Sports Cars of the 1970s

The 1970s were not an easy time for sports cars. The halt in U.S. oil shipments by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was brief, lasting from October 1973 to the spring of '74, but its effects were immediate and profound. All over the land, drivers were forced to wait in long lines to pay record prices for gasoline -- when they could get it -- and public attitudes toward Detroit and the automobile itself began to shift.
Buyers rushed from traditional gas-guzzlers to smaller, more economical cars like domestic Ford Pintos and Chevy Vegas, but also a rising tide of well made, well equipped, increasingly appealing Japanese-made Toyotas, Datsuns, and Hondas. But the entire U.S. car market suffered, and the U.S. economy with it. After climbing to 11.2 million units in calendar 1973, sales plunged over 20 percent to near 8.6 million in '74 and 8.5 million in '75. The market then rallied, but never surpassed its '73 high.
In response to the gas crunch, Congress mandated higher "corporate average fuel economy" (CAFE) for all automakers doing business in the U.S., starting with model-year 1978. But more government mandates were hardly what manaufacturers needed. Even Detroit was still struggling to reduce tailpipe emissions specified by the Clean Air Act of 1970. And there were more safety standards to meet, including bumpers able to survive 5-mph shunts without damage, required for 1973 (front) and '74 (rear).

The Italians were also confounded by the new federal regulations, and the French didn't bother at all with genuine sports cars for the U.S. Even the invincible Germans and fast-rising Japanese had problems. But not all Seventies sports cars were unmitigated disasters. The Chevrolet Corvette, for example, never lost its style. Some performance was lost to clean-air necessity, but also because insurance companies had raised hot-car premiums to impossible heights early in the decade. Chevy was thus correct to morph the 'Vette from fiery muscle car to a more efficient, tight-handling gran turismo, especially once the energy crisis left behind permanently higher gas prices.

The Mazda RX-7 was one of the few sports-car success-stories of the 1980s.

 

The Porsche 911 also adapted to changing times without losing its essential character, and became even more exciting when the high-power Turbo version came along. Porsche's midengine 914 and later front-engine 924 might not have been everything people expected of the marque, but at least they were affordable and surprisingly practical new choices. The rotary-powered Mazda RX-7 was hailed on its 1978 debut as a "new 240Z" and thus a hopeful sign that sports cars did have a future after all.
That symbolism was put to the test when a second energy crisis hit in early 1979, triggered in part by the ouster of the Shah of Iran. It hit hard, especially in Detroit, which was soon hitting the brakes in the face of another market downturn, aggravated by increasing sales losses to "Japan, Inc." Thus ended one of the most turbulent decades for the U.S. economy since the Depression.
The Seventies might not have led to the American life we know in the early 21st century, but the events of those years definitely left the automotive world forever changed. Happily for our story, one thing could not be changed: Sports cars are forever too.

Sports Cars of the 1960s

The sports cars of the 1960s arrived during a turbulent time. American scholars have been dissecting the 1960s almost since the decade ended, and they still debate what happened then and why. But though the analysts may differ in their conclusions, all could agree on one point: The 1960s was an extraordinarily eventful era that profoundly transformed American life.
And the same was true for America's automotive scene. Perhaps the most significant change there was the sharp market growth that occurred once all those "boomers" started buying cars. From a decade low of 5.8 million units in 1961, total U.S. car sales reached an all-time high of nearly 9.4 million in 1969 -- a near 31-percent increase over previous-best 1955. This and changing public tastes prompted U.S. automakers to branch out from traditional "standard" models, first with European-inspired "compacts" for 1960, then somewhat larger "intermediates."

By 1962, the richer competitive field had sprouted all manner of specialty models with some of the features and flair of European sports cars. Chevrolet had uncovered the "youth market" car with the bucket-seat Monza version of its rear-engine Corvair compact, but Ford would have the decade's single biggest automotive success. Though the Mustang was basically a humble compact Falcon with a snazzy body, its combination of high style, low price, and numerous options started a buyer stampede to what became known as the "ponycar."

