Eighties Blog – 1980s Retro Movies Fashion Music

The 80s saw the beginning of the end for US auto makers intent on releasing bland, poorly constructed, technologically dated and just plain ugly cars. Compare these classic car badges that were bastardized by the complacent and uninspired US automotive leadership of the eighties – which version do you prefer?

1959 Ford Thunderbird vs 1988 Ford Thunderbird

1969 Cadillac vs 1988 Cadillac

That ugly Cadillac Cimarron (named as one of TIme Magazines 50 Worst Cars Ever) wasn’t even cheap, they thought they were competing with BMW and Mercedes…nice try!

1982 BMW 733i

The BBC car lovers tv series began in 1977 as a somewhat conventional and short 30 minute motoring magazine program that evolved over time to incorporate it’s present funny and off beat longer format. Being a big fan I was happy to find this mid 80s Top Gear video online. Although there’s no Stig and it is sadly lacking in high speed drifting and rare supercars there are some cool parts and it gives a taste of the European 1980s automotive scene. Check out their high tech computer graphic titles!

In this first episode of 1986 presenter Chris Goffey cruises in to the mid 80s with style in a sweet BMW 7-series while Sue Baker takes an exciting look at the second-hand tire market. William Woollard gives a cold war examination of cheap but cute Eastern-European Cars: the Skoda 105 S, the FSO 1500, the Yugo 45A and the Lada Riva 1300SL and sees if you could do better buying a second-hand West-European car. The Best part is when Chris Goffey asks the popular 80s reggae band UB40 why they sponsor rally-driver James Prochowski and interviews the driver.

The heart warming story of when swell folks go punk and how their family learns a valuable lesson in understanding and bla bla bla fake but funny! Look for familiar seventies and eighties stars Jay Underwood (Uncle Buck,Fantastic Four), Bernie Kopell (The Love Boat) and James Noble (Benson) in this corny After School Special. Some of the 80s values expressed here include the value of conformity, selling out for cash and big hair.

YouTube deleted the full video but here is a clip of the Punk make-over scene:

Don’t worry, no one was falling for that family friendly slop except naive parents – real punk rock thrived in the 80s and there was no love for the phony suburban posers that became punk overnight in appearance but not attitude. Here are some punks that weren’t faking it – The Dead Kennedys with their hit Holiday in Cambodia performed live!

Max Headroom was a computer generated smart ass 80s icon with funny satirical opinions about media, politics and pop culture – a sort of John Stewart of the eighties. In an age of blocky low-resolution computer graphics Max appeared to be a huge advance in lifelike 3D rendering. Eventually the high tech secret was revealed – it was a guy in a mask!

Here’s a video of Max Headroom on 80s style:

Max also appeared in the track Paranomia by Art of Noise as seen in this 80s classic music video:

New Max 80s Tees from Insomniak Apparel:

An icon of the 1980s Max Headroom T-Shirts with very tasteful neon green and orange tiger stripes.