In this episode, Staff Writer Tyler Duffy joins to talk about a series of posts he recently authored that identifies the 50 most influential cars of the past 50 years. Tyler explains what "influential" means in this context, how he selected the 50 cars and the top car of each decade, and why his list isn't of the 50 best cars. For car enthusiasts, a list like this is a hot-button topic. Regardless of your relationship to cars, Tyler's methodology is fascinating and makes a compelling argument.
Tyler explains what "influential" means in this context, how he selected the 50 cars and the top car of each decade, and why his list isn't of the 50 best cars.
Episode Navigation:
01:00 – Influential versus "Best"
08:15 – If You Change An Iconic Car, Is It Still The Same Car?
13:30 – The One Quality That Makes A Car "Influential"
16:30 – How Tyler Chose These 50 Cars
19:20 – Cars That Didn't Make The Cut
22:05 – The Most Influential Car On The List
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Nick Caruso:
This is the Gear Patrol podcast.
Nick Caruso:
In this episode, staff writer, Tyler Duffy joins to talk about a series of posts he recently authored, that identifies the 50 most influential cars of the past 50 years. Tyler explains what influential means in this context, how he selected the 50 cars and the top car of each decade, and why his list isn't of the 50 best cars? Regardless of your relationship to cars, Tyler's methodology is fascinating and makes a compelling argument.
Nick Caruso:
Thanks for listening. If you like what you hear in this episode, and don't want to miss another, make sure you subscribe and we'd appreciate a five-star review. I'm Nick Caruso and I'm glad you're here. Let's get started.
Nick Caruso:
All right, Tyler. So you've compiled and written about a list of the 50 most influential cars of the past 50 years, which is a big undertaking. I certainly know, as a car fanatic of many decades, I know how fraught this list can be and the feedback may end up being, but you took an interesting spin with the word influence, like influential rather than best, it's kind of a nebulous concept.
Nick Caruso:
They're all icons, but in the context of this list, how do you define influential? What does it mean for a car to be influential, and is timelessness kind of a similar concept?
Tyler Duffy:
I think the first thing is that I would say making a best cars list, there's sort of problems with that when you go back looking at the best cars of all time, which is I haven't driven everything. So I can't really offer commentary on subtle differences between every generation of the BMW M3.
Nick Caruso:
Sure.
Tyler Duffy:
So I was trying to look at it from an ideas' perspective. I wanted to kind of tell the story of the modern automobile through the cars that really mattered and really created that story over the last 50 years. So it's cars that are memorable and timeless if you want to define it that way, but also the cars that you can't tell that story without, and they're still having kind of lasting resonance today.
Nick Caruso:
I got it. In many ways, they have literally influenced or inspired, we talk about in the car world, we talk about generations and descendants and such.
Tyler Duffy:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:02:40]
Nick Caruso:
Because it is somewhat of a family. They've literally spawned other models and other technologies, and stuff. So that's kind of the idea you're talking about, being able to trace lineage back to major branches.
Tyler Duffy:
Yeah. Tracing how we got to the car market that we have today. So obviously, that could be kind of the super cars, and you're engaging drivers cars that would traditionally be on a best cars of whatever timeframe list.
Tyler Duffy:
Or also most people in this country, when they go to buy a car now, go to buy an SUV or a pickup truck. So I wanted to kind of, reel in that story too, about how that, how trucks, and SUV's also became part of the picture that they weren't a few decades ago.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. For sure. The landscape is definitely different.
Nick Caruso:
And in some ways strangely, I think very similar to the early 19 hundreds, when the model T was out, those were essentially all utility vehicles in a sense. So I don't know, that may be kind of a stretch, but that's how I've always thought of it.
Tyler Duffy:
Well, I mean I think you could kind of run with that too, is that as we're sort of transitioning to electric power, in a completely different mechanic, just a completely different vision of what a car is, you have everybody trying to sort of scramble, like you would have had in the early 1900, sort of figuring out what the car is and who's going to buy it. And you have things like Toyota may have gone up the wrong path with hydrogen power, and south scrambling back trying to, I don't think that's an entirely off base comparison.
