We love car YouTube here at Jalopnik. We all have our favorite channels, from driving to reviews to wrenching and everything in between, but sometimes you have to go back to get the truly good stuff. And by back I mean way, way back to the 1980s and ‘90s. These are our favorite car videos from that era.
Pikes Peak is an incredible place, and the hill climb is a one-of-a-kind race that draws together the best drivers and most outrageous cars from all over the world. That’s true now, and it was true in the 1980s when rally driver Ari Vatanen and his highly modified Peugeot rally car in 1988 took to America’s Mountain and made Climb Dance.
By now everyone knows that drifting got its start in the mountains of Japan, and no one name looms larger in that origin story than that of Keiichi Tsuchiya. This video, in particular, holds a huge place in a lot of drift fans’ hearts and features the Drift King sliding a Corolla around the mountains in 22 minutes of pure joy. Enjoy Pluspy.
Willy T. Ribbs maybe isn’t a household name, but damnit, it should be. He was one of the few Black faces in high-level motorsport in the 1980s, and man, could he ever wheel. Our favorite example of this was his epic drive in an AAR Toyota Celica at the Del Mar parking lot racetrack near San Diego. The video also does a great job of capturing the feel of a great, but often overlooked classes/eras in American motorsports history, IMSA GTO in the ‘80s.
The Porsche 962 remains one of the most dominant racing cars ever, with the cars winning countless trophies in Europe as well as in the USA with IMSA and staying competitive for nearly a decade. This video is great because it captures the 962 at the height of its power at one of the greatest tracks in the world with one hell of a driver behind the wheel. All hail the Le Mans Limousine!
DTM racing in the ‘80s and early ‘90s is legendary for its incredible, production-based cars and especially for its hardcore, fender-bashing wheel-to-wheel action. When people dream about the good old days of sports car racing, this is probably what they imagine. This race in particular was great because it was longer than a typical DTM race and on a challenging circuit. Tune in for 16 minutes of zen featuring BMW E30 M3s and Mercedes-Benz 190e Cosworths fighting it out.
A lot of people have what’s known as “mechanical sympathy.” This is the desire to not abuse the living hell out of a vehicle as you’re driving it, and to instead drive it if not gently, then at least not violently. Former GM Performance Division head John Heinricy doesn’t have mechanical sympathy. He’s a brute, and this owner’s performance review video for the C4 ZR-1 made him famous for it. Pay close attention at the two-minute mark to get what we’re talking about.
Mid Night Club is famous for its late-night Wangan street races with insanely fast and powerful street cars. In the late 90s, the group started going to the Yatabe test track near Tsukuba to see just how fast their mightily modified machines would go without the risk of law enforcement or other motorists getting in the way. This NSX may not have been their fastest car, but it looks and sounds amazing.
Tarmac rally may not be what people think of as a default when it comes to rallying, but this tarmac stage 1988 Manx Rally is as good as any dirt stage, largely thanks to Patrick Snijers’ BMW M3 replete with driving lights and bright red paint job just sliding itself like crazy. This video is famous for a reason, and once you watch it, you’ll see why.
Everyone knows that Ayrton Senna is one of the greatest drivers to have ever lived but did you also know that he helped develop Honda’s much-beloved first-generation NSX supercar? And when we say he “helped develop,” we mean he drove the everliving piss out of it, even while wearing white socks and some snappy loafers. Seriously, this video is the stuff of legend, not only because he’s Senna, but because you get to see his incredible footwork as he careens around Fuji.
This is it. Probably the most famous car film of the 1980s and ‘90s: Faszination on the Nurburgring. The film was made to serve as an advertisement for Ruf and specifically for its CTR Yellowbird, then the fastest production car in the world. In this film (the driving part starts at the 2:21 mark) we see Ruf test driver Stefan Roser laying down a pants-shittingly fast lap in a wildly turbocharged narrow-body 80s 911 with no driver aids. He does it in a short-sleeve shirt, jeans and loafers. No fireproof clothes, no helmet. He is fearless.
If watching this doesn’t get your heart pumping, you need to find a new hobby.