Muscle cars

[thirteenbyseven]

Very impressive collection!

Anything done to the '08 Z? Raced a guy at my local track with a '06. He had full bolt-ons, heads and cam work done, and kept up with my TT C5Z.

Remington, you are the one with an impressive collection. I am still smarting a bit after selling the 2004 Cobra Mustang a month after taking delivery of my new Camaro SS. We have a two car garage and my wife gave me the ultimatum; after all her Camry is parked in a open air carport to the side of our garage.

As to your question, I had a Borla exhaust installed a year after I bought the 2008 ZO6. The Chevrolet dealer kept telling me it would void the warranty but I went ahead after going up to Oxnard a seeing the manufacturing plant. The exhaust sounds are incredible. The only downside is a slight degradation of mileage, but who buys a 'Vette for that? BORLA

From your description of that C6 Corvette of yours, it sounds like a Callaway twin-turbo conversion? If so, that is a beast!!!!!

I would love to go through the Bob Bondurant Racing School again now (even having just turned 40.) When I went through it in the early 1990s I was a kid in my early twenties with more balls than brains and didn't get as much out of it as I could have. Bob Bondurant had just relocated to Arizona from northern California (Sears Point) and still used a fleet of Nissan 300 ZXs, nice little cars but not in the league of the Corvettes they use now. Bondurant Racing School of High Performance Driving

 

[Rikter8]

Hmm, well different strokes for different folks. Personally, I like the '77 better- Nice black with gold trim.

77 and 78 were Identical. The only difference (to my knowledge) was the upgraded suspention to make it handle better. The only thing the 77 SE had going, was Burt was in the drivers seat. Either car is beautiful.

Nice to see a fellow F-body owner on here! Anything done to it?

Just appearance mods. I don't drive it. Mirror panels under the hood, Last of the Breed Kit and head plate, Pan Hard Bar, that's about it.
Now the GMC on the other hand.... has more HP than the TA...about 75hp more. This is kinda what it sounds like at the moment as I have the same cam.

I'm quit smitten by the new Camaro SS. I sat in one and boy it's like being transported back to the 60's. I couldn't get out of it. Viability must be poor but boy is she charming on the inside.

Theyre pretty to look at, but the visibility is crap. I thought my F-body was bad...then came this car. I'm still pissed they brought it back. They killed the F-bodies as they said their time was over, market demand was low, price was too high to continue making...blablabla. Then GM lost the young performance brands and didn't replace it with anything. Yea...the corvette...big money...big deal.
I'm all about bang for the buck and the F-bodies of old delivered.
All i have to do is bolt on headers onto my car, do a performance tune and I'll be running along side or passing the new camaro, have better visibility, more rubbernecking, and more fun for less cost.

My second new muscle car? I traded the Charger (at a loss) for a 1969 Chevelle SS with a odd iridescent factory paint job of navy blue/black and a god awful orange trunk and matching orange pin striping. It had a navy vinyl roof and a navy on black vinyl interior. I forget the size of the engine block, but it was much more comfortable (and reliable) than the Charger. The Chevelle also hauled ass and used more gas.

Mmmmm probably a nice 396 big block chevrolet, or a 454 big block. I'll take the 396.

Oh no!

I loved the 240z - but maybe better to look at than to own?

I know it....I keep watching THIS video and wanting a 240Z more and more. LS conversion for sure.
And THIS is the same engine I have in the truck

 

[798686]

I know it....I keep watching THIS video and wanting a 240Z more and more. LS conversion for sure.
And THIS is the same engine I have in the truck

Cool aren't they?
Listen to this! And see the blancmange coming along afterwards...

 

[mako shark]

A partial list of the 30 + cars that I've built over the years:
1971 GTO
4 Corvettes
5 Camaros
1938 PU Streetrod
1953 F100
240Z Scarab
55 Belair
300C Hemi

 

[deleted15807]

VW seem to have decided that the US wants cheaper quality, for cheaper prices...not sure if it's true or not? Maybe importing the cars added to their list price, so building in Mexico may be better (presuming quality is ok?).