Nick Caruso:
Okay, great. So you heard it here first folks. I'm on base.
Nick Caruso:
So again, in terms of structure of this list, in the last 50 years, and at this point built 50 years ago is the seventies, which feels perilously close to the decade I was born in, or we were born in.
Nick Caruso:
And the list is also organized by decade. So you go by decade, not a set number per decade, but in each of the decades, there is also a most influential of the decade.
Nick Caruso:
So it's an interesting organization using that approach. So timelessness and influence kind of feels like, well when I look at this list, there are a lot of cars that are still around,
Tyler Duffy:
Right.
Nick Caruso:
The vast majority of them are still in some way or another still here, that we're talking about the Porsche 911 of course. And, let me see what else, the Miata, and a BMW M3, and the Accord, the Range Rover, Volkswagen Golf. There are a lot of truly just like automotive icons on this list. So is that another element of this influence? Is it staying power? It's just kind of inherently involved in what makes an influential car?
Tyler Duffy:
Yeah, definitely.
Tyler Duffy:
I mean, I think broadly, if you have an idea that's good, companies are going to want to keep doing that. Other companies are going to want to imitate that. And then, so you have a natural kind of longevity to the car. I mean, you're going to have some cars that are so far ahead of their time, like the one you own, the XJ Cherokee, that came out the year we were born in 1984, and I had friends in high school who were still driving new ones when I was a senior in high school.
Tyler Duffy:
That's how long that car stayed in production, I mean there were some tweaks, but for the most part unchanged, so you can have a good idea that way, or, something like the Honda Accord, or the Volkswagen Golf, that kind of establishes a new paradigm. You're going to obviously have manufacturers keep building those, and keep sort of refining that, and then having the pressure of other imitators, trying to compete with them, and sort of keep, so the cars kind of stays in production and keeps improving,
Nick Caruso:
Right. There's a lot of, sort of like tropey phrases in automotive journalism, like spiritual predecessor, and with the basic formula, like the sports car formula is rear wheel drive with an engine in front, that kind of thing.
Nick Caruso:
So you see that archetype just sort of last through the generations. The 911's a good example of that, obviously. It's got a weird flat engine and back, usually rear wheel drive two seats. It looks like Jeremy Clarkson would say, "it looks like a Volkswagen beetle." That's been squished.
Nick Caruso:
So just wondering this in the moment here, say we take the 911, which is truly an icon, right? It's like one of the very top go to cars. It's the formula, that basic formula has never changed since its inception. Though a lot of things have changed, like a lot more power, a lot more technology, there's all wheel drive in some models, et cetera. But the basic thing is still there. What would happen? Would it be a 911 if they moved the engine somewhere else? Could it still be considered that sort of timeless icon, or does that fade with the structure of the car?
Tyler Duffy:
I mean obviously it's going to depend on the car. I mean we've had, even within the nine 11, we've had some huge changes.
Tyler Duffy:
Moving from air cooled, to water cooled engines, moving all wheel drivem we're going to have probably a hybrid 911 coming in the next few years, and an electric one whenever they can figure out how to do that, make it drive like a 911.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah.
Tyler Duffy:
So I mean we've sort of seen an example of that with the new CA Corvette, where it's a fundamentally, you're moving to rear mid engine, layout automatic only, whereas like the traditional Corvette was this very, stick shift, a lot of power, totally different kind of car, but at the same time, it's still the CA, it still feels like a Corvette.
Tyler Duffy:
It's still an American reasonably priced take, relatively reasonably priced take on a Ferrari, even though it's going to be rear mid engine, we're going to have hybrid version soon, probably electric when Corvette, when Chevy can figure that out. So, I mean, it kind of just depends on the vehicle, I think.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah.
Nick Caruso:
So I guess that's the question of purist or not.
Tyler Duffy:
Right.
Nick Caruso:
I take you as a more moderate voice in this issue. Kind of like a rational one. Whereas my instinct is to be more purist about it, and say like, "that's not a Corvette." And I was deeply, I felt offended when Ford launched a Mustang Maki. It was like, that's not, that is not a Mustang at all.
