You’ve probably heard the term “Baby Boomers,” which refers to the generation born between 1946 and 1964. People from the Boomer generation will tell you that it was the most fantastic time to be young, with rock music topping the charts and shiny new muscle cars coming out of Detroit. Indeed, most Boomers did get the chance to experience what a ’66 Mustang right off the showroom floor felt like.
But the truth is that their perception of cars is quite a bit different than today’s modern standards. As car buyers, Boomers have been a part of the automotive landscape for decades but their taste in cars was only sometimes good. So today, we’ll look back at some of the Boomer generation’s favorite cars. Then we’ll expand on why these vintage clunkers simply need to go away forever. Let’s get started.
Cadillac Allante
The ’80s weren’t a particularly successful period for Cadillac. Throughout most of the decade, Cadillac tried to reinvent itself by introducing cars to combat their European competitors. In most cases, ’80s Cadillac models weren’t especially interesting and most forgot about them. Still, there is one very interesting car which is a true Boomer car. That was the elegant Allante introduced in 1987 (via Auto Evolution).
The Allante was a competitor to the Mercedes SL convertible. It was a two-seat luxury convertible with Italian styling by Pininfarina, a Northstar V8 engine, and front-wheel drive. That was quite an unusual combination. Even the production process was specific. The actual fabrication was done in Italy in the Pininfarina factory. Then, cars were shipped to the US by jet, which affected the cost of the final product. The Allante stayed in production until 1993. Just over 21,000 left the factory in Italy and Detroit. The car proved too expensive to produce and the factory allegedly lost money on every model made.