Article content The modern turbocharging boom is proof almost everything in the automotive industry can be charted on a familiar boomerang course of progress that reaches back into the past when novel ideas were plentiful, but execution not quite as cut-and-dried. Set the dials on your time machine for 1980, and you’ll find a vehicular landscape that’s shockingly similar in its embrace of forced induction, a (t)heretofore exotic technology that promised to deliver big power without sacrificing the fuel economy and emissions that were suddenly so important after years of EPA intervention and tightening government regulations. Turbos were seen as a saviour—or more accurately, a shortcut—to the same kind of performance glory that had once been the exclusive province of cubic inches.
Sometimes when you cut corners, though, instead of reaching the finish line, you end up parked on the apron—or never leaving pit lane in the first place. This is especially true when your technological reach overextends your engineering grasp, and what ends up under the hood is more anchor than excitement. Learn more about the cars Here’s a look at four key lowlights of ’80s turbocharging.
Domestic Roots Go Deep It would be a mistake to think forced induction began in the ‘80s. Although the roots of turbocharged street cars in North America stretched back to General Motors’ experiments with the Chevrolet Corvair Monza Spyder and Oldsmobile F-85 Jetfire in 1962, it wasn’t until the.