Tyler Duffy:
Yeah.
Nick Caruso:
So I mean is it just a, I don't know, I'm not even sure I'm asking anything. I just want validation.
Tyler Duffy:
I'll come out with a little bit of a take care.
Tyler Duffy:
Purist basically. A lot of purists are full of.
Nick Caruso:
You can say it. Say it
Tyler Duffy:
Something I can't say on the podcast, probably.
Nick Caruso:
You're fine.
Tyler Duffy:
I'm just going to take the Jeep Wrangler for [inaudible 00:11:18]. A lot of talk about the purists, vision of the Jeep Wrangler, which when I drove a Jeep Wrangler was manual transmission. It only had two doors. It barely went 70 miles an hour on the highway, it was very, hued closely to the original version of the Wrangler.
Tyler Duffy:
The Wrangler now is a four door family car for 90% of the people who buy it. It is an automatic transmission car for 90% of the people buy it. But it's much better to drive on road than it ever was before.
Tyler Duffy:
We have a hybrid version of it. We're going to have an electric version of it. You have all of these things that have fundamentally changed what this car is, yet nobody's accusing Jeep of ruining the Wrangler. I think your Jeep probably has a reputation for taking their owner's interest at, probably the manufacturer most responsive to that.
Tyler Duffy:
So I think there's a tendency, especially with automotive press who tend to fall into the purist camp of sort of overrating the influence of that. I think fundamentally when you see a big change, is it a good change, and does it make the product better? And I think if it makes the product better, in most cases that's going to kind of win out, and sort of change what the paradigm of it was before.
Nick Caruso:
Right on. No, that's a good take.
Nick Caruso:
You, you didn't validate me so much. Just talked me down, which I could always use some of too.
Nick Caruso:
So I kind of led us on a tangent there, but a really beneficial one.
Nick Caruso:
So I want to get back to the idea of influence, like in being influential. And you've more or less sum this up, but I wonder if we can get you really succinct about the ideas. Is there a very specific quality to each of the cars on this list that undeniably means influential? If you make a new car or if you choose a car at random, you can say that is influential. That one's not. That one is, that one's not. Is there something definitive that along those lines?
Tyler Duffy:
There are very different cars on this list.
Tyler Duffy:
We've got the Bugatti Veyron, and then we've got the 1970s Toyota pickup. So there's a lot of, it's hard to stay like one factor for all these cars that's tangible, but I think where they would all be influential is that, what came after them, was different than what came before.
Tyler Duffy:
So if you have something like the Audi Quatro in the eighties, before that sports cars were almost all provide performance cars, almost all were rear wheel drive, all wheel drive cars weren't sports cars, it was either you had a sort of four wheel drive SUV, or you had something like AMC Eagle or something.
Tyler Duffy:
And then after the Audi Quattro, we get like a whole bunch of, high performance Audi's, like the RS6 Avant, all these all wheel drive sports cars.
Tyler Duffy:
Porsche comes out with, Porsche has always had sports cars, so it sort of changed. I think the fundamental thing with these cars is that they changed something, whether it's they changed what the car was,
Nick Caruso:
Got it.
Tyler Duffy:
In some way, kind of went sort of beyond what that specific car is.
Nick Caruso:
It makes sense. I can't stop. My brain kept thinking about the El Camino while you were talking through that.
Nick Caruso:
And then I was thinking, it gave us the Subaru Baja, and now we're getting small pickup trucks again. So in a way.
Tyler Duffy:
They're coming back [crosstalk 00:15:49].
Nick Caruso:
Yeah they're coming back. I mean it's interesting to trace those. I don't know. I've also just finished binging the show Loki, so I'm thinking about timelines and stuff. It's interesting to trace where those timelines branched off, and where they end up, some of them really catch fire, like the 911 or the Quattro, to your point.
Nick Caruso:
Some of them are more slow burn, like the El Camino Baja Maverick, what's the Hyundai that's coming out.
