Article content There’s little argument that the early 1980s represent the nadir of the automotive industry. This is especially true for Detroit’s Big Three, as American brands found themselves scrambling to deal with an energy crisis (and the demand for non-existent fuel-efficient vehicles), struggling to keep any semblance of performance in their showrooms (as engines were downsized and choked by pollution equipment), and deploying new technologies they barely understood and couldn’t really build. All of this took placed while fighting off the unforeseen rise of Japanese options that had surpassed domestic models’ quality and design.
Unfortunately for the open-minded buyer willing to look outside of their own backyard, however, these same ‘80s imports had the rust resistance of a tin can in a brine bucket, making it difficult to take advantage of reliable drivetrains and well-assembled interiors that dropped through the frame after three years of road salt exposure. Given how poorly things were going across almost the entire board, it’s a little more difficult to pinpoint which specific year from that period plunged enthusiasts and everyday drivers alike into the deepest pit of despair. At a time when most models had difficulty breaking 120 km/h (preferring instead to break on the way home from the dealership), allocating your new car dollars came with a sense of ennui seldom matched in the annals of transportation history.
That said, there are three strong candidates for “Worst Year Of The 80s For Cars.” This trio of purgatories between the beginning of the spiral and automakers actually figuring out how to carve a new path forward through a challenging decade might not have much in the way of “strengths,” but certainly educate us in the “weakness” column as they vie for the title of “Best Forgotten” in our collective consciousness. 1980 brings bangs and whimpers The decade set off to an inauspicious start, especially if you were General Motors.
The company was poised to suffer a succession of catastrophic indignities as it struggled to adjust to the market realities of the time. The opening salvo was addition by subtraction for America’s most popular sports car. The C3-generation Chevrolet Corvette had fallen feeble through the 1970s, its once-mighty V8 engines progressively hobbled by EPA regulations that restricted tail pipe emissions well past the ken of the General’s engineering staff.
So overwhelmed were they by the demands of the landmark Clean Air Act that the ‘Vette’s product planners essentially gave up on the country’s biggest market in a bid to meet the letter of the law. The California Corvette has achieved the dubious status among the New Balance crowd as the worst of the Disco-Vette lowlights. Unlike the version of the coupe sold everywhere else in America, Californians found themselves foisted upon by a de-contented Corvette that boasted a bog-standard, 305 cubic-inch V8 borrowed from the brand’s passenger-car division instead of the 350 cubic-inch unit offered everywhere else.
Not only that, but the car could only be had with a four-speed automatic transmission (further sapping the performance potential of its 190 horsepower), and it breathed through a single exhaust pipe that was split at the bumper to simulate a sporting appearance. Chevrolet was so embarrassed by the California Corvette that it gave buyers a $50 credit, which they presumably used to buy a long list of excuses they could break out at each stoplight. Perhaps the General was too distracted by its new compact car program to pay much attention to the fate of its once-proud standard-bearer.
The 1980 model year also marked the introduction of the much-ballyhooed “X-cars,” the first affordable, front-wheel drive machines to be offered by Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, and Oldsmobile on the X-platform. Intended to serve as a bulwark against the inexpensive economy cars pouring out of Japan, the vehicles sold well—especially the Chevrolet Citation, which had the added bonus of being named 1980’s “Car of the Year” by Motor Trend . Unfortunately, having millions of X-cars out in the wild soon turned from profit centre to nightmare fuel for General Motors as a litany of owner complaints and serious safety issues began to mount.
Rust problems, self-destructing interiors, rattle-prone engines and suspensions, and perhaps most terrifying, brakes that were so bad the U.S. Justice Department eventually sued the company to force a recall on those first-year cars—a legal manoeuvre that shredded any last bit of public goodwill as GM fought against it through the courts.
As for buyers who turned their backs on the Citation et al in favour of the Japanese models it was intended to smother, they didn’t fare much better. Honda’s second-generation Civic arrived at roughly the same time as the X-cars, and while it was more frugal and better assembled, its near lack of galvanization ensured that anyone living in a winter climate would be back at the dealer within a three year period, presumably bringing the rust flakes that were once their daily driver with them in a bucket as a trade-in on a replacement vehicle. 1981 aims for the stars, plows through the gutter One year into the decade and there wasn’t much new out there to raise the spirits of anyone forced to peruse the offerings at their local dealership.
Even stalwarts like the Ford Mustang , recently emerged from its stumbles through the late 1970s as a Pinto derivative to embrace the potential of the Fox platform, was still fumbling its way towards eventual ‘80s glory. For 1981 the Mustang’s styling was on point but the most buyers could look forward to was an underwhelming 118 horsepower from a 4.2-litre V8 that barely beat out the 88 horses available from the four-cylinder entry-level model.