Carroll Shelby combined American engineering and British chassis to make one of the most formidable sports cars of the 1970s: the Shelby Cobra.

 

In its first 16 months, starting in April 1964, the Mustang attracted nearly 691,000 enthusiastic customers. Once more, rivals rushed to copy a "better idea." By decade's end, some ponycars could also be "muscle cars," the big-engine high-performance breed born at mid-decade with the midsize Pontiac GTO, which quickly inspired its own herd of imitators. U.S. automakers had resumed their Fifties "horsepower war" after a brief ceasefire in the early Sixties, and performance again reigned supreme -- appropriate for the "go-go" era.
Performance also loomed large among genuine sports cars, but so did a greater emphasis on comfort, convenience, and style, a necessity for manufacturers given the U.S. market's ever-growing economic clout. Even at decade's dawn, Americans had rejected a number of small-time 1950s sports cars as well as Detroit decadence.
The import ranks would dwindle further after 1967, when new federal safety and emissions standards began virtually mandating special "U.S. versions" that only the more able, well-financed companies could manage. "Fed regs" also instantly killed off old favorites like the classic Austin-Healey that couldn't meet the new rules without ruinous expense and effort, if then.
Despite that ominous turn, Americans still had plenty of exciting sports cars to choose from, many now coveted collector's items. Jaguar kicked things off in 1961 with the E-Type, as sensational as the XK120 was in its day, maybe more so. The only thing familiar about it was the respected XK twincam six-cylinder engine, and that was improved.
As if in reply, Chevrolet unveiled its own stunner for 1963. Like the E-Type, the Corvette Sting Ray boasted independent rear suspension, reflecting a period sports-car trend, plus styling that rivaled the Jaguar's for pure sex appeal. The replacement 1968 "Shark" was dismissed as just a rebodied Sting Ray with more gadgets but had its own appeal and would prove exceptionally long-lived.
Meanwhile, a wily former racing driver named Carroll Shelby was stuffing potent Ford V8s into British A.C. Ace roadsters to create some of the hairiest production sports cars ever. Shelby loved stark, elemental machines, and his Cobras were precisely that. Engines quickly progressed from 260 to 289 V8s and finally a monster 427 big-block. Acceleration thus ranged from fierce to incredible, but the Cobra also had the stamina to be a world championship racer. Only very expert drivers could tame it, which was the whole point.
Having established itself in the 1950s on both road and track, Ferrari continued offering thoroughbred sports cars in the 1960s, issuing new models most every year. A few quickly became marque icons, particularly the all-conquering 250 GTO and later 365/GTB4 Daytona. Ferrari also explored new territory with the smaller, more affordable V6 Dino, one of the first road cars with the midengine layout that had recently revolutionized open-wheel racing car design.
Maserati hit its stride with a series of conventional but fast and handsome V8-powered grand tourers. And Italian tractor baron Ferruccio Lamborghini began building high-performance sports and GT cars designed by some of the best talent around. His aim was to outdo Ferrari, and in some ways he did. Among the volume Italian marques, Alfa Romeo's successful Giuliettas carried into the Sixties as improved Giulia models. The roadster and a nifty new coupe became perennial America favorites. Even mass-market Fiat, never known for sports cars, entered the fray.
The costly, racing-inspired Mercedes-Benz 300 SL was dropped after 1962 for a smaller sedan-based two-seater that was more tourer than pure sports car, capable though it was. This left Porsche as Germany's premier sports-car builder, and it went from strength to strength. After honing the original 356-series to near-perfection, Porsche introduced the stronger, faster six-cylinder 911, which ultimately proved a car for the ages.
Not surprisingly, Britain still delivered more popularly priced sports cars than any other country, and Americans liked most every one. In this era, British Motor Corporation alone offered the aforementioned "big" Healey, a restyled Austin-Healey Sprite, a new MG Midget companion, even an MGB with -- gasp! -- roll-up windows.
A resurgent Triumph initially countered with its small Spitfire and TR4 roadsters, then followed up a few years on with interesting variations of each. Britain's Rootes Group weighed in with the Alpine, which later got a Ford V8 transplant to become a Tiger. Newcomer Lotus sent over the tiny Elan roadster and a quirky but capable midengine coupe called Europa.
With all this and more, the 1960s were great sports-car years in the U.S., despite the many problems the nation endured. Of course, the fun and excitement wouldn't end when 1970 rolled in, but a new decade would bring historic problems of its own, and the automotive world would never be the same.

