1980s

Which decade can claim the greatest driver's cars? Which era best encapsulates the thrill of driving? Over the next five issues, we'll trace the trajectory of the performance car. Our aim: to find the absolute evo sweet-spot. So we'll bring together icons from each era and reevaluate them on our favourite roads. But we'll also look at the reality of owning and driving them back in the day, the wider car culture, the effects of emerging tech, and the impact of motorsport. We're kicking off with the ‘80s, the decade of the hot hatch, four-wheel drive, turbos, Group B, some extremely dubious bodykits — and some quite brilliant performance cars

- PETER TOMALIN

THE CASSETTE IS SUCKED INTO THE INNARDS OF THE Toyota-branded head unit: Dolby-equipped, auto reverse, all the bells and whistles... After a few seconds’ spooling and with only minimal wow and flutter, the doom-laden chords of ‘Red Rain’, opening track on Peter Gabriel’s seminal album So, burst somewhat tinnily but unmistakeably from the MR2’s scuttle-mounted speakers.

It has to be said that those speakers have a battle on their hands to overcome the abundant wind noise, let alone the thrum of the busy 1.6-litre twin-cam just behind me, but instantly I'm transported back almost 40 years. The fact that I'm tucked into the slipstream of a frost-white Quattro 20V, with the seductively wide hips of a flame-red Testarossa just ahead, completes the time-warp to perfection. It couldn’t be more ’80s if James ‘Sonny’ Crockett himself was at the wheel of the Ferrari, though Charles Harrison ‘Harry’ Metcalfe is a more than adequate stand-in I think you'll agree.

This test is the most fun most of us have had for ages, on a par with an eCoty shoot for the number of smiles it will generate. For three special days we're travelling back to the 1980s with six cars that define the era, to discover (or rediscover in the case of the more, erm, mature amongst us) what performance cars were really like back then, what made them great (and not so great) and explore what we've lost and gained in the interim. Was it a golden age for those who loved the thrill of driving, or an era best viewed through a rose-tinted rear-view mirror? That's what we're here to find out.

But before we get into the driving, a little bit of context. The early '80s saw an unprecedented explosion of new, performance-orientated models, while a whole lexicon of badges and buzzwords, previously known only to car-nerds, entered the wider consciousness: turbo, quattro, injection, hot hatch, multi-valve, twin-cam... And in October 1983 came the first issue of