Hyundai Sonata, duh. Beige box racing!

Top Gear USA is actually decent, forget this guy and his ridiculously sweet home office overlooking LA with a pristine Miura parked in it. Yea, forget him.

"Aggressiveness is what he's going to bring to the U.S."

Same here. I dont know how I'm going to be able to buy Car or Evo on lunch breaks anymore. Sad day.

Automobile has been recasting CAR's headline stories for a couple years now, and has been re-posting articles written for CAR by European editor Georg Kacher for a bit longer than that. Mr Kacher has been a contributor to both Automobile and Car since at least 2008. Not surprisingly, Georg moonlights for Autobild as…

...So by extension (and by dint of AMG 6.5 Biturbo V12) the Maybach 57S is a helluva hoon, below the sheetmetal.

THIS. It was a Maybach 57S, once...

This is the icon for me of my birth year, over the Countach or 930 Turbo - '78 Aston Martin Vantage. They sound amazing, grip like a proper European sports car but rolls through corners like a great muscle car. Has supercar performance, but a GT ride. Refined, yet powerful. And it looks timeless.

Wow, I can't even imagine holding onto a car when its remotely close to any of these points!

Porsche 924/944.

Looks a lot better then the current plast-ic-fest. Gawd those cars are dull inside.

Id buy a 20-30,000 mile example with a stack of receipts and the manual trans over any of these early cambiocorsa cars. The color is awful, as Maserati sold these in a range of beautiful (and subtle) metallics that won't make you look like Hulk Hogan's kids.

It seems like a good AOTD list, and well thought out... but aside from the DeLorean I have no interest in even driving any of these cars, let alone owning one. These really are the best of the worst of over a century of motoring.

If I ever get behind the wheel wearing flip flops, they come off and sit in the back seat before I even start the car. Driving a manual trans on a nice summer eve barefoot is actually rather nice. Driving stick with flip flops? Awful, little control and zero feel. I don't get why people don't notice this...

We can do better, we should do better...

This has to count, it was sold at Ford dealers! Only thing is they stopped official sales in 1975, so it's right on the cutoff...

If malaise is to mean only North American cars I think few are remotely collectable until 1984.

1984 Ferrari 288GTO, hands down. 272 made, gorgeous, still relevant today.

There are cultural touchstones in cars - what else explains the donk phenomenon being so closely associated with African American culture?

I'm tempted to get a beater NA, there's one on my street that hasn't moved in a year... cruelty!