Tyler Duffy:
The [inaudible 00:16:25] right?
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Right.
Tyler Duffy:
Yeah not Santa Fe, Santa Cruz. Yep.
Nick Caruso:
Okay, cool. So that's really helpful, a little philosophy for everybody. But I want to get down to some of the nitty gritty, in terms of choosing cars for the list.
Nick Caruso:
In each decade. Like I said, five decades, five decades? Or is that six? It's five decades right? 50 years.
Tyler Duffy:
Yeah, five decades and two years or wherever we are now. But yeah, roughly 50 years.
Nick Caruso:
All Right, everybody who's 52 listening right now. You are now 50 years old. You're welcome.
Nick Caruso:
So each of those decades has a best car [inaudible 00:17:11] . How did you choose the best car in each decade?
Tyler Duffy:
That was probably the hardest part of this, I think. Yeah, it was trying, because you're obviously you're comparing on things, so you're looking at the seventies, was the Ferrari 308 GTB better at being a Ferrari, than the Toyota pickup was good at being a cheap, dependable pickup.
Tyler Duffy:
So it's hard to compare things that way. And then you get into sort of what does best really mean? You can go a bunch of different ways with that. I just kind of went, I mean honestly, I just kind of went with my gut, and figured, okay, which car kind of had the, I guess in my kind of opinion, which was the best idea, or the best. Yeah. I don't know.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, no that makes sense.
Tyler Duffy:
[inaudible 00:18:12].
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. I think your gut is generally pretty good on this stuff. We tend to see eye to eye.
Nick Caruso:
I suppose anybody listening is really just waiting for me to list 50 cars, but I'm not going to do that. You're going to have to click through because that would be boring for the rest of the people unfair to the rest of the class. But what I will do is mention these best cars.
Nick Caruso:
So in the seventies you chose the Volkswagen Golf from 1974. In the eighties, the Mercedes-Benz W124, which is the big boxy gorgeous sedan, that you'd probably still see around. It just won't quit. What else do we have? The nineties is the McLaren F1, largely considered the best car that's ever been made. And I lust after them, of course. The two thousands, we got the Porsche Cayman, the Boxster Coupe. And then the 2010s till now, the Tesla model S, which makes sense.
Nick Caruso:
I mean in a way those cars define their decade, which is I think kind of what you were chipping away at. What cars didn't make the cut? And what was hard to cut off the list? I'm sure there were some that were sort of teetering on the edge.
Tyler Duffy:
Yeah. I mean I think two of them pop into my head immediately.
Tyler Duffy:
I think the one was the Volvo 240, obviously the quintessential Volvo sedan and wagon, that was in production for 20 years, from the mid seventies to the early nineties. That was one that I had in there that kind of got, was one of the last to get cut. A.
Tyler Duffy:
And then I think the other one was the Ford Explorer, sort of the first gen in the nineties, because I think it's kind of underrated, and how important that vehicle is for Ford.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah.
Tyler Duffy:
You know, it's probably that it's, it's not one we talk about all the time, because it's not the sort of the purist Mustang or the Bronco, but when you get past the F-150, the Explorer's probably Ford's most important vehicle. And I think it was one of the most important SUV's that made the SUV kind of the family car. So I think those are the two that were probably the last that I cut off the list.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Those are interesting.
Nick Caruso:
And they both, despite being decades apart are kind of both the same car, with a difference of several inches I guess. But yeah, that's a good point about the Explorer. It is very underrated in terms of its influence. So to speak.
Nick Caruso:
You make a point and I promise this isn't just my bias showing through you make a point that the Cherokee introduced in the eighties, sort of took the, the modern SUV torch and ran with it. Sort of served as the archetype for that model, that size, and that type of car and the Explorer was similar to that. But it was more approachable I think. Which may be because it wasn't as paired down. Maybe that's why it didn't make the list. It's just interesting.
Nick Caruso:
The concept of this list is such that these are all desirable cars too. I mean there's so many elements that go into what makes an influential car, and there's a chicken and egg kind of a conversation. Do we have there? But I've lusted after many of these cars, some of them for a very long time. And I'm also now extremely self-conscious of having said lusted twice in this episode.
