are fast cars just not exciting anymore?
 

i remember so much buzz and hype when the c4 zr-1 came out in 1989. many people i knew talked about it / dreamed about it.

so much faster than the 4 cylider ford tempos we all drove as DD's.

nowdays everything is fast. a fast car just doesnt seem as exciting as it once did.
roads are more congested, theres more people. spirited driving makes you an a-ho1e to others on the road. ive had the experience of a c7 corvette trying to pass me, on the right, at 120 mph (no, theres not enough time to recognize a car coming up on you that fast to move over and it apparently didnt matter i was running 10 over the speed limit anyways)

a friend of mine at dodge confirmed that they are looking to put the hellcat engine into police cars. soon, the cops will have more power than you do, for free and they will be allowed to drive like that while you arent.

so where is this hobby headed ? is a fast car just not as cool as it once was ?

or has my attitude / enthusiasm changed ?

I hear you. I'm thinking the thrill comes in mods to the older cool cars to put them right there with the new fast stuff. With the LS SBC's swappable into older 'vettes, Novas, Camaros, Monte Carlos SS and others...we get the look of what we grew to love with today's performance, mileage and reliability.

One of my best friends is swapping a stock 6.2 Denali SBC with a 6 speed auto w/3.73 Posi into an '87 Olds Hurst 442 that he has owned since new. For less than 10K he will have a sleeper that will pull away from most of today's "Fast" cars.

There's still a bunch of fun to be had !!

Real common place these days...in the 80s nothing was fast. Still exciting its just not unique anymore, technology has made some real boring looking stuff fun to drive.

In the 80s nothing was really fast, you were lucky to see over 200hp, a fake scoop and a decal package. You had to buy a 60s/70s vintage car and build them up....by todays standards those cars are super turd slow. A cammed up C3 can get smoked by a V6 Mustang lol.

Today mundane 4 door sedans can blow away most 80s and 90s sports cars. Just not unique


Still love the old school stuff, big solid cams, deep gears, steel dashes everything out today seems to resemble the neighbors plastic generic version of the same ol thing wiht different emblems. Must be getting old:lol:

Used to be 400 HP was unheard of coming from the factorys.
Now that production cars are being released to the public north of 650HP, wheres the fun?
The fun of building your own engine and driving the piss out of it.

Kids today can get anything they want if they have the money.
And those without the money will ride in the back seat of an Uber car.

Fast is still cool. But the crowd is getting smaller.
I just returned from Hot August Nights in Reno and attendance is DOWN!
The lots were half their normal size and the old stuff is disappearing.
What is becoming popular are 4WD trucks and such.

Times they are a changing.

I kind of agree. these mega-HP street legal, off the showroom floor things, don't get me all that excited. lets face it, IMO, it's bragging rights, and how much money are you willing to spend to impress your friends. lets face it, what are you going to do with 500, 600, or 700 horsepower on the street? my 230 horse, 85 will break any posted speed limit - aren't you impressed? :rofl::rofl::rofl:

i hear you loud and clear about taking something that wasnt fast (like the 87 olds) and making it fast.

thats where the hobby is headed.

i think this is why i have kept my c4. modify it make it compete and beat the newer ones and it stays cool.

my strategy is different than the few gearhead friends i have who like to buy a fast car used, keep it for 2 years, sell it and then move onto the next latest and greatest.
ex. a buddy in florida started with a mitsubishi evo - bmw m3 w/ ls3 swAp - c6 corvette z06 and is now onto a cts-v


the 4wd diesel trucks. yes we have people here that put an unbelievable amount of money into them. ive seen one run high 11s at dragstrp !!!

On the flip side, cars have gotten so fast that you're hardly driving them anymore. A new c7z has so much electronics helping you, it's driving as much as you are.

True sports cars with great steering are all but gone. The alfa 4c, the subaru sti, the viper, there's only a handful of holdouts. There are so few drivers cars left, they've been replaced with rolling ego trips.

Dodge may make the hellcat engine available to cops, but it will be mostly a marketing thing. No departments will pay the huge up charge and increased operation costs for them. Cops aren't in the business of chasing down speeds anymore. They just have to get an I'd on the car and let the cameras and other cops in the right location do that work.

