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As to "modern", I'll try to separate things out. You have the Vintage Era of racing: before 1950. You have the Classic Era: 1950-70. Then there's this kind of no-man's-land period: ~1970-81. From 1982-94 or so is the Group C/turbo/CART Era. I suppose the Modern Era kicked off around 1995. That's when the transition to what we now have in sportscar began. "The Split" was in the works. NASCAR was really beginning its rise, and F1 was about to go the the V10 standard, along with embracing the raised nose design.
Bob, I suppose what signifies a modern racing car is slick tires, wings, sharp edges in many cases (funky winglets and diveplanes, rather crisp clinical shapes in many cases), and the rest is really intangibles. I'd like to see a move back towards sharp, focused noses, but a more smooth shape overall. The image I have of this is rather like the 1983 CART cars, except for the Eagle. It's interesting, CART for a time seemed to lead the way, aside from Williams-Renault in F1. You had the slope down toward the front on those big sidepods, and the big wings/endplates hung off the back in a number of cases. It took until 1990-91 for IMSA/Group C to pick up on such features.
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