These Were The First ‘Modern’ Cars, According To Our Readers

It’s nearly impossible to say what the first “modern” car was. While it might sound like a question with an objective answer, it’s anything but. There are so many different factors you’ve got to take into consideration when defining what “modern” means in an automotive context. Is it the drivability? What about the technology? Maybe it’s the styling. I can’t say for sure, but it’s what brought me to the question I asked you all last week.

I asked the Jalopnik audience what you thought the first truly modern car was, and you fine folks delivered and then some. Sure, there were some of the usual suspects on there, but there were plenty of cars I would have never even considered. And, I gotta hand it to you: there are some very compelling arguments that the first modern car wasn’t actually my beloved Lexus LS400, though I still think it kind of was.

In any case, that’s enough out of me. Scroll down below to see what everyone thinks the first modern car was.

The first Ford Taurus. Doing a future looking luxury car is easy, doing it for the masses that is something only the Taurus did.

Submitted by: XXLTall

Volvo 740. Safe, reliable, reasonably well equipped, safe as a bank vault. The advertising was all towards safety more than anything else, which feels very modern today.

Submitted by: hose68

Just like nobody realized that “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” was pioneering the future of television when it first aired beginning in 1993 with a serialized story arc that lasted the length of the series, nobody realized in 1980 that the AMC Eagle was the future of the automobile.

The Eagle was a car-based compact SUV before there was such a thing, and now they’re virtually all anyone drives (including myself, though I managed to hold out until this year, when I began driving a 2008 Kia Rondo).

Submitted by: MustangIIMatt

I’ll raise your LS – and see you with another Toyota from that era – the 91-96 Camry which was engineered alongside the LS (and later became the basis of the first ES). This is where the Camry practically became a household name and blew the doors off every other domestically made car. It looked great and its probably the one car from that era where you’ll still see them around – probably beat up with a ding on the front and back bumper – but still going strong.

&

I’m going with the 1992 Camry. It was the first huge, mass-market seller that brought comfort, affordability, features and genuine 300K mile plus potential reliability to the masses. Sure the 89 LS400 was a great car, but it was still high-end exclusive and unaffordable to most. The 1992 Camry because the benchmark and never looked back.

Submitted by: PLAN-B 77 & BuddyS

The Citroen 2CV. It achieved the most with the least. It brought front wheel drive to the masses, although Citroen had done that earlier with the more expensive Traction Avant. The 2CV suspension still can’t be beat for poor road driving. It’s unibody and can be disassembled so easily that a person stuck in the desert with a wrecked 2CV was able to dismantle it and rebuild it as a motorcycle to get out. Our modern cars are much too complex. We need some 2CV parsimony in design.

Submitted by: Fred Schmacher

I would say… maybe a little cynically; the Ford Explorer in 1991. It was the pioneer of the SUV trend that sought to bring people out of wagons and minivans and into large truck like vehicles in order to work around safety, efficiency and emissions standards and boost corporate profits. It is a trend that has changed car proportions and design ever since to make allowances for the added size and higher bumpers of these vehicles.

Submitted by: Matt Pipes

The 1983 Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager. Sure, Lexus ‘modernized’ an already-existing platform but Lee Iacocca and co. literally invented an entirely new class of car with a feature set that hadn’t existed at all, and from which most current minivans haven’t strayed from. Even the form factor is generally the same from 40 years ago to now.

Submitted by: Mustardayonnaise

1915 Cadillac Type 51.

First car to use a center mounted gear shifter, gas-brake-clutch pedal layout, keyed electric ignition and other controls we find as standard today.

Submitted by: Dr.Xyster

The 959 has to be a top contender. In 1984, to think you could purchase a car with active suspension, computer controlled all wheel drive, tire pressure sensors, twin scrolls turbos and kevlar reinforced bodywork was without exaggeration…unheard of. A car so good that it motivated billionaires to lobby the federal government to allow the car to be driven on our shores which birthed the show and display law we have today.

Submitted by: Austin Erving

It’s the first-gen Toyota Prius, celebrating the 30th anniversary of its launch next year. Without the Prius, there’s no Tesla, no Chinese automotive onslaught, no NEVI, no EVs, no self-driving (because the high-voltage battery is what’s driving the compute power in these things), none of the topics happening in automotive right now happen without Prius.

Submitted by: Jo Borras

Audi Quattro

Every modern car is

Turbo

AWD

Tech heavy

Actually heavy

Sorta half suv, half coupe, half fastback

Submitted by: Mike Poster

It was the first “crossover” SUV. The segment that dominates the car market now

Submitted by: Keith Powers