Thirty Reasons...

Small picture 15 looks like a Monteverdi 375L which is Swiss and not Italian and how could you leave out the classic Corvette Stingray, one of the curviest car designs ever and actually still affordable today. That’s why I’ve got one in the garage!

what No Rangerover ? ! surely a design icon of the age, exhibited in the Louvre and started the whole SUV cult???????

‘70s was the start of the ‘jap-cr#p’ invasion. They weren’t pretty but they just kept on going. And why always show the crappi when the Opel Manta was streets ahead, on like for like engine size, for build quality, handling and performance — OK so I’m biased having had a 1.9 SR which was so much better that all my mates 1.6÷2.0 capri’s

Ihad a 1971 capr1 3 litre GT crying while i write this i thought iwas the dogs. my god my afro must have looked shit

The “Italian sports saloon” in front of the Forth Bridge is a Monteverdi 375L — from Switzerland (albeit styled by Frua of Italy). The Zodiac shown is a Mark 3, which went out of production in 1966. The “exotic” Matra Simca shown is the very mundane Simca 1307 (Chrysler and then Talbot Alpine in the UK). Not many people laughed at Skodas in the ‘70s, and least of all at the 110R Coupe pictured. The De Tomaso Mangusta was a much LESS refined prede­cessor of the Pantera. Was the person who captioned these photos even born in the ‘70s?!

Started the whole SUV cult????? Thats debatable since the Jeep wagoneer predated it by eight years.
Its true Rover had played with the idea through the fifties and sixties but the actual Range Rover didn,t appear until 1970 while the Wagoneer had an eight year head start. The wagoneer was directly aimed at the sport utility market before it became the buzz word it is today. Maybe thats why the writer left it out of the article.

The Mangusta is a 60’s car you nitwits — and the Pantera replaced it

Yep, well, the Mangusta was built in the sixties, sure, and yes, the Pantera did replace it, but I’ve always thought of it as a seventies car in attitude, proportion and general aesthetic. It’s a bit like Alfa’s Carabo concept in a way — a ‘sixties’ car that encap­su­lated all the look, feel and attitude of seventies car culture. Wether or not this should mean we have the Mangusta as our header image or not is another question.

Michael Fordham (editor)

You lot have far to much time on your hands and want everyone to think your the bees knees with your super knowledge.

Go away, wash your anorak and except that your probably all right and wrong in some shape or form and that 70s cars were rubbish in comparison to 80s, 90s or present cars because thats how technology works. It improves. I am 30 and I am glad I didnt grow up around all those badly build unsafe cars. Grumpy old man… you got it so right.

Ok but surely you know what I mean? The lines of the thing look for all the world like the Lamborghini Espada. It’s called the /​/​Monteverdi/​/​, and anyway isn’t Switzerland made up of a bunch of autonomous Cantons, many of which hug the Italian border? In a way, I’d argue that the Triumph Stag, while being a British car, was designed by an Italian (Michelotti) and was possessed of the aesthetic of North America. Cars design /​/​sans frontiers/​/​. Knowworrimean?

The only way any “foreign to the USA” car can succede there is with proper back-​​up servicing which is something the Brits never learned. VW proved this with the success of the beetle in the fifties and sixties.

and this is very true