Hooniverse Asks: What Is The Perfect Car For Radwood?

By Bradley Brownell Oct 25, 2017


For those who don’t know yet, Radwood is a new car show series for 80s and 90s cars. Some would say these cars are misfits that don’t get attention at a “regular” car show, but at Radwood we (Yes, hello, I am one of the hosts) put them on the main stage. The first Radwood in Brisbane, near San Francisco, went off without a hitch. It went so well, in fact, that we decided to run the second one only 6 months later, this time in Anaheim, down in Orange County, California. Radwood 2 is just over a month away (so get signed up today!) and we know of at least a few people who have bought cars specifically for this show. If you had to pick one car as your 80s or 90s dream to bring to Radwood, what would it be?
Looking at the sign-ups thus far, we’ve got a few Porsche 928s and BMW 8-series. We’ve heard tell of a Bitter SC (above) and a Ferrari Testarossa coming. So today we’re asking you what your 80s or 90s poster car was. Did you have an F40 poster hung on your wall, or a 959? Do you want something more rare and esoteric like a Renault R5 Turbo II?  What’s the raddest car you can think of to bring to Radwood? (Motorcycles also accepted…)

80 thoughts on “Hooniverse Asks: What Is The Perfect Car For Radwood?”
          1. I actually had a dream last night wherein I was playing tennis using a bottle of antifreeze as a racquet. I actually won a point, but I think I lost the game 40-15.

      1. Yes please. I have a Saab 9000 Aero and a Mk1 Toyota MR2 itching to strut their stuff at a Radwood.

          1. A friend in high school had the second gen EXP (non-bugeyed). I’m pretty sure his dad bought it from some shady auction house that dealt exclusively with theft recoveries and flooded vehicles. Either that or it had a cursed mummy stuffed in the spare tire well.

          1. Not sure how it was accomplished, but a friend of my parents drove one in the mid 90s, licensed and registered in Washington state.

          2. I read somewhere that Lockheed brought at least one over to see how Ciroen got such a boxy shape to have such good aerodynamics. It’s always good to remember that the BX was released at the same Paris Motorshow as the Ford Sierra, about which Ford made much fuss of ‘Aero’ And yet the BX has a lower Cd and less lift.

          3. Maybe. I don’t remember if it was debadged – I only saw it a couple of times more than 20 years ago.

      1. If I became unfathomably rich, I’d spend all my days building stuff like that, which is probably why I will never actually be unfathomably rich.

  1. How about some British sport cars. The MGB just barely made it to 1980. Triumphs lasted a bit longer. Then how about some of the “new” ones Lotus Elite & Esprit, TR7, any thing else?

      1. Imagine, in an alternate universe, for them to start every time you turn the key. What the British motor industry could have achieved.

    1. Possible – I gather Jerry Weigart (or however it is spelled) takes one to shows occasionally.

          1. It was? Amazing! I love that song for the association for a lot of very 80s movies (Ferris Bueller, The Secret Of My Success) and it’s also the sometimes embarrassing ringtone on my phone.

          1. But accurate. You would not believe (or maybe you would) the level smug I get when I blow away a tailgating BMW.

    1. I may have told this story before, but I will never forget how I learned to respect the Samara by association. A friend’s father got a new job about 120km away, 240km round trip. He bought a Samara for 300DM, basically the equivalent of a weekend grocery trip. His ultimatum was: Find a job closer to home before the Lada gives up, or move to the place of work during the week.
      He ended up putting 300000km on the thing before his marriage collapsed. Very fond of the machine, that required only the most basic of maintenance, often at home. That anecdote sort of reinforces and runs counter to Lada clichés of feeble ruggedness.

  2. I have a lot of experience with cars of this era having owned quite a few (5 from 1988 alone). The closest to dream car status was probably my 1988 Pulsar NX SE.
    I also started driving in the 80s and, being an odd automotive omnivore even then, my bedroom wall was covered with spreads from my auto literature collection. I think I had a Fiat Brava or 124 on my wall along with a Buick Skylark and probably a K car derivative or two.
    What I’d like to have to bring would be an IROC Z convertible with a 5 speed or a Barretta GTZ with a 5 speed and the color matched 5 spoke wheels or a Citation X-11 or a Celica GT or a last generation RX7 or a Conquest TSi or, well, maybe that’s enough.

    1. My E28 535i certainly scratches my 80s itch, but these cars admittedly get a lot of love already. They are hardly underrepresented in car gatherings.

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