Sports Cars of the 1950s

The aftermath of World War II was a fertile breeding ground for the sports cars of the 1950s. Everyone needs money, and Americans had plenty to spend after World War II. That in a nutshell explains the parade of new sports cars that charmed Americans in the 1950s. Jaguar, MG, and other British makes had begun the procession. Now European companies and even some U.S. automakers fell in step.
Despite problems at home and abroad, America in the 1950s was generally prosperous, upbeat, and eager to meet the future. A booming economy and relatively high employment and wages created a burgeoning, more affluent middle class that began fleeing crowded cities for spacious new suburban communities, where a family might own two cars instead of one.
With all this, Americans could afford to indulge themselves for the first time since the Roaring Twenties, and they indulged in sports cars to the tune of $30,000-$60,000 a year. Though small-potatoes by Detroit standards, that volume was well worth going after for a tiny outfit like Morgan or Aston Martin, where the added income from U.S. sales could spell the difference between life and death. For larger companies, having a sporty model in the line could be a valuable, even necessary, showroom lure.

The sports cars available to Americans in the 1960s spanned a dazzling array of types and prices. At the high end were the thoroughbred likes of Ferrari, Jaguar, and Porsche. Mercedes-Benz joined the ranks in 1954 with the fabulous 300SL Gullwing coupe, a racer-turned-road car costing more than a Cadillac limousine -- a towering $7000. Two years later, BMW launched the 507, its first sporting car since the prewar 328, priced at an astronomical $9000.
Moderately priced sports cars also blossomed, mirroring the growth of America's middle class. Among the most popular were 1953 British newcomers, the Austin-Healey 100 and Triumph TR2. Though both were designed around existing components from mass-market models, each had a character all its own, and they fast won devoted U.S. followings.
Nineteen fifty-three also introduced the one showroom sports car ventured by Detroit's Big Three. A mix of traditional British roadster and period American "dream car," the Chevrolet Corvette cost as much as a Jaguar XK but lacked its performance and handling. Purists scoffed, and limited availability greatly hampered initial sales. Had Ford not introduced the Thunderbird, the Corvette would have died after 1955. Happily, General Motors answered its crosstown rival by transforming the 'Vette into a genuine sports car.

Allard was one of the many companies who scored big during the explosion of sports cars that occurred in the 1950s.

 

