big 1275 cc engine.

W123-80's

ba_barabus wrote: »

You're forgetting the Triumph Dolomite SPRINT of the 70's was the car which created this class.

Perhaps, but the E30 & the 190 took this market on and defined it.

ba_barabus

W123-80's wrote: »

Perhaps, but the E30 & the 190 took this market on and defined it.

Agreed. BL always snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

ikarie

Peugeot 104 zs twin carb 1978-79

This was the game changer along with the golf mk1 long before any 205

Henry Ford III

Porsche 911, Mini, Golf GTI, Ford Focus.

BMJD

1990s:



Affordable, reliable, low-cost and very fast.

ianobrien

My votes are

50's Citroen DS. Its got features that are only making mainstream models now (cornering headlights)

60's Mini and E-Type. Mini for packaging four adults into a small footprint. The E-Type for showing that supercar killers needn't cost the earth, and also look better than Ferrari's

70's Golf GTi. Class defining.

80's Audi Ur quattro. Inventing the cross country killer. First to show turbos and 4wd can work rather eeffectively. Honerable mention for the Renault Espace

90's Ford Focus. For ever killing the bland hatchback (even though the current one isn't the best I reckon)

00's I'm struggling massively. Maybe the Prius for showing a hybrid works in the real world.

10's Tesla

JohnBoy26

The focus is the most overrated "game changer" out there imo. Yes it handles well but it's as bland as anything to look at and isn't as fantastic as it's made out to be to drive either. it's nothing special at all imo.

It's also not as reliable or as well built as it is made out to be either. Now I'm not saying it's bad but these do suffer from many small niggles and the odd bigger problem as well.

The British press bigged this car up massively when it came out in 1998 and made a big deal of it's rear suspension. One such show was top gear and Jeremy clarkson. He compared it's suspension to the rest of the family hatchbacks making it seem like the focus was the only car with independent rear suspension and that the other "ordinary" family hatchbacks only had a beam suspension, yet it's only the megane and Astra he was using as a comparison.

What about Japanese cars in that segment. At the time nearly all of them had independent rear suspension with the prime example being the civic with it's highly sophisticated double wishbone suspension.

colm_mcm

To be fair, control blade suspension was very clever from a packaging and refinement point of view.

JohnBoy26

colm_mcm wrote: »

To be fair, control blade suspension was very clever from a packaging and refinement point of view.

I never thought that it was as good as it was made out to be tbh.

It offers good handling but ride quality like any car( that's setup for handling) is nothing special as a result.

colm_mcm

You can tell a car is right when everyone copies it. Like it or not pretty much every rival (including honda) followed the lead of the focus in terms of size, width Vs height etc.

Keep in mind what was out there in 1998. Alfa 146, Fiat Brava, Rover 400 type Civic, 97-02 Corolla, Mazda 323, Nissan Almera etc.

You have the styling, which 16 years on is accepted but was quite controversial at the time, and the triangles all over the dashboard vs the stuff everyone else was doing.

I'm not a massive Focus fan and think they drop the ball every time they do a new one - but for its time it was revolutionary. Not in one big way, but in lots of little ways that we now expect cars to be like.

(Of course, not everyone wants revolution, and that's fair enough too)

quadrifoglio verde

colm_mcm wrote: »

You can tell a car is right when everyone copies it. Like it or not pretty much every rival (including honda) followed the lead of the focus in terms of size, width Vs height etc.

Keep in mind what was out there in 1998. Alfa 146, Fiat Brava, Rover 400 type Civic, 97-02 Corolla, Mazda 323, Nissan Almera etc.

You have the styling, which 16 years on is accepted but was quite controversial at the time, and the triangles all over the dashboard vs the stuff everyone else was doing.

I'm not a massive Focus fan and think they drop the ball every time they do a new one - but for its time it was revolutionary. Not in one big way, but in lots of little ways that we now expect cars to be like.

(Of course, not everyone wants revolution, and that's fair enough too)

You also had the alfa 156, of which ones in good condition still look great on the road. I can see there being less than a hundred of the phase 1s left on the road in three years time.

bazz26

I think the other big thing with the Focus at the time was that it was the complete opposite in every possible way to the piece of $hit model Escort which it replaced. The MkI Focus was stylish (in a controversial way at the time), well built and handled superbly for it's class. It did to be fair shake up the segment at the time.

JohnBoy26

colm_mcm wrote: »

You can tell a car is right when everyone copies it. Like it or not pretty much every rival (including honda) followed the lead of the focus in terms of size, width Vs height etc.

Keep in mind what was out there in 1998. Alfa 146, Fiat Brava, Rover 400 type Civic, 97-02 Corolla, Mazda 323, Nissan Almera etc.

You have the styling, which 16 years on is accepted but was quite controversial at the time, and the triangles all over the dashboard vs the stuff everyone else was doing.

I'm not a massive Focus fan and think they drop the ball every time they do a new one - but for its time it was revolutionary. Not in one big way, but in lots of little ways that we now expect cars to be like.

(Of course, not everyone wants revolution, and that's fair enough too)

I never found the styling that revalutionary. It's got sharp headlight but other than that it's a tall slab sided piece of bland imo. The saloon is just pure ugly. Tbh I can't see where Honda copied them, or with which car?. The only carmaker I seen copying the focus was vw with the rear suspension in the mk5, mk6.

colm_mcm

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

I never found the styling that revalutionary. It's got sharp headlight but other than that it's a tall slab sided piece of bland imo. The saloon is just pure ugly. Tbh I can't see where Honda copied them, or with which car?. The only carmaker I seen copying the focus was vw with the rear suspension in the mk5, mk6.

Compare a 90s civic to an 06+ civic.
I'm not just talking about suspension. Look at height, shape etc.

JohnBoy26

bazz26 wrote: »

I think the other big thing with the Focus at the time was that it was the complete opposite in every possible way to the piece of $hit model Escort which it replaced. The MkI Focus was stylish (in a controversial way at the time), well built and handled superbly for it's class. It did to be fair shake up the segment at the time.

I think you hit the nail on the Head with your point on the escort. That car was so poor however that anything would be an improvement over it. The focus was a massive improvement over it and for a ford at the time it was a decent effort. The build quality isn't all its cracked up to be however and the car still suffers from some of fords old failings.