When the futuristic, wedge-shaped cars we lusted after in the ’80s and ’90s went out of style, they went all the way out of style. But a new generation of auto freaks has revived these vintage beauties. Nobody laughs or calls them ugly anymore. And prices are skyrocketing.

They were the last generation of cars to be designed using primarily pencil and clay, formed out of rectangles and wedges, before modern computers came along and made pretty much any shape that can cut through air possible. And that’s exactly why we love them: They will forever be the sports cars of the future. Just by looking at them, you can practically feel the designers crafting them by hand, straining forward into the digital age. Which, it turned out, was right around the corner.

These are automotive works of art—but with wild horsepower, Italian leather seats, and a rainbow of bad attitudes. Here, the experts break down exactly why there’s no cooler class to drive right now. This is the story of sports cars, the men who love them—and the shifting tides of value and taste.

Dreams Money Can Buy

Adolfo Orsi (co-author, ‘Classic Car Auction Yearbook’): The demographic of car collectors is changing. The buyers now are people in their mid-30s, early 40s, and the first cars they buy are the cars in their memories. They dreamed about these cars from the posters in their bedrooms.

Alex Manos (owner, The Beverly Hills Car Club): Things have changed drastically since 2010. There are a lot of people who were kids when these cars were out new. They had the posters in their bedrooms and were like, Wow, one day I could dream of having one of those. Well, now they’re adults and they can afford them.

Ted Gushue (editorial director, ‘Petrolicious’): These cars represented power and performance and wealth and success—things that we didn’t quite understand as kids. We just saw them as fast, sexy cars. Then we grew up. Some of these guys started Facebook. Some of these guys made money in finance.

Bradley Price (founder, Autodromo): I feel like there were a couple of cars that never lost their luster from that time period. But then, others were almost a joke. Some survived as the cream of the crop, and others went down and came back up, like an actor who recovers his career in his mid-40s. In any style-oriented collecting type of thing, there are thought leaders—people who are ahead of the curve. Those people were buying these cars several years ago, and it’s now more mainstream. Although I don’t think it’s fully hit the mainstream yet.

Tim Huntzinger (professor, ArtCenter College of Design): Car styling, like any kind of styling, goes in cycles. You can dig into your dad’s closet and find the old skinny ties from back in the day, and now they’re cool again. Car styling is similar, but it’s got an extra layer of complexity because of the technology. Why now? There’s two parts to it. One is that these cars are rounding 30. Right? And so they’re starting to become truly classic cars. The second is because of how organic modern cars are becoming. In the ’80s and early ’90s, computers weren’t really used to design cars yet, but they wanted them to look like they were.... These cars were all designed on paper and with clay. Made by hand. As cars increasingly started to get made by computer, there were shapes that became possible that were not possible before. I think that’s why these cars fell out of favor. They weren’t as different as they used to be. But I think that’s exactly the same thing that brings them into the forefront now: They’re different again.

Lancia

Delta Integrale Evo 2 | 1994