-----

Japanese cars have by far the best reliability image here (altho they are perceived as boring). We always have Nissans or Mazdas, personally. Yep, Toyota's image has taken a knock here too - some of the footage from US Toyotas is horrific. Ironically, Toyota's slogan here has been 'the car in front is a Toyota', prompting ppl to retort 'only cos it wouldn't stop'. Lol.

VW realized that they need to remove a lot of nice materials in the previous Jetta to reach the price point they felt they needed. I don't know about Europe but Hyundai here is a big up and coming brand with great quality and below Japanese prices. And they are offering a lot of stiff competition to the established players and I'm sure VW knows it.

I have a little of both right now. I have a BMW540 and a MazdaSpeed3. Both are very quick and very good at what they are positioned to do. The 540 is just an incredible machine on the highway. Just total rock solid and runs like its on rails. Recently I drove it in the pouring rain on the highway. While others had to slow down she just roared on, planted to the road.

Now the MazdaSpeed3 is a light and fast car but it doesn't have the real planted to the pavement feel of the BMW but in the city you don't really need that. Mazda likes to say it can go 150mph like the German cars. And while it may be able to do that, it won't give you that solid in touch with the road feel of a German sedan. Or Jaguar for that matter Granted those other cars are much heavier.

The cockpit is like the dark hole of Calcutta, particularly at the four and eight o'clock positions,

Yeah I was in LA recently and rented a Mustang convertible and it does give you this weird kind of sitting position. The doors rise high and makes you feel like you're sitting in a 'hole' riding around. That feeling was a little better with the top down. I decided I don't like cloth roofs as they are noisy with the top up. You never get that solid feel with a cloth roof. Some people may be OK with that but I don't like that lack of rigidity feel.

 

[Remington]

Remington, you are the one with an impressive collection. I am still smarting a bit after selling the 2004 Cobra Mustang a month after taking delivery of my new Camaro SS. We have a two car garage and my wife gave me the ultimatum; after all her Camry is parked in a open air carport to the side of our garage.

As to your question, I had a Borla exhaust installed a year after I bought the 2008 ZO6. The Chevrolet dealer kept telling me it would void the warranty but I went ahead after going up to Oxnard a seeing the manufacturing plant. The exhaust sounds are incredible. The only downside is a slight degradation of mileage, but who buys a 'Vette for that? BORLA

From your description of that C6 Corvette of yours, it sounds like a Callaway twin-turbo conversion? If so, that is a beast!!!!!

I would love to go through the Bob Bondurant Racing School again now (even having just turned 40.) When I went through it in the early 1990s I was a kid in my early twenties with more balls than brains and didn't get as much out of it as I could have. Bob Bondurant had just relocated to Arizona from northern California (Sears Point) and still used a fleet of Nissan 300 ZXs, nice little cars but not in the league of the Corvettes they use now.

Heh heh, thanks for the complements! I try.:wink:

As far as my Z06 goes, the engine was built by Texas Speed. The initial setup was for a gnarly, rumbling street car with a nasty shot of nitrous. With the NO2 going, I had about ~740rwhp. It was "fast", but I got sick of living off the bottle, swapped the heads, put a more "mild" cam in and sent it off to Matchless Performance over in Texas for a twin turbo and E85 tune. On 6lbs (low) and pump gas, it averaged at ~760rwhp & ~720ft/lbs. (Dyno sheet attached) Haven't dynoed it on higher boost and E85 yet. I expect ~900rwhp.

As far as the fuel mileage "issue", have you gotten your car tuned after the install? Usually exhaust mods improve fuel mileage. Might want to go to a tuner and get the ECU tuned to that setup. I know Dynolabs over in San Ramon and Synergy in Fremont are good places that can work on 'vettes.

And it's funny you should mention Bondurant, I took their intro, advanced, and highway survival courses last year when I bought the Viper and moved to Arizona. Took Skip Barber's courses when I first got the Z06.

You can never have too much driver's training. Especially dealing with high performance cars.

