This is the Golden Era of automotive performance...

Imagine going back in time to the darkest part of the Dark Age of automotive performance, say about 1981 or so. That was the year that Car and Driver tested a California-spec Mustang Cobra, whose 255cid 2-bbl V-8 wheezed out a mere 115bhp, that took an agonizingly long 18.1 seconds to travel 1,320 feet, wheezing through the timing lights at 77mph. Even the Corvettes of the time strained to crack the nine-second 0-60 barrier.

The future was presumed to be a bleak expanse of three-cylinder turbodiesels, with fast cars being an artifact of the past.

Now tell the car nuts in 1981 that in 2019 there are 4-door sedans that will run quarter miles in the twelves, right off the showroom floor. On pump gas. With automatics and a/c and power everything. And one of them is a Korean import, while the other has a Hemi.
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