The Thunderbird was of one of the more successful semi-sportsters on the Fifties scene. Though it resembled a true sports car and had more power than most, the rakish two-seat convertible was slanted toward comfortable cruising, not slicing up twisty roads. It could be made to race, and did. But though this "personal car" immediately outsold the Corvette by no less than 16-1, Ford was after even bigger profits, and found them by blowing up the Bird into a luxury four-seater after just three years.
The 1951-54 Nash-Healey sold respectably, but was a far more credible sports car, thanks to co-father Donald Healey. Like the smaller Austin-Healey that followed it, the N-H clothed a humble powertrain in cool two-seater duds, yet was surprisingly raceworthy and could go the distance. Over its short career, the Nash-Healey made impressive high finishes in several international events, including Le Mans. Until the Corvette came along, it was the one real sports car sold under a major U.S. nameplate.
But there were plenty of minor-leaguers. Indeed, the early postwar years were filled with dreamers who figured to make untold riches by putting a sporty body on a borrowed chassis. Most of these efforts were poorly financed lash-ups that died aborning and are little remembered today. Many were sold as mere kits, leaving assembly to the owner. But not all were so unprofessional.
Famed Indy-car engineer Frank Kurtis built thoroughly modern sports cars, though not many, starting in 1948. A few years later, Chicago dealer S.H. "Wacky" Arnolt brokered beautiful Italian bodywork for MG and British Bristol chassis. At about the same time, sportsman Briggs Cunningham bankrolled a handful of Chrysler-powered sports cars that could match most anything from Europe. In 1957, Californian Bill Devin turned from selling bolt-on fiberglass bodies to building complete sports cars that could pace with a Ferrari (just 4.8 seconds 0-60 mph) and cost half as much ($5950).
No doubt about it: Americans were treated to a sports-car smorgasbord in the 1950s, with something for most every taste and budget. Of course, new versions of established favorites were also on the table. The Jaguar XK, for example, was updated twice during the decade. And there were some tasty surprises like 1955's new MGA, a comparatively shocking advance on the classic T-Series it replaced.
As the years passed, it became increasingly clear that import cars in general and sports cars in particular were influencing the American public out of all proportion to their sales. This undoubtedly accelerated the shift in buyer attitudes that hit home in 1958, when a sharp recession caused many consumers to reject Detroit's overstyled, outsized gas-swillers for thrifty European compacts and minicars.
But whether cheap and cheerful or exotic and expensive, sports cars were a permanent part of the American scene by decade's end, no small achievement considering their higher cost and less practical nature versus mainstream machinery. Moreover, the ranks of sports-car fans were still growing. For them, the Fifties had been a great ride. The Sixties would be something else.

Sports Cars of the 1940s

The sports cars of the 1940s started innocently enough: just a few score GIs returning from World War II Europe with a foreign sports car in tow. The cars were mostly British and mostly ended up in the ritzier enclaves of the East Coast and California. Not much as invasions go but enough. The sports car had landed, and America would never be the same.

The MG was the first car that captured America's heart, though this did not translate into big sales.

 

For most Americans in 1945, sports cars seemed as foreign as the people who drove them. Though Detroit had long offered jaunty rumble-seat models and even some snazzy two-seaters, only a small group of Yanks knew much -- or cared -- about the genuine sports cars available from England and Europe.
Not surprisingly, the cognoscenti tended to be well off, well educated, well traveled. They also tended to affect manners that made them "a race apart," as Ken Purdy described them. Purdy first met other U.S. sports-car devotees in the mid-1930s. To him they were a strange, secret society. "They spoke only to each other and in their native tongue," he wrote. " 'I shouldn't turn that much over five-thou, old boy; the big ends simply won't stand up to it.' They treated their mounts like newborn children."
Purdy relates being dumbfounded when he saw one worried owner heat "a gallon and a half of pure castor oil on a portable electric burner. He had a candy thermometer in the reeking stuff and he peered steadily at it. Just as it rose to the temperature he wanted…he snatched the instrument out, grabbed the kettle, and turned to me to say, 'Do stand aside, please; the oil mustn't cool before I get it into the engine.' "
Long enshrined as "the sports car America loved first," the MG seemed an unlikely object of desire in the land of Buck Rogers. Even MG's new TC roadster, introduced in late 1945, was just a mild evolution of the TA/TB design, which dated from 1936 but was conceptually rooted in the Twenties.
Love is one thing, commitment quite another. Although the TC and its cohorts won many American hearts, they didn't attract many U.S. sales. And they never would. Most Americans preferred the cars they already had and were primed for futuristic new models, which had been breathlessly forecast during wartime. Why, they wondered, would any sane person waste money on an old-fashioned thing like an MG?
Why, to make a statement, of course. As David E. Davis opined in 1970, sports-car enthusiasm in late-Forties America was an "easily defined protest movement…[P]eople were sufficiently fed up with the dumb cars coming out of Detroit to express their disgust by buying dumb imported cars…They were a hopelessly outgunned minority in the beginning, but they were a tough breed…driving cars that flew in the face of everything that Detroit, and thus America, stood for."

