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I was in High School from September 1979 to June of 1983.
Popular cars were the VW Beetle and other VW cars. Even the Van was cool but they had to be the 1960's versions of the cars. The Super Beetle wasn't seen as cool. The Rabbit was popular although maybe not the coolest thing to drive around in. Turning your Beetle into a Baja Bug or making a Dune Buggy was a big thing back then. If you could take it on the sand that was always cool.
Datsun Pickup trucks, they were popular to lower and hot rod around in. Also the 240 to 280Z cars (the pre 340 series sports cars) Toyota Trucks when they brought out the 4x4 version of the truck. Seems like they came in 2 colors back then, yellow or red.
BMW 320i was a dream car for a lot of my friends. Back then our parents drove Caddillacs or Town Cars. My dad had a Coupe De Ville.
Honda Civics were big back then.
Most of my friends were not too much into Big Chevys like the Impala. Around here the Impala was something that Latinos used to turn into Low riders. Many of my friends were into Chevelle and Malibus though. I had a Olds Cutless with the 350 Olds Engine similar in design to the Chevelle. Pony cars were big. Mustangs, Camerro, TransAm, AMC Javalin, Dodge Challenger. (Kind of like todays challenger.)
Any early American Iron from the 30's to the 60's were big if you could find something to build. I had a friend that had a 47 Chevy Pickup that I wish I had today. Some kids had 55 to 57 Chevys and those allways went over well.
4X4 was also big. having a big truck raised to the roof was cool.
Early 70's for me. Right at the end of the muscle car era as I graduated in 1974. We had it all including Road Runners , SS 396 Chevelles , GTO's , Hemi Cuda's , Darts , 428 SCJ Mustangs , Chargers , Camaro's , Buick GSX , 442 Olds and even AMC AMX and Javelins. Basically any muscle cars from the muscle car era was around when I was in high school. It was a great time to live ! Ron
Road Runner, Maverick, AMX, Ford Fiesta, Challenger, Charger, VW bug, Honda CVCC, vans with pictures of dragons on the side and beds in the back, older Camaros and mustangs, barracuda, GTO Judge, Pontiac LeMan and Catalina, Golden Eagle Trans Am, Chevy Nova, Olds Cutlass, Buick Skylark, Pacer, Vega, Pinto, VW bus, VW squareback, VW thing, Triumph (TR8 I think), station wagons (Ford Galaxie, Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Chevy), Plymouth Fury. Grand Torino, Subaru Brat, El Camino.
Those are the ones that stand out in my memory the most readily.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 04-18-2012 at 01:02 PM..
From 1989 to 1993, the Honda CRX, Honda Civic, VW GTI, VW Scirocco, VW Corrado, VW Bus, Ford Mustang and Chevy Camaro were pretty popular at my school. I drove a 1984 CRX for a while and at the time, thought that was pretty cool! But that car had lots of issues....
Road Runner, Maverick, AMX, Ford Fiesta, Challenger, Charger, VW bug, Honda CVCC, vans with pictures of dragons on the side and beds in the back, older Camaros and mustangs, barracuda, GTO Judge, Pontiac LeMan and Catalina, Golden Eagle Trans Am, Chevy Nova, Olds Cutlass, Buick Skylark, Pacer, Vega, Pinto, VW bus, VW squareback, VW thing, Triumph (TR8 I think), station wagons (Ford Galaxie, Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Chevy), Plymouth Fury.
Those are the ones that stand out in my memory the most readily.
You reminded me of more. One guy had a 1970's era Chevy van painted with a chopper on the side. The front wheel of the van was the choppers front wheel and the rear wheel was the choppers rear wheel. Not sure if it had a "If this van is a rockin" sticker on the bumper, but many did have them. Also, maybe because there were so many of them, Triumph, MG, Fiat, Honda, Alpha, and a slew of others all offered 2 seat convertable sports cars similar to the Mazda Miata. I think MG stopped selling in the early 80's around here. I always likes the Triumph Spitfire. Remember the Shape of things to come? Triumph TR7. It was a triangle shapped car with all the advertisements showing other items that were triangle shapped. Triangle shapped TV screens, Phones, Garages, Homes, just about anything that you could think of may have ended up in the TR7 addvertiesements. I never liked that car much. The Spitfire had the curves that I liked.
No vehicle predominated. In fact, we were so happy just to be able to drive that most drove their parent's older second/third car.
We did not have what you see now with kids driving current issue models.
69 Mach I, MG Midget, 1970 GTO, early 70s Cutlass, late 70s Corvette, a DORF van, 68 Mustang fastback, mid-70s Nova, early 70s Charger, 1970 Mustang Convertible with 69 front end and Mach I badges!, Pulsar NX, 68 Cougar, 70? Impala (land barge), Starsky&Hutch Torino wannabe, Dodge Dart(the shoebox years), post-71 Cougar, bunch of bread and butter cars. This is what I remember. Oh yeah, one kid had a sharp 79 T/A 6.6.
Fox body Mustang GT, or 5 point oh's as they were called. Very modern and ahead of their time as far as styling.
I had a 79 F150 with a 5 liter engine in it. My sisters were listening to some rapper singing about a Mustang with the 5.0 and they had no idea what the 5.0 stood for. I asked what the big deal was because I also drove a 5.0 They were telling me, no way that a 5.0 was a car. I had to show them what a 5.0 was.
I had a 79 F150 with a 5 liter engine in it. My sisters were listening to some rapper singing about a Mustang with the 5.0 and they had no idea what the 5.0 stood for. I asked what the big deal was because I also drove a 5.0 They were telling me, no way that a 5.0 was a car. I had to show them what a 5.0 was.
Ya, even though 5.0 referred to the engine displacement, people called them 5 point oh because of the 5.0 badge on the fender. That's cool though.
About 5 years ago I seen an EXTREMELY nice fox body and thought to myself "Even after 20 years that body style and interior still looks semi-modern". I thought the design held up pretty well, but they are showing their age now.
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What cars were popular when you were in high school?