Jr is on the money

I have not seen anything fast in this area in over 3 yrs. Kids have new hellcats, Mustangs. Probably been 4 yrs or more since Ive seen a C3,4,5, or any 60s muscle car. Wouldnt even think about running one on the st, one for legal but 2 they hook and cook, I dont. lol.

At the end of the day unless youre loaded with cash just get whats fun and you wont care.
The old stuff is no longer king of the streets, at least theres fast stuff out there we live in an awesome era of hp wars

There's many things at work, here, much of it generational. My older, good pal says there's maybe five years left in this hobby (think he's right) as millenials are into the fictional substitue for reality, via LCDs (not to mention cry rooms).. Oops. Just looking at the rise and fall of various 'hot' cars, we all lust for those of our youth. Who wants a Model A? Fewer and fewer want '70s muscle cars; all a function of the above.

On the left coast, congestion is as bad or worse than most of urban America, with almost no tax dollars going into new roads to handle the population BOOM or even properly maintaining the existing. I learned decades ago that having a fast Corvette delivered less and less opps for using any of that performance. Hell, drivers here are either otherwise occupied, or 'driving' at speeds appropo for the 3rd world roads of national origin, IF they drove at all!

With the 'promise' (more like nightmare) of self-driving cars, I fully expect more and more roads will be restricted to them only; no human driving allowed. I expect this to follow the continued trend to take the roads we funded being privatized.

Haivng decades of experience with autopilots, included the most advanced, I know that machines do the routine and simple very well. Abnormals require the brain of Sully, et. al., despite the other proimise of AI.

Too often, I am glad there are more days behind, versus ahead of me, as I see a race to promises that rarely emerge as good as the fantasy or even as good as the simple we knew and still love, 'cause it worked then and still does. Buy quality once and use it a lifetime, is no more.

That said, I need more research as to certain rev limiter!

I am afraid/concerned of those self-driving cars. For many years I built computers for people and saw electronic components sourced from overseas fail. One big failure that drug in a major player involved industrial espionage

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ems-capacitors

There is no guarantee that this will not happen with these self driving autos. Just like it was said in Jurassic Park "Just because you could, doesn't mean you should".

I built a bunch of machines for people that failed in one year. The capacitors (looks like little batteries) started erupting. Then the boards died. Lasted long enough to get through the warranty period.

It would be a tragedy for those dang cars to start wrecking.

I said that often, as a 'launch customer' for a new Boeing jet, plus "They made the easy part easier and the hard part harder." Still true.

Sadly, people will die, which is the sole way our 'leaders' admit a problem exists. :salute:

I used to have a 74 Trans Am with a 455. I installed hooker headers, oil cooler, edlebrock high flow intake with two holly double pump 750 carbs (dual quads), big loping cam, matched to a borg warner t-4 four speed tranny. It denied at 460 hp. It was a beast that I put a lot of time into building. In 2006 I bought a STR Dodge magnum that came from the factory with 460 hp.

In the TA, I knew when I broke 100+ the car could go like hell in straight aways, but handling and breaking were a joke. In the magnum I could set the cruise control at 120 and still have the ac cranking and wouldn't even realize my speed.

Its nice to buy buy a new car with all the power but to drive the TA took someone who knew what they were doing. Any body could drive the magnum. Not saying that a great driver could not run rings around an average driver just that the new cars with all the bells and whistles give average drivers a false sense of confidence.

Hellcat requires premium fuel, ain't gonna happen unless state laws are changed.

Yes sir ! At a local cruise-in there were some dim lit bulbs with some really fast new cars. You could tell that their minds always ran in low. When these cars start telling you that you are in trouble, there is not much time to process it. If you pay attention to the folks that run top fuel, Nascar drivers and the folks on here that actually race (or have raced or done some other activity that requires mental aptitude) you can tell that their minds are working fast. They talk fast they perceive fast and they react fast.

A lot of duh-brothers get killed or kill someone because they just don't process what it being told to them by the machine. This just doesn't go for cars. When I was in my early 20's I worked at a machine shop that was mostly staffed by a bunch of DP's that thought they were God's great gift. One in particular we told that a particular ID/OD grinder was for pass through only, not coming up to a shoulder and precisely stopping. Of course, he who thought he walked on cutting oil just knew better. When I heard the machine starting to make a horrible noise I ran. Luckily the wheel was inside when when it blew or he most likely would have been dead.

