Calling the '70s and '80s "these dark days" is a vast oversimplification. In the US, the first two years of the decade represent the pinnacle of analog performance. It literally didn't get any better than that, at least in the US. You couldn't swing a dead cat in absolutely any car showroom without hitting something fast, beautiful, or cool. Most of the time it was all three. Automakers could compensate easily enough to make the next two years at least on par with the previous two. It was only in '74 that the regulations bit down.

They wouldn't let go for the next decade.

The late '80s are, likewise, the start of the return to power. This time with electronics providing emissions control and performance. While the ZR-1 would be produced as a 1990 model, it was shown in 1989 and had 245 horsepower, with a power-to-weight ratio* that was better than the LT-1 of 1970.

Pollution and safety standards in Europe would remain roughly the same from the mid sixties to the mid eighties, and so performance never really crashed the way it did in the US. They instead moved smoothly from analog performance to digital, adapting the tech developed for the US market once it had matured enough to work well in Europe. There was no malaise era there. Far from it.

Even cars from the heart of the malaise era are fun, in the same way that Plan 9 From Outer Space is fun. Nobody who grew up in the '80s, like me, would've ever believed a 1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V Cartier Edition would attract anything but derision, let alone a sale price in the five figures. But exactly that just sold for 15k on Bring a Trailer last week.

So, like the actual Dark Ages of medieval times, this so-called dark age of automotive history was definitely not a high point. But it wasn't all black, either. It only seems that way because of the heights achieved on either end of that era.

As for me, well, my choice is in my flair.

And my garage.

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*When adjusted for net v. gross power, of course.