Roadsters and convertibles were almost an extinct breed in the early eighties. Maybe that’s why Eurythmics sang so longingly about them in 1982?
The eighties. I was there myself. During the period I actually felt pretty OK with them. I skipped the teenage hysteria and went straight from child to car nerd, ehrm, enthusiast. And then I started to feel a little bit cheated.
It dawned on me that the cars I liked in the eighties were for the most part conceived in the seventies. XJ-S, BMW 6-Series, Scirocco, Porsche 924, that sort of thing. Later in the eighties I discovered the sixties, and have not looked back (or is that forward?) since: What a cornucopia of beautiful shapes, technology and history. Many of them without a roof.
But when I recently heard the old Eurythmics song – as you still do – somewhere in a public space, I came to think about which open car the song was really about anyway. The single came out in 1982, and it dawned on me that the car mystery was a very open (pardon the pun) question – because one could rightfully ask where the open cars were at all in the eighties? Virtually no place is the answer. Until Mazda came up with the genius MX5 in the late eighties, open cars were simply on the verge of extinction.
Love is a stranger
In an open car
To tempt you in
And drive you far away
My first car was open. From 1968: a red Triumph Spitfire, which I enjoyed about 30,000 kilometers in. So I imagine that I know the feeling from the song well. Although the mood was a little more “puppet on a string”-like in a Spitfire rather than the gloomy mystery that Annie Lennox voiced. But the open car she sang about must in 1982 have been draped with a good deal of plastic, perhaps even both outside and inside. In reality the Scimitar SS1 did not come along until two years later, but I can easily imagine that car in the song. Red. Stained, slightly dull. It could not have been a Fiat X1/9, simply because it is not really an open car.
But now I’m getting to the point. Which is actually pretty fast after ViaRETRO norms anyway. Like I said, I’m having a hard time with the eighties. Car-wise. Stylistically. Musically. Yes, even in terms of food: I have not touched a shrimp cocktail since the MX5 arrived. Without the two things having any connection as such, by the way.
However I can feel that I am softening up towards the decade: A BMW 735i is an insanely classy vehicle that I could well see in my garage instead of my current S-class of the same decade. The RX7 I have on my garage list is a very eighties Elford Turbo edition. Sometimes I even miss my first generation CRX 1.6i-16V! Even the extremely boxy Volvo 700-series touches me somewhere. As long as it comes with lots of fabric it is a true dream car from that time.
And then there is the music: Hair bands I have not agreed with yet, but early vintage Eurythmics? Absolutely: I thought back then Annie Lennox was just about the hottest woman on earth and that the music was just as good. I can just about forgive that there is not a single open car in the video for Love Is A Stranger – they did not hang on trees at the time. And Annie Lennox in latex is an excellent replacement.
Bonus information: Love Is A Stranger flopped when it was released in 1982. But it was re-released in 1983 after the band’s huge success with Sweet Dreams – and then it made it big. Strange. But I have always enjoyed a good failure. And ladies in suits. Both before, during and after the eighties.
