Favourite F1 cars 1980 onwards
Discussion
I can't honestly say that any of my favourite cars come from the post-1980 period, but will concede that some were less awful than others. The yellow Lotuses, particularly 89, weren't bad and the Jordan 191 was really different.
If I had to single one out for praise it would be, in agreement with many others, the MP4/4. Admittedly it falls foul of my Rule 1 by having wings on, but at least they were simple and tidy. It also breaks Rule 2 by having fag adverts all over it. But I can forgive that, and the awful orange and white colour scheme, because the basic shape was really neat. And of course it did it no harm that it was a winner straight out of the box, and had Senna driving it. I mean what more could you want? (Although the MP4/5 was quite pretty too.)
The worst period for me was the narrow cars from 2008-16. Even today's monstrosities with toilet seats plonked on top, look better than that.
Right, I'm off to the pre-1980 thread, I think I'll be a lot happier there.
If I had to single one out for praise it would be, in agreement with many others, the MP4/4. Admittedly it falls foul of my Rule 1 by having wings on, but at least they were simple and tidy. It also breaks Rule 2 by having fag adverts all over it. But I can forgive that, and the awful orange and white colour scheme, because the basic shape was really neat. And of course it did it no harm that it was a winner straight out of the box, and had Senna driving it. I mean what more could you want? (Although the MP4/5 was quite pretty too.)
The worst period for me was the narrow cars from 2008-16. Even today's monstrosities with toilet seats plonked on top, look better than that.
Right, I'm off to the pre-1980 thread, I think I'll be a lot happier there.
HighwayToHull said:
I can't honestly say that any of my favourite cars come from the post-1980 period, but will concede that some were less awful than others. The yellow Lotuses, particularly 89, weren't bad and the Jordan 191 was really different.
If I had to single one out for praise it would be, in agreement with many others, the MP4/4. Admittedly it falls foul of my Rule 1 by having wings on, but at least they were simple and tidy. It also breaks Rule 2 by having fag adverts all over it. But I can forgive that, and the awful orange and white colour scheme, because the basic shape was really neat. And of course it did it no harm that it was a winner straight out of the box, and had Senna driving it. I mean what more could you want? (Although the MP4/5 was quite pretty too.)
The worst period for me was the narrow cars from 2008-16. Even today's monstrosities with toilet seats plonked on top, look better than that.
Right, I'm off to the pre-1980 thread, I think I'll be a lot happier there.
How did Jordan ever persuade the Irish Government to sponsor his car... Then again they used to pick up the cheque for the BSB to come to Mondello. If I had to single one out for praise it would be, in agreement with many others, the MP4/4. Admittedly it falls foul of my Rule 1 by having wings on, but at least they were simple and tidy. It also breaks Rule 2 by having fag adverts all over it. But I can forgive that, and the awful orange and white colour scheme, because the basic shape was really neat. And of course it did it no harm that it was a winner straight out of the box, and had Senna driving it. I mean what more could you want? (Although the MP4/5 was quite pretty too.)
The worst period for me was the narrow cars from 2008-16. Even today's monstrosities with toilet seats plonked on top, look better than that.
Right, I'm off to the pre-1980 thread, I think I'll be a lot happier there.
The cigarette Liveries are the ones I love. I miss those days.. I know a few heads who work in Philip Morris and BAT and the amount of money they would spend on Motorsport was incredible. One lad told me what they were spending with the brand West, on Motogp allowed the recipient team, PONS, buy basically a factory spec bike for both riders. Not a year old one, a new one.
Deesee said:
...
BT52
|https://thumbsnap.com/q1PwjBfp[/url]
Vs it’s chunky rival
|https://thumbsnap.com/Z2xPWriV[/url]
Two of my favourites there, and a third, the Tyrrell Honda 020 has been covered too, but here's another picBT52
|https://thumbsnap.com/q1PwjBfp[/url]Vs it’s chunky rival
|https://thumbsnap.com/Z2xPWriV[/url]
And the McLaren MP4/2, particularly with a number 7 on it (for some reason the number 7 just looked right on the wide, flat noses of the early MP4s to me..)
And the West liveried, race winning MP4/12, from the last year before the cars became long, stretched, narrow, weirdly proportioned and sometimes step nosed oddities...
All my favourites because of the aesthetics, not the performance or innovation, though most did also do well.
DoubleD said:
I think what age/look of car that you like comes down to your age, people always seem to think that the best things were from their youth, you see this all the time on piston heads and this thread is no different.
