Well I wasn't old enough to actually be around for the "good stuff" (
) so I can only say what has captured my imagination. What I am drawn to differs from racing type to type and who was around in those classes at the time:
F1 - late 1970s to early 1980s (to be fair, I do remember this era)
GT - 1960s
Sports Cars - early to mid 1970s
Who knows why? Apart from F1 in the 1970s and 1980s where I consciously started to absorb motorsport I only have articles, DVDs and documentaries to go on (eg Speed Merchants on DVD giving a rough account of what it was like in Sports Car racing in the 1970s for instance)