How Fast Was The Quickest Car From The '80s?

The 1980s aren't exactly known as the peak of automotive engineering, at least not when it comes to power and straight-line acceleration. There were a lot of great style exercises and awesome '80s cars that belong front and center at car shows, but it wasn't necessarily a decade known for speed. After all, we're talking about the decade that included terrible cars like the Dodge Diplomat, Chevrolet Citation, and even the Yugo — considered by some as one of the worst cars ever made. Strict emissions led to smaller and less powerful engines than previous decades in the United States, leading to years with generally pretty slow cars.

Thankfully, there were a few cars that bucked the underpowered-and-slow trend of the 1980s, reminding people just how much fun fast cars could be. Sure, they were aspirational and expensive in many cases, but at least they were fast — even by modern standards. According to Car and Driver, the quickest car of the 1980s was the iconic Porsche 959 from 1987. In Car and Driver's hands, the 959 made the sprint from zero to 60 mph in just 3.6 seconds. That's quicker than most fast sports cars can manage today, including the Porsche Cayman GTS 4.0 we tested, which takes 4.3 seconds according to Porsche.

So the Porsche 959 was fast in the '80s — that can't mean much, right? However, any Porsche (or '80s automotive) enthusiast will tell you that the 959 was more than just fast for its day; it was genuinely quick with an incredible top speed. The Porsche 959 was powered by a twin-turbocharged 2.8-liter flat-six engine that made 444 hp and 369 lb-ft of torque. Along with giving the 959 its ability to rocket off the line and reach 60 mph quickly (thanks in part to all-wheel drive), that power made the Porsche 959 capable of a top speed of nearly 200 mph.

The second-quickest car in Car and Driver's 1980s testing was the Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1. The 1989 ZR-1 could accelerate from zero to 60 mph in just 4.5 seconds, which certainly wasn't slow, but nowhere near the Porsche's time. Multiple Ferraris fell as far behind the 959, clocking times at the 5.0-second mark, and even the iconic Buick Grand National only squeaked out a 4.9-second time by the skin of its teeth.

Even the Ferrari F40, a car that cost between $400,000 and $900,000 when Car and Driver tested it in 1991, could only make the sprint to 60 mph in 4.7 seconds. Some other outlets claim the F40 could do the sprint in as little as 4.0 seconds flat, but even that time wasn't as quick as the Porsche 959.