Whilst most of the truly stunning cars were from the 60s (or earlier) there are a few genuinely nice and / or good 70s cars
Landrover 101 - the army-only light artillery tractor. still aspire to own one one day. Same size and engine as the contemporary Range Rover
Jensen Interceptor. Needs no justification
Landrover TDi 200. OK the base vehicle is earlier but the coil sprung version is major redesign, and arguably the TDi 200 is the first really satisfactory engine it had. My ex had one for a good few years, to tow her horse around
Its Toyota Landcruiser rival of that era is also rather appealing. The last one for farmers and such before the Chelsea Tractor era
The humble but excellent astravan. We had the lowly 1300 version as a works van and it was brilliant to drive and quite quick. It is perhaps remarkable that none of us (then) hooligans managed to crash it or blow it up
70s and 80s Saabs (99, 900, 9000) and Volvos (240 etc) were all decent solid and rather appealing cars
Mercedes of that era were all a lot nicer and arguably better made than today's. My uncle had two or three as nice company cars, and I've been in still smart and solid European taxis with 600,000km on the clock
I'd say the early 80s Series 3 facelift of the Jag XJ6 is perhaps the nicest looking incarnation of the model
Quite a few Alfas and Lancias of that era were quite appealing, albeit likely no more reliable and good bit more vulnerable to catastrophic breakdowns than their despised BL contemporaries.
928 Porsche, and perhaps the nicest of the 911 versions were in that era, and things like the 944 turbo had a lot going for them too, before it all got silly in the more modern ones
For me the BMC/BL cars of 70s have little appeal compared to those of the 50s and 60s
Hilman Imp maybe, and also the rear wheel drive (proper) Skodas, the 130 being a formidable rally car. I remember reading a series of articles in the magazine Cars &Car Conversions concerning souping up and prepping one for rallying. They doubled the power but hadn't yet fitted all the lamps and stuff and during a test run described flashing a BMW to move over at 130 on the motorway. For all the jokes they were built like tanks.
