By the mid-1980s, the American automotive industry was slowly beginning to crawl itself out of the worst bits of the Malaise Era. Engines were beginning to produce just a bit more horsepower, and Japanese sports cars were rising in popularity drastically, forcing American automakers to think outside the box and create sporty models that didn’t rely on a big, old, underpowered V8 to move it about. At the same time, the turbocharger began to take hold.
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