Cars We Loved in the 1980s

It was brash, it was loud—the 1980s put paid to the glumness of the 1970s, and nowhere was that more obvious than in cars, which took a quantum leap in durability, performance, equipment, and style. They had to: Japanese quality and European design were luring away ever more customers. Features like fuel-injection, turbochargers, computer-controlled systems, and four-wheel drive became commonplace. This was also the decade that brought the people-carrier and the off-roader, new classes of car that radically reshaped family transport. Meanwhile, seatbelt-wearing became law, the M25 opened, speed cameras appeared, and ram-raiding was the new motoring nemesis. Relive everything car-related in Britain in the 1980s with Giles Chapman.