Nick Caruso:
You've got the best from each decade, what do you think is the most influential car on this list, per your own definition?
Tyler Duffy:
Okay. So I think for the most influential car, I think I would be looking at a car that not only sort of redefined its brand, redefined its kind of segment, but I think just went beyond that, and redefined how we looked at cars.
Nick Caruso:
Okay.
Tyler Duffy:
So I think it's hard to pick one. So I'm going to give you a few, but I think.
Nick Caruso:
Fair. I guess [crosstalk 00:22:51]
Tyler Duffy:
I think the range Rover has to be up there, because if you look at what a luxury car was before that came out, and I mean it sort of redefined the SUV as a luxury car, it's not just something that some fancy British person has on their estate that they use for hunting. They can drive the Range Rover to work. They can drive the range Rover when they're going out on the town, as it redefined the SUV is a luxury car. And if you look at the.
Nick Caruso:
Interestingly Enough it's also the oldest car on this list, 1970, dead even. [crosstalk 00:23:30]
Tyler Duffy:
Yeah.
Nick Caruso:
Sorry to interrupt. You were saying, if we look at what else?
Tyler Duffy:
Yeah. If you look at the luxury segment today, the Range Rover hasn't been updated since 2012, the new ones should be out soon. It's not the class of that segment anymore, but every luxury manufacturer, whether it's Mercedes, whether it's Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, they're all making most of their money selling Range Rovers basically.
Tyler Duffy:
They make their money selling the Mercedes GLS, or BMW X5. The cars that make their money from, and sell in large numbers are basically SUV's, and that's the luxury market now. Whether we want to sort of admit that or not, Mercedes and BMW, they're all SUV manufacturers.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah Sure.
Tyler Duffy:
And then just sort of going down the list. I think you can make a similar case for the Honda accord, which it wasn't the only car involved in this process, but that that car kind of changed what a small car was in America.
Tyler Duffy:
And what manufacturer you bought it from, it made small car, before the Honda Accord, a small car was like a Pinto, where you go and you buy a cheap car at the dealership. That was from one of the big three. And maybe it catches on fire who knows, but I think obviously that paved the way for Japanese cars and sort of making all smaller, cheaper cars better.
Tyler Duffy:
And then I think you could look at the Toyota RAV4 as well, but the first-generation may not be the, Toyota fiddled around a lot with the first generation, trying to find the right formula. But when they did the Toyota RAV4 is the default car in America now, if you're not buying a full-size pickup, whether you're buying it as a Toyota RAV4 or a Honda CRV, a Ford Escape or Chevy Equinox, You're buying a kind of quirky looking compact crossover.
Tyler Duffy:
And then I think you could also make the same case for the model S, redefining what an electric car is. It's something that's not a Nissan Leaf and something you might actually want.
Nick Caruso:
Right. It's so interesting. I would love to hear, listeners if you're able to comment, or shoot us a line. I'd love to hear what you think about that bit specifically.
Nick Caruso:
Because it's such an interesting way to think about cars. If you just stopped some car enthusiasts on the street, maybe talk to them in a parking lot. They're probably driving on the street, and say "what's the most influential car of all time?" They would probably say something like an enthusiast car, right? They would say a 911, or the, I don't know.
Nick Caruso:
I don't even know what they would say, but it probably wouldn't be one of those three. At least in my own thought experiment, that I'm doing myself. It wouldn't be, I don't think it would be if you asked me, but that's a really scientific sort of interesting way to think about those cars. You think you're going to have people coming after you with protest signs and such?
Tyler Duffy:
I mean obviously as you well know, I came from sports, and writing about college football in particular. So I've got, if people want to come at me, please, I'm happy to address your thoughts, concerns, criticisms.
Tyler Duffy:
And I've got a pretty thick skin.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. I remember reading some emails you've gotten that's I don't envy you.
Nick Caruso:
So lastly let's think about the future. So if we have this definition of what an influential or timeless car is, one that sort of made its mark and changed something,changed the car, changed its type of car.
