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Buy this Ford vs Ferrari GT40 Movie CarYour Generation’s High School Dream Cars
High school is a time for automotive aspirations. Reflect back with us on your generation’s dream cars.
Poster Car Pining
High school offers a distinct automotive dichotomy. On the one hand, you’ve just gotten your driver’s license and you’re ready to explore the world and capitalize on this newfound freedom. On the other hand, you’re a broke high school kid counting yourself lucky if you’re rolling up to school in anything but a duct-taped heap perpetually threatening to strand you on the side of a freeway on-ramp.
So, it’s natural that, as said high school kid, you find yourself pining after a dream car or two (or three). Today we’re going to explore the past four generation’s high school dream cars and in the process chart how the automotive tastes of 16-year-olds have evolved and what’s stayed consistent.
Baby Boomers
’67 C2 Chevy Corvette
The second-generation Chevrolet Corvette has always sat above and a bit outside the muscle car culture of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, but that’s also what made it so desirable. The Corvette has consistently been an inspiring mix of speed and style, generation after generation.
Muscle Cars, et al.
Speed has always been an obsession for car enthusiasts, but the 1960s muscle car craze brought this to the mainstream. Legends like the COPO Camaro, Mustang Boss 427, and the Hemi Cuda, to name just a few, made every stoplight an opportunity for some drag racing glory. And the best part, muscle cars of the era were attainable dream cars. Maybe not at 15 or 16, but by 18 or 19 it wasn’t out of the question you could afford one. Now if only you’d known to keep that vintage GTO in perfect condition for the next 50-years….
’63 Shelby Cobra
The name Carroll Shelby resounds like none other among car fans. And his Cobra was perhaps his greatest creation. The Cobra was in many ways, what other muscle cars wished they could be. A brilliant mix of British-sports-car lightness and American V8 power, the Cobra is as visceral a driving experience as they come. What more could a 16-year-old want? (Read more about the Cobra here.)
Gen-X
Lamborghini Countach
Most common high school car poster of all time? The Lamborghini Countach. Fast, futuristic, and exuding ‘80s excess, the Countach just might be the ultimate high school dream car.
Porsche 928
Speaking of 80s icons, what teenage boy didn’t look on Tom Cruise’s Risky Business character with envy? Or perhaps Tony Montana in Scarface? Both featured the ultra-chic Porsche 928. Turns out, someone wanted to live out their dream and bought the original Risky Business movie car for $1.9 million late last year.
Ferrari F40
Perhaps a close second on the wall poster depth chart is the Ferrari F40. In a decade full of classic Ferraris, the F40 stands above them all (heck, it might be the best-looking Ferrari of all time). For kids in the ‘80s, the Testarossa from Miami Vice might be cool and Magnum P.I.’s 308 was nice, but F40 was a car for the kingpin we knew we’d be.
VW Type 2
But not every Gen-Xer wanted to be the jetsetter in a white blazer and shades dancing to Rick James’ “Super Freak” in the night club. No, some kids longed for the simpler days of following the Dead cross-country with their buddies on an endless long, strange trip. And to do that, there was only one vehicle, the Volkswagen Type 2 minibus. Like the muscle cars of a generation prior, the Type 2 had the benefit of being a realistic buy, unlike the Countach.
Millennials
Toyota Supra Mk IV
No other movie franchise comes close to the influence on a generation’s automotive tastes than that of The Fast & the Furious. The movie made the Mk IV Supra a household name and the 2JZ spoken of with whispers of reverence usually reserved for kings and popes. And now that grown up Millennials can turn their teenage dream cars into reality, prices for the once eminently attainable Supra have shot up to six figures.
Dodge Viper
The spiritual inheritor to the Shelby Cobra, the Dodge Viper recreated the same bat guano crazy appeal; this time with a thundering V10 but the same distain for safety or sanity. I mean, what better car than the Viper for matching the raging testosterone of a teenage boy?
Integra Type R
For the sophisticated JDM aficionado, there’s the Integra Type R. While the Supras and Skylines took up most of the oxygen in the room, the true cognoscenti of Japanese motoring knew the Integra Type R was the real deal.
Gen-Z
More JDM Classics
Big brothers and big sisters exert an outsized influence on our tastes as teenagers, from music to clothes to cars. Today’s Gen-Zers have taken a page from their older Millennial siblings and fallen hard for JDM cars. The legendary status of 90s neo-classics continues to ascend for cars like the Mitsubishi Lancer EVO, Nissan Laurel, the top-of-the-heap Nissan Skyline R32 and R33.
Kei Cars
The novelty, the simplicity, the down right cuteness of Japanese kei cars have captured the hearts of Gen-Z. Characterful cars like the Autozam AZ-1, Suzuki Cappuccino, and Honda Beat are small enough to not be too crazy expensive, so long as you’re up for the hassles of importing one. Despite their government mandated miniscule displacement, a kei car probably your fastest ticket to the cool table in the school cafeteria.
Supercars
Multimillion dollar supercars are pretty much built as dream cars come to life. But given their astronomical price tags, dreams they shall inevitably remain. Still, cars like the Lamborghini Sián, Koenigsegg Jesko, and Bugatti Chiron probably belong on everyone’s dream car list, regardless of generation.
Electric Insanity
Unlike prior generations, Gen-Z gets an entirely new type of dream car, the lightning quick, bajillion horsepower electric car. With speed, expense, and meme-worthy style (like the programmable horn in the Telsa Model S), today’s electric cars are certainly worthy dream cars. Plus, they can smash even supercars in a drag race.
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