Wast thinking about a couple fictional characters of this era, and wondering what cars they would want. I was actually a teenager then, but not interested in cars and everyone where I was was just happy to get anything.
But if a grown (late 30s, early 40s) electrical engineer wanted a sports car (a “car guy”), what wold be a likely target for him in the time period?
Also, a teen with rich parents and a 45k limit on the car. One who wants a car to drive and look impressive, not to race or work on or anything.
So, have we anyone here who dreamed about cars during the time period and could point me in the right direction.
For the engineer - an Acura NSX, particularly if you’re talking about the early '90s. Japanese performance cars were big at the time, so a teenager might want that, a Toyota Supra or MR2 turbo, Mazda RX-7, or Nissan 300zx turbo. Bedroom wall posters probably would have included a Lamborghini Diablo, McLaren F1, or maybe a Jaguar XJ220.
Hm, well you’ve given two very demographics. For the older guy or gal, most likely a camero, or mustang, just about any vintage. For older cars nova camero mustang Malibu 'cuda are what come to mind right off with a handful or so of Corvette enthusiasts for good measure. Also, can’t forget the truck enthusiasts with their restored or hot rodded old gmc ford chevy and the somewhat rare international trucks.
For the younger crowd, there would be split between those who favor older and newer detroit iron and those who are among the modders of newer cars. This was the (beginning of) the age of mazda and Nissan modders with their spoilers and ground effect lights and sound systems and people were starting to figure out that you could hook a computer up to your car and adjust things to get some pretty impressive times at the drag strip out of that little rice grinder you drive everyday.
Overlaying all of this, there are most likely regional differences as well. The midwest farmboy will probably have something different from a person from Boston who will have something different from a person in Atlanta
This was a bit earlier in the 1990s, but an electrical engineer I knew back then got a Toyota Supra, which was probably somewhere around your $45k limit with the bells and whistles that he got on it. We started joking with him about how he was going to get a bunch of tickets, and since we all worked on airborne radar at the time, he started a serious conversation about what he could do to turn his car into a “stealth Toyota” so that police radar wouldn’t be able to get a decent reading on it (short answer, not much).
I’m a car guy, but I don’t care much about sports cars. I was looking at kit cars, kits that took modern cars and made them look like they were from the 1920s. They have Cobra kits as well, which wouldn’t interest me, but I think a Cobra kit car would work well for your story. It adds that “not only is it a sports car but I built it myself” angle that a lot of engineers would like.
For a rich kid, I’m thinking something along the lines of a Dodge Viper.
I was a car-obsessed teen in the late 90’s, and this is spot-on. Add the Lamborghini Countach and Ferarri Testarossa. Probably the Dodge Viper and Porsche 911 Turbo as well.
Don’t forget the DeLorean which was still a plausible dream car in the late 90’s.
Yet another vote that Tired and Cranky nailed it - the big 3 would be Acura NSX, Toyota Supra, or a twin turbo 300ZX.
This was a time when Japanese sports cars were at their peak and thwomping everyone else for performance / price (not to mention looks).
You could throw in perennial objects of lust like the last of the widebody air-cooled Porsche 911’s (which are still objects of lust enough they’ve actually appreciated quite a bit in value today relative to what you could buy them for then) or Corvettes (if your characters are midwestern), but the really iconic this-just-screams-90’s ones will be the Japanese two seaters.
Didn’t Dodge/Mitsubishi have some sort of joint project at the time, not the Dodge Viper but something a bit less expensive. IIRC it was a popular rich kid car. Also, as DorkVader points out, it may have been regional. In the New England/MidAtlantic region where I lived as a young adult during that era, Audis, Saabs, and high end SUVs were much more popular within this demographic than Japanese or domestic sports cars.
I graduated in 95. My circle of friends had a Supra, Fox body Mustang, 34 Ford 3 window coupe rat rod, and Mitsubishi Eclipse of note. Everyone else drove standard cars or trucks of the time. The dream cars were Lambo’s, Porsche’s, and Dodge Vipers.
I wanted a 928, I got a Jag conversion with a Chevy small block. Earlier I had a big block Camaro. Later I got a Boss Mustang. I drive a Honda Accord now!
I came out at the end of your timeframe (1999) but the Honda S2000 was the true inheritor of the low cost British sports car of the 50s & 60s. Plus the dream of many teenagers with used Civics and del Sols.
IMHO, your $45k is on the high end for that decade. The Miata came out at ~20k and the S2000 was just under 30k. The Supra (and its Lexus SC300 cousin) were ~35k.
the late 90s to the mid 00s were the age of the " riceboy" watch the first of the fast and furious series for the ultimate epitome of that era …
people trying to trick out cheap imports (sometimes old domesticis) with cheap after market parts to go drag or street racing … or as a friend of the family put it " dumbasses who put a 400 dollar Soundsystem and a 5oo dollar exhaust system in 750 dollar junker …"