Absolutely true in my case 
I grew up just at the end of the ground effects cars, so to me that's what the ultimate race car looks like. I've said it recently before as well that I remember Mark Hales in the book Into The Red commenting that the Maserati 250F is the shape he'd draw on his schoolbook if someone asked him what a grand prix car looks like. To me anything before ground effects just looks old, and anything since looks contrived...
I still enjoy modern racing but back when I was young I wasn't so aware of how the rules were shaping the cars. Once you get into it, you start to see the impact, and for me that was really from 1998, when they got narrow tracks and grooved tyres, that the influence of the rules on the shape started to tell and it felt like the freedom of design was being eroded. I'm sure it's similar for most people that as the rules changed, they saw the freedom of design of the cars they first became aware off being manipulated into things that look contrived or don't quite fit... butchered evolutions of those pure early cars, mangled to fit new rules.
I'm sure people who grew up in the 1960s felt the same about wings and sponsorship.
DoubleD said:
I think what age/look of car that you like comes down to your age, people always seem to think that the best things were from their youth, you see this all the time on piston heads and this thread is no different.
Not completely. I like a lot of cars from my youth. But they weren't all great looking.Also, cars of the early 90s were quite neat - until the arrival of the raised nose with full span front wing. Whilst 30 years ago, the early 1990s was most definitely not my youth. My "youth" is the mid 60s to early 70s.
I definitely am not a fan of the current cars (for all sorts of reasons, not just their looks) but the proposed next generation F1 cars do look like they might be a bit more appealing - although we won't know for sure until the actual cars start appearing.
I actually like some racing cars from before I was born - so way before my youth.
This isn't going to be a popular opinion but I think some of the 2014 cars are really nice.
I like the way the cars look small and nimble and I like the lower noses, particularly Ferrari's sort of fish mouth effort - it's beautiful because it's nearly so ugly, if you see what I mean:
The Merc was a bit more angular but quite nice too:
Even some of the dong-nosed cars were good - Force India did a nice job of hiding the sausage by painting it black leaving the appearance of an aggressive medium-high nose:
And the initial version of the McLaren was really nice, although I think it mostly raced with a flatter nose which didn't look so good:
Perhaps I ahead of my time and in ten years people will agree with me. And of course the 2014 Caterham and the tusk nosed Lotus are two of the ugliest cars ever made.
I like the way the cars look small and nimble and I like the lower noses, particularly Ferrari's sort of fish mouth effort - it's beautiful because it's nearly so ugly, if you see what I mean:
The Merc was a bit more angular but quite nice too:
Even some of the dong-nosed cars were good - Force India did a nice job of hiding the sausage by painting it black leaving the appearance of an aggressive medium-high nose:
And the initial version of the McLaren was really nice, although I think it mostly raced with a flatter nose which didn't look so good:
Perhaps I ahead of my time and in ten years people will agree with me. And of course the 2014 Caterham and the tusk nosed Lotus are two of the ugliest cars ever made.
In some respects, I don't know why either, 1998/1999 were my favourite years for F1.
I'd have been 11 years old around this time, and while it was an absolute dog of a car, the Prost AP02 to me was a beautiful car.
One thing I thought at the time was that Peugeot should've released a road going version with the Prost branding. I think at the time I had seen the yellow Honda Civics badged with Jordan GP on it, and thought it looked cool and that a Peugeot 406, in the Prost blue with Prost GP on it, would've looked brilliant.
Now that I'm older, I can understand why it didn't happen. Still, maybe one day I'll get a blue Peugeot 406 and make it happen.
I'd have been 11 years old around this time, and while it was an absolute dog of a car, the Prost AP02 to me was a beautiful car.
One thing I thought at the time was that Peugeot should've released a road going version with the Prost branding. I think at the time I had seen the yellow Honda Civics badged with Jordan GP on it, and thought it looked cool and that a Peugeot 406, in the Prost blue with Prost GP on it, would've looked brilliant.
Now that I'm older, I can understand why it didn't happen. Still, maybe one day I'll get a blue Peugeot 406 and make it happen.
snotrag said:
sgtBerbatov said:
In some respects, I don't know why either, 1998/1999 were my favourite years for F1.
I'd have been 11 years old around this time
My bold - this is no co-incidence! The things you grow up with often tend to be your favourite I'd have been 11 years old around this time
sgtBerbatov said:
snotrag said:
sgtBerbatov said:
In some respects, I don't know why either, 1998/1999 were my favourite years for F1.
I'd have been 11 years old around this time
My bold - this is no co-incidence! The things you grow up with often tend to be your favourite I'd have been 11 years old around this time
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