In the 90s, cars from the 70s and 60s were seen as classic, but in 2022 cars from the 90s or 2000s can still be seen in daily use, and in terms of body design, many don’t even look that far off modern cars. What happened around the late 80s?

Question

Edit: great responses, Reddit. People have largely addressed the form factor aspect of my question. But am I wrong in sensing that cars from the late 90s seem to be more reliable and functionally acceptable in 2022, than most cars from the 70s were in the 90s? Was there some engineering breakthrough that made them more long lived?

In: 91

Answer 1

In the 90s, there were still 70s cars beating around fairly commonly. The ones that were classics, were looked after and usually higher trim/gt models.

The same is happening now. There’s still commonly 90s cars on the road (more so due to better reliability and rust protection), but the higher performance cars or luxury cars that have been looked after really stick out and can turn heads.

In Australia, a 95, clapped out V6 Holden Commodore is just a beater, but a V8/GTS version is a classic and in another decade or two, the beater will be scrap and the GTS will be in a garage becoming a true classic.