 

[798686]

VW realized that they need to remove a lot of nice materials in the previous Jetta to reach the price point they felt they needed. I don't know about Europe but Hyundai here is a big up and coming brand with great quality and below Japanese prices. And they are offering a lot of stiff competition to the established players and I'm sure VW knows it.

I have a little of both right now. I have a BMW540 and a MazdaSpeed3. Both are very quick and very good at what they are positioned to do. The 540 is just an incredible machine on the highway. Just total rock solid and runs like its on rails. Recently I drove it in the pouring rain on the highway. While others had to slow down she just roared on, planted to the road.

Now the MazdaSpeed3 is a light and fast car but it doesn't have the real planted to the pavement feel of the BMW but in the city you don't really need that. Mazda likes to say it can go 150mph like the German cars. And while it may be able to do that, it won't give you that solid in touch with the road feel of a German sedan. Or Jaguar for that matter Granted those other cars are much heavier.

Yep, Hyundai has made great strides here too - along with Kia, which shares its platforms. They're now seen as good-quality, lower priced alternatives to the mainstream brands, with big warranties.

I wondered if VW should actually move the new Beetle downmarket - back to being an honest, fun runabout for college kids, Mums and funky Dads. I don't think it works as a weird fashion icon - much better to use the smaller Polo platform (to reduce costs), and just make it simpler, cheaper, and more fun. Maybe in the £11-15k price bracket (£17-£23 thousand here, at present).

I love BMWs - but grudgingly. I hate what they did to Rover, and stealing the co-designed new MINI, but they do make brilliant cars. German companies seem to be able to make fast cars, with all the reliability and robustness of everyday machines. Would love a 330d or even a 1-series. I do like the German MINI too - cute and great handling. And yup, luvvin the news Jags too. :biggrin1:

I do like the Mazda3 - ours is probably the best-styled, most fun to drive small car we've had so far. I like the short gearing and tight steeing rack...not bad handling either.

 

[D_Tully Tunnelrat]

And it's funny you should mention Bondurant, I took their intro, advanced, and highway survival courses last year when I bought the Viper and moved to Arizona. Took Skip Barber's courses when I first got the Z06.

You can never have too much driver's training. Especially dealing with high performance cars.

The Barber track school is pretty good too. Nothing like two open wheel car side by side at 100mph going into turn one a Laguna to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

I also admire the 442 Olds Cutlass. FK - those older Chrysler 300s are pretty cool as well.

As to the VW going down market Joll, not sure that is true, though they have positioned Audi in between the VW and Porsche brands to fill the mid range market. The adage here re: Audi is it's a VW with Porsche parts. The turbo 2.0 is perhaps the best engine they've ever made. You can twin turbo and chip it to produce an insane 400HP; all for under $10K.

 

[798686]

The Barber track school is pretty good too. Nothing like two open wheel car side by side at 100mph going into turn one a Laguna to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

I also admire the 442 Olds Cutlass. FK - those older Chrysler 300s are pretty cool as well.

As to the VW going down market Joll, not sure that is true, though they have positioned Audi in between the VW and Porsche brands to fill the mid range market. The adage here re: Audi is it's a VW with Porsche parts. The turbo 2.0 is perhaps the best engine they've ever made. You can twin turbo and chip it to produce an insane 400HP; all for under $10K.

Yep, Audis are great (altho, the suspension is on the firmer side of rock hard) - I heard it was the VW brand itself that they were planning to de-content slightly, with the aim of hitting a lower price bracket?

 

[deleted15807]

Yep, Audis are great (altho, the suspension is on the firmer side of rock hard) - I heard it was the VW brand itself that they were planning to de-content slightly, with the aim of hitting a lower price bracket?

As to the VW going down market Joll, not sure that is true

Oh yeah it's true. Why else would you replace four-wheel disc brakes with disc up front and drum brakes in the rear?? Yes drum brakes

But there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and that means the 2011 Jetta has had to make some concessions. One very obvious compromise can be seen its dashboard material. Whereas the previous car had soft-touch, nicely grained plastics that were comparable to those of the Mercedes-Benz E-class, the new model has hard plastic that wouldn’t look too out of place in a Chrysler Sebring.

