I had a green over tan ‘78 Pontiac Sunbird hatch from ‘78-’04 similar to the pictured Monza hatchback. 231 Buick V6 2-bbl, four speed Saginaw trans. I swapped in a Hurst shifter, posi rear carrier out of a Monza GT, Trans Am steering wheel, and powder-coated Vega GT wheels with white-letter Goodyear GT radials…

A fair point. The Hawks were pretty cool.

Yep, 1953 Studebaker - the cleanest, most “modern-looking” of the USA 1950's designs. The worst was the more and more chrome excesses ca. 1958-59. The “horsepower wars”, while entertaining, were still constrained by the lousy brakes, tires, and suspensions of the era.

Every car pictured here is gorgeous

In the case of the X1/9, I disagree. 1979 bumpers make the car look much better.

This needs more stars.

Oh thanks a lot, just looking at that grill gave me cancer. And that stupid jowly front spoiler too.

I’d disagree on one point. Late cars don’t have design, they have decoration. If design is about shapes, proportion and light, decoration is all the random stuff you tack on to cover vast expanses of nothingness. Try to mentally erase all the redundant creases, fake vents, clads and whatnot, and you are left with a…

Any modern BMW...

I’m not sure that’s how the saying goes.

I will give the 70s malaise cars credit on one point, they actually had color back then. Watch any old TV show from late 70s - early 80s and the streets are vibrant with cars, unlike today’s landscape of mostly black/grey/silver/white.

I also vote current, mostly due to the trend of large, ridiculous, ugly grills.

The X 1/9 was a Gandini design, which is to say, it’s like having a Rembrandt or Picasso.  

Thats tough, I’d argue the early to mid 90's had some of the best designs, but by the time the end of the millennium rolled around design took a bit of a nosedive. Then again, every decade had its gems and its turds.

I’m sure I’ll take some heat for this already blazing hot take, but I am consistently turned off by a lot of “50s” design. The early 50s were quite bland, and American cars from ‘58 to around ‘61 or ‘62 were largely an orgy of hideous excess. I would argue what people think is great 50s design mostly settled into the…

Well, this is a terrible story, all around. This is also the strongest example I’ve seen in a long time of someone who should have had a lawyer and kept his mouth shut. If, and I hope you never do, you shoot someone multiple times and then tie them, still alive, to your trailer hitch to drag to a field so that they’ll…

Is this just a general condemnation of the CUV trend?  Because otherwise I don’t get it.

Dragging someone to death is especially viscous. I understand shooting someone who is in the act of robbing you, and I might even be understanding if that person ended up dying from the wounds, but I can not imagine being angry enough over a car part to tie someone to a car and drag them to death. Put that dude away.

This is the case of a shitbag criminal fucking with an even bigger shitbag criminal and losing. 

Good design comes in response to constraints. American cars in the 50s were unconstrained, and instead of being designed, they were decorated. I’ll readily admit those cars were fun, but they weren’t examples of good design. Constraints landed like a bunch of bricks in the 70s, and Detroit just kind of flailed…