Like the California Corvette, the pony car was automatic-only in eight-cylinder form, making it even less appealing to anyone with a pulse. Things weren’t much better in the exotic crowd, either. With Ferrari keeping its head above water with models like the Mondial and the 308 that just barely cracked 200 horsepower, Maserati sensed an opportunity to strike with a new high-end coupe of its own.
Enter the Biturbo, perhaps the most problematic Italian car ever assembled, and one whose twin-turbo V6 guaranteed a quick transition to “ran when parked” status on classified ads across the continent ( a trend that continues to this day ). Still: bleak as things might have been for sports-car fans or Mustang diehards, General Motors continued to gather momentum as a company whose reach far exceeded its grasp of the technologies it attempted to bring to market. Although it had been introduced at the end of the 1970s, the Oldsmobile Diesel engine that GM offered across nearly its entire passenger car portfolio reached the height of its sales in 1981, dooming hundreds of thousands of owners to a penury that included head bolt failures, corroded fuel pumps, timing chain failures, and transmission troubles, with class-action lawsuits highlighting these issues in detail.
Then there was the Cadillac 8-6-4, an engine that attempted to use primitive computer monitoring and controls to automatically cut its active cylinder count in half in order to save fuel while cruising, but which more often infuriated its owners with its indecision over power production. If this feature sounds familiar, that’s because cylinder deactivation is found on the many large-displacement engines offered today. That there was a 25-year gap between its initial development and its actual widespread adoption should tell you just how stiff a task the 8-6-4 was facing down in 1981, which incidentally was the only year of production for the oft-stalling motor.
Finally, rounding out the trail of tragedies at General Motors was the Pontiac Trans Am Turbo, which attempted to end-run around the lack of big-block power in the brand’s portfolio by force-feeding a 301 cubic-inch (4.9 L) small-block V8 with (allegedly) nine pounds of boost through the carburetor. Another automatic-only cruiser in muscle-car drag, the Trans Am Turbo could muster no more than 210 horses on the odd day when everything under the hood aligned enough to avoid a no-start condition.
The drivetrain was so bad that it had the distinction of being the last in-house engine ever developed by Pontiac before GM required it to share with Chevy in the drivetrain department. 1982 fails to relaunch Much of the above carried forward into 1982, but the mounting horrors also included a few novel additions to the landscape of regrettable automotive decisions. Renault, still struggling to be taken seriously in North America, debuted the Fuego, an over-styled hatchback that needed a turbocharger to generate just over 100 horsepower from its four-cylinder engine.
It also required a chase vehicle to scoop up the pieces falling off of it as it trundled down the highway towards the brand’s eventual withdrawal from the market. Then there was Mercury, a company whose heel-turn towards purveyor of indistinguishable Ford clones was cemented by the decision to transform the once-proud Cougar into a Fox-body station wagon that few people had any interest in whatsoever. The real stinkers of 1982, of course, again wafted from General Motors.
Incapable of introducing what could have been a truly modern muscle car without cutting it off at the knees, Chevrolet brought the third-generation Camaro into the world with a four-cylinder engine under the hood that couldn’t even match to the Fuego’s 100 horsepower. Dubbed the “Iron Duke,” it doomed base versions of both the Camaro and the Pontiac Firebird to a 20-second climb to 100 km/h, provided there weren’t any hills or headwinds in its path. Then there was the greatest luxury car mistake of all time, a strong claim in a world where models like the Allante and the Cygnet exist.
The Cadillac Cimarron was a bald-faced cash grab whereupon its corporate parent tried to con buyers into purchasing a barely gussied-up version of the Chevy Cavalier compact sedan at an incredibly inflated price. It was a move that sealed Cadillac off from the about-to-boom small luxury segment for the next 30 years as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi offered up fun-to-drive, prestige-worthy entry-level models that formed the foundation of their line-ups. No matter what wins, we all lose Choosing the worst year of the ‘80s for cars from this trio of annus horribilis is a little like receiving three sealed envelopes and being told one contains a tax audit, the other a speeding summons, and the last one a ticket to a high school production of Equus .
There’s simply no way to come out unscathed. Still, close comparison reveals that 1981 has this contest almost entirely wrapped up. In adding 8-6-4 and Olds Diesel woes on top of the X-car hangover already in place, it’s a wonder that General Motors didn’t declare a bankruptcy of ideas and run an open contest to replace its entire executive staff.
We could have easily limited the scope of our 80’s automotive futility investigation to the General alone and unearthed even more damning evidence, but in combination with the Biturbo and the saddest of the V8-powered Fox Mustangs, 1981 has no real peer in a decade where that rough beast — reliability — couldn’t be bothered slouching anywhere near Detroit. Sign up for our newsletter Blind-Spot Monitor and follow our social channels on X , Tiktok and LinkedIn to stay up to date on the latest automotive news, reviews, car culture, and vehicle shopping advice..