-----

All models besides the top-spec GLI return to a torsion-beam solid rear axle, and the bottom two trim levels (S and SE) have rear drum brakes instead of discs. The news gets worse. Electric power steering is replaced by hydraulic power steering on non-GLI models, the hood no longer is held open by gas struts, and the compact gas-strut four-bar linkage that held open the previous Jetta’s trunk has been replaced by goose-neck-style hinges that intrude into the trunk compartment. Volkswagen clearly thinks the typical Civic or Corolla buyer won’t miss—or even notice—the lack of these items.

Volkswagen Jetta Review: 2011 Volkswagen Jetta First Drive

​

The sad thing is these are the kinds of 'tricks' Detroit did in the old days hoping your typical buyer wouldn't notice the 'short cuts' taken. In the end they do.

 

[798686]

Crap news, isn't it? Rover (not Land Rover) did the same thing to it's cars 2003-05 before they went bust. Their cars were known for affordable luxury, but they started stripping them of allsorts (sound proofing, rear anti-roll bar, chrome, etc...) and people do notice. Sales dwindled and they went broke (altho there's a lot more to it than that).

I think good quality buys you extra sales - get a rep for ripping ppl off or cutting corners and it's a downward spiral. Obviously it shouldn't affect VW globally, as they cars are still fully loaded in Europe and eslewhere. What I've read is VW felt their sales in the US were suffering due to high price, and wanted to make the Jetta more affordable to boost sales (but will its lessened attractiveness actually counteract the price cut?).

Hard to say what will happen - but I wouldn't be particularly tempted to buy mediocre, cut-price veedubs. :frown1:

 

[798686]

Here's the new US Jetta.

Maybe they could build a US version of the Skoda Octavia - since it's cheaper than the Jetta, and good quality?

 

[thirteenbyseven]

2011 Volkswagen Jetta: The Perils of Less for Less | Rumble Seat by Dan Neil - WSJ.com

Back in my high school days in the mid to late eighties, a friend mine was lucky enough to inherit a five year-old 1982 Volkswagen Jetta from an elderly relative who had busted the California DMV Drivers Renewal Exam an astronomical number of times and hence thrown the towel. We in our group chipped in for gas and George was the designated driver to school football games, Disneyland and the beach.

I said all the above to tell you this; George's Jetta with all of 76 fire-belching horsepower coupled to an automatic transmission that went from 0 to 60 in about an hour got absolutely no respect for us wherever we drove in it. Girls would laugh at us as we passed by in the mighty Jetta (relative of autobahn burners) while mothers pushing baby carriages would pass us on the Pacific Coast Highway. It was a glorified VW Rabbit with a trunk with puny tires slightly larger than those on a lawnmower. The interior was cheap too, the only saving grace was a Blaupunkt radio George purchased to replace the AM radio that came standard with the car. Eventually by the end of the school year most of us had concluded that Jettas were the exact antithesis of babe magnet cars. For the record I have never purchased one.

My assessment may be a little cruel but over twenty years later Volkswagen is still attempting to strike a bull's eye at the magic under $25,000 price point and clueless as to style and quality. Volkswagen wants to be known in America as the great German manufacturer from Wolfsburg yet (as Road and Track said) they are as German as guacamole. The cars from their Puebla, Mexico plant are never as well built as their German counterparts.

Anyone want to bet there is a multi-year upscale evolution in the interior, suspension and engine choices of new 2011 Jetta? Until then there is a fertile field for aftermarket vendors.

 

[798686]

2011 Volkswagen Jetta: The Perils of Less for Less | Rumble Seat by Dan Neil - WSJ.com

Back in my high school days in the mid to late eighties, a friend mine was lucky enough to inherit a five year-old 1982 Volkswagen Jetta from an elderly relative who had busted the California DMV Drivers Renewal Exam an astronomical number of times and hence thrown the towel. We in our group chipped in for gas and George was the designated driver to school football games, Disneyland and the beach.

