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Three of the best supercars of the 1980s

The age of excess, both in the deregulated City and the fashion of the New Romantics, was also embodied in the supercars of the 1980s.

While Ferrari’s Testarossa was the poster-boy of the decade of Miami Vice, Lamborghini’s Countach was a spaceship on wheels and Aston Martin focused on adding yet more power to their huge GTs.

Which would be your 80s supercar of choice?

If Ferrari's Testarossa was flamboyant, the 1980s Bertone-designed Lamborghini Countach was exotically extravagant; a spaceship for the road that did everything but fly.

Initially launched in 1974, when its origami shape of angles and flat panels was truly groundbreaking, the Countach developed into a monstrous, aggressive supercar in the 80s, with wider wheelarches and more powerful engines to eclipse the Ferrari in terms of out and out top speed.
The V8 Vantage was dubbed Britain's first supercar when it was launched in 1977; the 150mph DB6 and Jaguar E-type clearly weren't fast enough to qualify-

Sharing the same basic shape as the DBS introduced in the late 60s and the later V8, the real differences were under the bonnet and, for a time, the V8 Vantage was the world's fastest accelerating production car - one tenth of a second quicker than the Ferrari Daytona.
If any supercar could define a decade, it was the flamboyant Testarossa and the 1980s. The favourite of Thatchers bonus-laden deregulated bankers and celebrities alike, the Testarossa (literally "red head" in Italian) was a wide, wedged-shaped icon of the decade of excess.

Instantly recognisable from its "cheese grater" side strakes, the car was launched as a replacement for the BB 512 at the 1984 Paris Motor Show