Nick Caruso:
Are you able to make any predictions about what the next influential car or cars would be from now? Not necessarily something that exists now, but is there a gap, or something that needs to change, that you can predict using this formula?
Tyler Duffy:
I mean I think moving forward, I'm going to circle back to the CA Corvette here.
Tyler Duffy:
I think moving forward, the biggest challenge for every automaker is going to be when we, as we move to, electric power, in the next few years sooner than a lot of people would probably would've thought a year ago.
Nick Caruso:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tyler Duffy:
It's going to be redefining themselves, and you're redefining their icons, that are going to be fundamentally different vehicles using a completely different powertrain, and trying to make that sort of bold, overwhelming transition while still capturing the core of what that car is.
Tyler Duffy:
I think the CA sort of does that, having gone completely to electric power yet, and the current version out is the same engine I believe, but it's a car that, the next generation of great cars is going to be the cars that can sort of, as we have every single automotive icon we know is going to have to make this transition, it's the cars that can make that transmit.
Tyler Duffy:
Whether the Mustang can be an electric car, whether the BMW M cars, those are going to be the sort of transition cars that I think are going to be kind of essential in the next generation.
Nick Caruso:
That's wild. Yeah.
Nick Caruso:
I mean we're already seeing that, right? We're seeing the very, it's happening right before our eyes, our entire lineups, from automakers are being promised to be electric, or electrified options. Isn't it Mercedes in the next years is saying there will be an electric iteration of every one of their cars?
Tyler Duffy:
Yeah. Something like that. Yeah.
Tyler Duffy:
Early cyber segment or something. Yeah,
Nick Caruso:
Sure.
Nick Caruso:
Well I guess time will tell, but as to your point about electric cars coming around sooner, we may be seeing the next mega influential car roll on the lot sooner than we think.
Nick Caruso:
One of them comes to mind is the Volkswagen electric cars, the ID cars, one of which major lists, it's the ID for affordable electric crossover. So we shall see what becomes influential, and then you'll have to add to your list, and we'll have to have this conversation again I guess.
Nick Caruso:
Okay. So one last question, very quick question. If you had to stick with one of these timeless cars for the rest of your days, which one are you going with?
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Sprang that on you.
Tyler Duffy:
Yeah.
Tyler Duffy:
I'm going to go very, very basic and right to my heart, and say that I would absolutely adore to have a 993 generation Porsche 911.
Nick Caruso:
There you go.
Tyler Duffy:
I think, yeah.
Tyler Duffy:
Still got the modern tech. Yeah. I think that would be, not completely resto modded and blown out of proportion, but just a basic nice 911. I think I would be happy to drive that for the rest of my days.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, no kidding. And I think of all the people on bring a trailer as evidenced by the numbers we're seeing. We'll probably agree with you.
Nick Caruso:
Well cool. Thank you for this rundown. I know it's kind of a brief window into your calculus here, but it's a really interesting conversation and at least in car circles, a little controversial, perhaps.
Nick Caruso:
So thank you for being here and thank you everybody for listening, particularly the car folks who may not agree with some of the things we're talking about, but stuck with us anyway.
Nick Caruso:
So if you want any more information about anything we've talked about, including Tyler's list of the 50 most influential cars for the past 50 years.You can check the show notes, or the posts on gearpatrol.com, where you are listening to this episode.
Nick Caruso:
And if you are listening, and you like what you hear, you think you might like what you hear, or you want to never miss another episode regardless, make sure to subscribe. And while you're at it would love a five star review. They help us keep this thing going, and then you can direct all of your hate, all of your praise, all of your critique, your nuanced gentle opinions to us on media. Our handle is gearpatrol. One word. You can comment on articles on the site, or you can email us directly at podcast@gearpatrol.com.
Nick Caruso:
So Tyler Duffey automotive thinker, extraordinare. Thank you for your time today.
Tyler Duffy:
Thanks for having me Nick.
Nick Caruso:
Always, and everybody else. I'm Nick Crusoe. And until next time, take care.