I said all the above to tell you this; George's Jetta with all of 76 fire-belching horsepower coupled to an automatic transmission that went from 0 to 60 in about an hour got absolutely no respect for us wherever we drove in it. Girls would laugh at us as we passed by in the mighty Jetta (relative of autobahn burners) while mothers pushing baby carriages would pass us on the Pacific Coast Highway. It was a glorified VW Rabbit with a trunk with puny tires slightly larger than those on a lawnmower. The interior was cheap too, the only saving grace was a Blaupunkt radio George purchased to replace the AM radio that came standard with the car. Eventually by the end of the school year most of us had concluded that Jettas were the exact antithesis of babe magnet cars. For the record I have never purchased one.

My assessment may be a little cruel but over twenty years later Volkswagen is still attempting to strike a bull's eye at the magic under $25,000 price point and clueless as to style and quality. Volkswagen wants to be known in America as the great German manufacturer from Wolfsburg yet (as Road and Track said) they are as German as guacamole. The cars from their Puebla, Mexico plant are never as well built as their German counterparts.

Anyone want to bet there is a multi-year upscale evolution in the interior, suspension and engine choices of new 2011 Jetta? Until then there is a fertile field for aftermarket vendors.

Probably!

Do you get the Golf over there (or is that the Rabbit?)? Why not build the Golf and Europe-spec Jetta in the US (rather than Mexico) - surely it would still be cheaper than shipping them over?

 

[hypoc8]

1966 Impala SS 396. It was red and such a chick magnet.
and
1969 AMX

I too had a 1966 Impala SS, mine was a convertible blue with a white top and a 283.

Also had a 1965 Impala SS hardtop with a 340hp 409.

Could kick myself in the ass for selling them.

Always thought the American Motors cars were overlooked by many.

 

[deleted15807]

Here's the new US Jetta.

Maybe they could build a US version of the Skoda Octavia - since it's cheaper than the Jetta, and good quality?

Don't know. Obviously they would have to re-badge it as a VW as the brand Skoda is not known here. I was in the Czech Republic years ago and rented one. Very nice I do recall. Is it a VW Rabbit/Golf?

2011 Volkswagen Jetta: The Perils of Less for Less | Rumble Seat by Dan Neil - WSJ.com

Now wow that article didn't go easy on them ..........

Unfortunately, the artifacts of all the cost-cutting extend to even the best-equipped model; and so our Jetta SEL with Sport package was saddled with some of the cruelest, cheapest plastic dash and door materials I've seen in years. What an awful way for petrochemicals to die! The innards of this thing make a Chevy Cruze look like a Maybach. And the brutal decontenting continues.

​

Tisk the push for sales may indeed have the opposite affect. Has this strategy ever worked anywhere?

 

[grower_60]

In the early '70s I had a 1968 SS Chevelle, 396, 4-speed.
AND, this one still pisses me off . 1966 Corvette Stingray, 396, 4-Speed, factory side pipes.
I kept it stock except went up a little on tire size and had to have white letters.

 

[Rikter8]

I only regret selling 2 of mine.
1996 Trans Am
1984 Olds Cutlass ...damn this was a nice cruiser

 

[798686]

Don't know. Obviously they would have to re-badge it as a VW as the brand Skoda is not known here. I was in the Czech Republic years ago and rented one. Very nice I do recall. Is it a VW Rabbit/Golf?

Yep. Skoda Octavia (along with Audi A3 and Seat Leon) are based on the Golf/Rabbit.
VW Polo platform spawns the Skoda Fabia, Audi A1 and Seat Ibiza.

Tisk the push for sales may indeed have the opposite affect. Has this strategy ever worked anywhere?

It does kinda make the heart sink. I think VW may have miscalculated in thinking people want to be fobbed off with much shitter cars for a few $ less.

Would there be any mileage (hoho) in changing the Rabbit name to Golf...or is Rabbit well respected over there?

 

[deleted15807]

Would there be any mileage (hoho) in changing the Rabbit name to Golf...or is Rabbit well respected over there?

That I'm not sure. I think the Golf is more well known. And the GTI being the enthusiast favorite.