Wich ERA had the better looking cars?!!

[Alexpcenteno]

Lets place our opinion in wich ERA f1 cars were better looking!!

1980




1985




1990




1995




2000



2005




2008




In my opinion the 90's car is the better looking car ever!!!!

[johny]

where're the late 60's?

[Scotracer]

I think the 2001 or 2003 Ferrari is the best looking F1 car of all time. How can I choose?

[John Stitch]

All ERA's looked pretty much the same.

There weren't any built in the time periods quoted.

[f1italia]

I like the 2008 car. It looks like a work of art.

[Belatti]

I voted the 1990 option cause I like 1991 and 1992 season cars very much. They are all good looking in genreal and the 1991 McLaren, the 1992 Ferrari and Williams are beautiful in particular.

But the best looking car I have ever seen in my life is the last V12:

[donskar]

I'm with johny: why are the 60's and 70's left out? Does no one remember the cars driven by Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill, Jack Brabham, Jochen Rindt, John Surtees, Dan Gurney, Ronnie Peterson, Jackie Ickx, Jackie Stewart, and many, many more?

A case can be made that F1 cars become progressively more ugly as they add more and more wings, flaps, spoilers, barge boards, flipups, tunnels, chimneys, vents, louvers, etc, etc.

Does anyone out there have some photos of the 3 liter Ferrari V12 F1s of the late 60s early 70s? Nice shot of Chris Amon in one in a recent MotorSport magazine.

For me, an F1 car is like a beautiful woman I'll never be able to touch. If I can only look, please let me see her without all the jewelry and add-ons.

[rjsa]

It has to be the mid 80's:

[Conceptual]

My draw to F1 is purely the engineering loopholes that harness the laws of nature to navigate a path that should realistically be impossible to do.

Bring on the chimneys, flipups, viking horns, sculped wings and body and coke-bottle sidepods... Since every one of them has manipulated the equasion of nature enough to break the rules and not only survive, but THRIVE.

I believe F1 is man vs. nature first, and then man vs. man second. That means the car has to be a refined work of harmony before the driver can even leave the garage. Kind of like a brain surgeons scalpel... It needs to be as sharp as possible to be the best.

I know that alot of the people on here disagree, but I am simply amazed by the innovations that are constantly surfacing. Actually, when that goes away, so may my interest...

Anyways,

I voted 2008 cars as the best looking, but I DO like the 2005 ones as well!

Chris

[vyselegend]

The 79 Lotus JPS gets my vote, so I clicked the 1980 option.

FW 19 was another wonderfull car though...

1997:

[guy_smiley]

1967 Eagle Weslake

1991 Benetton B191

2003 Ferrari 2003-GA

And Jenson's BAR-Honda pictured on the first page looks pretty good too.

[mini696]

The MP4/8 is the best looking car by a long shot for me. So 1993.

But I clicked the wrong era and chose the 1980 option.






The MP4/4 was pretty good too.

But then again all of the era's of my F1 supporting years are fantastic.

[dumrick]

F1 cars are by rules essentially cartoonesque variants of a trend from the beginning of the 20th century of taking the fenders and wheel fairings off the cars for weight savings and compete with them.
The open wheel concept has no reason currently and it is grotesque having the teams investing thousands of hours in wind tunnels each year, where some artisanal wheel fairings could make the car faster... notwithstanding the safety problems related with wheel exposure.

Lastly, and finally on topic, like most people I like the racing cars that I use to adore as a little kid and, although never matching the sheer, pure beauty of efficiency of Group C cars of the same era, the 80's F1's are for me the best-looking, with a special reference to the Benetton B189.

[Scotracer]

My draw to F1 is purely the engineering loopholes that harness the laws of nature to navigate a path that should realistically be impossible to do.

Bring on the chimneys, flipups, viking horns, sculped wings and body and coke-bottle sidepods... Since every one of them has manipulated the equasion of nature enough to break the rules and not only survive, but THRIVE.

I believe F1 is man vs. nature first, and then man vs. man second. That means the car has to be a refined work of harmony before the driver can even leave the garage. Kind of like a brain surgeons scalpel... It needs to be as sharp as possible to be the best.

I know that alot of the people on here disagree, but I am simply amazed by the innovations that are constantly surfacing. Actually, when that goes away, so may my interest...

Anyways,

I voted 2008 cars as the best looking, but I DO like the 2005 ones as well!

Chris

Well to be honest, it's not man against nature, it's man against FIA regulation. The only reason those winglets arrived was the reduce the drag of the cars as the V8 engines didn't have the grunt to make them fast enough in a straight line. It doesn't sound very glamourous but it's the truth.

I like the early '00s cars as they were the most aerodynamically efficient F1 cars of all time.

[Miguel]

I voted the 90's because the Jordan EJ191, the McLaren MP4/6 and the 91-94 Williams are pure car porn. However, what makes my mouth water and my jaws drop are the wingless rear engined cars. Also known by my girlfriend as "the vacuum cleaners", the Lotus 33, wingless 49, the Matra in which Jackie Stewart won the 68 German GP, the Eagle Weslake T1G, the Ferrari 312 or the Brabham BT19 are the utmost expression of beautiful engineering.

And, because there is always someone that doesn't know how a lotus 49 looks or sounds, here you have a video of Martin Brundle having a go at Silverstone with a Lotus 49:
http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=daUJc70CjhA

EDIT: Scrap that. If it starts with Lotus, and ends with Forty nine, I love it. In british racing green livery or in golden leaf livery. With wings or without wings. Driven by Hill, Rindt or Clark (although I prefer Jim). I just love it.