What some refer to as "Malaise Era" cars are generally considered sluggish performing cars manufactured and sold in the 1970's and 1980's. The term stems, diffusely, from President Jimmy Carter's July 1979 "Crisis of Confidence" State of the Union address although, ironically, President Carter never said the word "malaise" in the body of the speech. Some say it all began back in the 1960's when the government first started mandating manufacturers make their wares run cleaner; their crude attempts to comply resulting in a severe drop in engine performance and efficiency. Others say it started in October of 1973 with the OPEC embargo and manufacturers scrambling like they did with emissions regulations to make their vehicles more fuel efficient. To further contempt for "Malaise Era" cars, federally mandated safety requirements forced manufacturers to compromise styling which led to many clumsy designs.
Regardless of when the "Malaise Era" began, we're of the belief that it began to end not so much with one particular car but with the advent of effective and reliable electronic engine control systems. The first "poster car" for electronically controlled car engines, in our opinion as well, was Ford's 1982 Mustang GT.
Ford first installed electronic engine controls, or "EEC", on their 1978 vehicles. "EEC" I and II used a computer to control fuel-air ratio which, much like Chrysler's Lean Burn system introduced in 1976, was effective at reducing emissions but did little to improve engine performance. EEC-III, introduced in 1981, was a more advanced system that was also effective at limiting emissions but also enabled Ford to push engine performance capabilities while being in compliance with federal fuel economy standards. With increased performance capabilities Ford developed, cubic inch for cubic inch, the most powerful passenger car engine they had offered since 1973. That engine was the "High Output" 302 cubic inch "Windsor" V-8 offered for sale on the Mustang GT and Mercury Capri RS starting in 1982.
Although a far cry from the high performance Mustangs of the late '60's through 1970, after years of taking steps backwards the '82 GT with its 160 horsepower V-8 wasn't just a step forward in performance - it was a gigantic leap. Contemporary road tests noted the car could accelerate from 0-60 in 6.9 seconds; certainly not impressive by today's standards but compared to the 10.1 seconds it took the 1979-1981 turbocharged Cobra, the GT was a watershed performance automobile.
Like many things in life, it's difficult to separate a series of circumstances that led to failure - as in the start of the "Malaise Era" and the success that was the beginning of its end. Allegedly, the 1982 Ford Mustang GT was developed to market Ford's renewed interest in racing; racing being part of a new marketing strategy at Ford in the early '80's to help create overall awareness for the company after more than a decade of being fairly irrelevant. At the same time the economy was also finally improving and gas prices were stabilizing as well. Was the turn for the better due to the Ford Mustang GT? Well, no, not directly, but the overall improvement in automobiles, a huge part of the U.S. economy, was due in large part to electronic engine controls.
It would take years for the "Malaise Era" to become a thing of the past but, again, the beginning of its end came about with electronic engine controls. How great the future of automobiles would be first brought to light by what those controls could do with the 1982 Ford Mustang GT.
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