Little by little, sports cars became more common on U.S. roads and public interest grew. Of course, most any new car was of interest right after World War II, because Americans hadn't had any to buy for nearly four years. Domestic automakers mostly satisfied the huge pent-up demand with warmed-over versions of prewar fare, which was enough until about 1950. But most foreign automakers had been ravaged by war and desperately needed to export for dollars.
They, too, resumed production as quickly as possible, but began to realize that sports cars were making an impression in affluent America. Britain's Jaguar was among the first to capitalize on America's burgeoning sports-car "fad." It happened with the 1948 introduction of the all-new XK120, rightly hailed as the state of the sports-car art with its advanced twincam six-cylinder engine and sleek, modern styling.
Meantime, more and more U.S. dealers were starting to take up the sports-car cause. One was Max Hoffman, who bravely opened a toney New York showroom in 1946 to sell pricey French Delahayes, though he soon added more affordable cars, including Jaguars and MGs. Over the next 25 years, Hoffman introduced the U.S. to dozens of other foreign marques and models, notably the VW Beetle and the first Porsches.
In fact, Hoffman did more to grow the U.S. foreign-car market than anyone else except Kjell Qvale, who served the West Coast market from his San Francisco-based British Motor Car Distributors starting in 1947. That same year saw the first issue of a national magazine called Road & Track. Born of the "protest movement" Davis described, R&T also stimulated U.S. interest in foreign cars generally and sports cars in particular.
By the end of the 1940s, sports cars were definitely on the American scene, if not in many Americans' garages. Even Detroit could see something new and maybe important was going on. One can almost hear the boardroom debate: "Hey, maybe we ought to build our own sports car." "Heck, we can't make money with one of those." "Yeah, but it would sure bring in the customers, and that will make money."
The beachhead had been secured for a full-scale assault. Come the Fifties, a battalion of new models would charge into a booming U.S. economy and spread sports-car excitement from sea to shining sea.

Work of Car

The automobile sputtered to life in the late 1880s, the sports car wasn't far behind. Briggs Cunningham, the storied American sports-car builder of the 1950s, once declared that "in the beginning every car was a sports car, because they weren't practical or particularly useful on a day-to-day basis."

Then, starting in 1913, one Henry Ford made the motorcar itself universal by using a moving assembly line to crank out his simple Model T with unheard-of speed in unheard-of numbers. Competition and free enterprise did the rest. Soon, most anyone who wanted a car could afford one.
It was in this heady, fast-paced era of technical innovation and industrial growth that the sports car began to emerge as something beyond mere transportation. As pioneer American auto journalist Ken Purdy explained it: "The automobile had tremendous appeal for the sportsman of the [early 1900s]: It was the fastest vehicle at man's bidding, it was new, much about it was unknown. It offered a great challenge."
To the manufacturers, turning out perhaps a few score automobiles a year, racing was the best kind of advertising. Because it was a brand-new sport, the newspapers gave it extensive news coverage, and the manufacturer whose car won an important race on Saturday could be sure of a full order book the following Monday evening." In short, the first racing cars were also the first sports cars. They've been close cousins ever since.
Good or bad, the sports car evolved up to World War II as a creature mainly of Europe and England, not the U.S. Though motorsports remained very popular on both sides of the Atlantic, the topography and economic conditions "over there" tended to breed sportier cars with the defining attributes of quick acceleration, agile handling, and strong brakes. It seemed, that sports cars were thriving.
Then the Depression hit. Smaller companies perished, and the larger U.S. automakers adopted emergency survival measures -- none of which included sports cars. With the start of a terrible new world war, some thought the sports car as good as dead.
But the pundits were wrong again. Liberated by unpredecented prosperity in the early postwar years, some Americans began rejecting homegrown automotive values for cars that looked good and were actually fun to drive. Though no one knew it at the time, a revolution was underway. The sports car was about to captivate America as never before.
In the following pages, you will be able to trace the exciting history of sports cars, from their postwar boom to the present day. Along the way you will also find links to individual sports car profiles that offer history, specs, and photos. In addition, you can also read sports car reviews and browse through our sports cars by year and manufacturer.
We'll get started on the next page by learning about the sports cars of the 1940s.