[jcp123]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Even though the auto industry was just recovering from the oil shocks, and taking its first steps in some technologies that are now widespread, at least there were still some real station-wagons by then...

True enough. Wagons basically made their last stand in the 80s...as cool as some automotive nerds find Audi or Mercedes wagons these days, they were a bodystyle in decline even then.

I guess I have a bit of an aesthetic bias...the 80s didn't turn out cars, or fashion in general, which I respond positively to. Even musically I can at best say I'm very dichotomous or digital: I love it or I hate it, with no room in between.

But it's also that transition, speaking strictly about cars, after our government went heavily after both emissions and fuel economy. It brought forth a lot of tech with no standards, a Wild West of tech. There's no OBDII consensus, no commonality to the ways in which auto tech was pushed to innovate. There's essentially a dead zone of zombie cars which continue to run for which I couldn't ever justify ownership.