1980 Pontiac Firebird Yellow Bird

Trying to explain anything from the 1970s can be challenging. Like the fact that the enormous, garish vehicle pictured was what General Motors was marketing to women. You see, the Pontiac Firebird was considered the epitome of cool in the late 1970s, most especially in the form of the black Trans Am model. So GM decided that what the ladies needed was the same car in color-coordinated "Sky Bird", "Red Bird" and "Yellow Bird" editions.

Why were cars like this so popular? How did Ford manage to sell 352,000 gargantuan, land-yacht Thunderbirds in 1978 in the middle of an energy crisis? I guess one might as well try to understand why men wore leisure suits.

Observations:
* Most of these were sold with V-6 engines making only around 100 hp, so I hope you're not in a hurry.
* GM sold a vast number of cars with these expensive t-tops. I have seen someone driving around with their t-tops off about once in my entire lifetime.

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1988 Lotus Esprit Turbo

Lotus built an average of fewer than 1,000 cars per year back in the day. The Esprit was ranked among the supercars of the time, and this one probably cost more than $50,000 in 1988; that's nearly $120,000 in 2017 dollars. The Esprit pictured is in pretty decent shape. The question is, why is it parked down by the docks in Portage Bay? This is a row of dirt spots where people frequently leave their extra cars for months at a time.

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