I go to car meets, not car shows, meets, Friday-Sunday nights. It's always people younger than 40. So I think the car hobby won't die off. I am 22.

I've been driving a C7 GS here in Miami since Friday. There's so much traffic, you can't really open it up. With that said, I still managed to go WOT a few times:cool: To me, the C7 is an exciting car.

Old cars still rule!!
 

Hello all,

26 years ago I saw a 1968 Corvette sitting in a barn down in White Stone, Virginia. It had a broken exhaust manifold but it was pretty much all there. The car was an L71 Corvette originally but had lost a few of the important parts.

I bought the car for $6800 and repaired the broken manifold and drove it back home. In the years since I have rebuilt the car to be like an original L88. I was fortunate enough to get an original 1968 L88 Hood and wedding cake assembly at Corvettes @ Carlisle for less than $275.

I took the 427 and built it into the closest thing to a factory L88 without going to aluminum heads. Instead I am using the heads of a earlier 396 Corvette engine which have "closed chambers" in the head and are not prone to detonation like the later open chamber heads to follow did. With a complete engine rebuild and upgrading to a forged crank and rods and my very high compression it came out very well.

I love to drive around in my 1968 Corvette, people all love the older Corvettes and a lot of them call them all "Stingrays". My 1968 C3 is not a sting ray, there is nothing on my car to identify it as such. Even on the highway people are very curious about this old Vette. But never fail there is always somebody who thinks their Honda is in the same league. My response to racing is I simply laugh at them and then I drive away.

First the Corvette is a COOL car, they look like they are going fast, even sitting still.
Second is that these older cars will put a smile on the face of anyone who likes to drive a real car.

My 1968 Corvette will turn fifty years old in early October. My C4 is now 29 years and almost 30. How many cars can do what these Corvettes of past can do? Will people still recognize the Hell cat in fifty years?

The first time I went drag racing with my 1968 Corvette I spun my tires until the eight mile mark and still turned low twelves in the quarter. I had three offers on my car before I finished the day. I spanked a ZR1 (without traction control), a 1969 L-89, and a 1970 LT1 all in good runs.

The point being is that my car is more than capable of going fast, it handles very well and the brakes are adequate. I raced a guy in a real Shelby Cobra who I knew and I spanked him hardest of all. He was upset because my poor little C3 spanked him on a road course. That is not supposed to happen he kept on saying.... The problem here is that their car is worth so much that they become afraid of it. If something happened to my C3, I would start over and do it again.

The C4 is a really beautiful car, it handles well drives well and even though it may not be the fastest car on the block it is close to perfection as a "Drivers Car". My C4 is all stock and is a very nice car to go places in. My C3 tells people that I am here!

We are the fortunate ones who have these cars at our disposal. Enjoy the car for what it is.

As long as the keys are mine, smiles will come upon my face when driving either Corvette.

We are the "lucky few"!!

Whalepirot afraid your friend may be correct....so no sense in wondering about future values just drive the damn things while its legal lol

Rented a new Hyundai while our car was getting fixed, could not get used to the steering or brakes....perhaps a snowflake would love it as it did feel like a video game. Outside that it was actually a pretty decent little car torquey 4 banger lol

Have no interest in any new car at all...take most the electronics out maybe, pricing is out of this world. 40k for a pickup? :crazy: Dont see people restoring the late models, they wont be worth it. If I had the dough I might lease a new one but dont want to own out of warranty.
Everyones differnet I like driving pieces of chit that make noise.

Most wont even paint a C3 as "it costs more than its worth". That I dont understand, if it makes you happy its worth it. Period


Go get your fun in while you can, "saving" your car is an idiotic thought imo.

This was an amazingly well written an thought out post, definitely food for thought.

B17Crew
:seeya

Have to agree cuisinart. The brakes on new cars are weird. Although, the C7s brakes I had no trouble with.

Youtube has changed it all. Now it "seems" like everybody has 600-2,000 hp.

In reality... pay is down, inflation is up, insurance is expensive, repairs are a ton, good tires are costly. Kids can't find work and if they do their pay s lower than it should be.

No matter your views or thoughts it's proven if you are a part of the system.

The fact is kids can only afford old beaters, and imports with cheesey mods. They can only watch youtube and dream, or go get a loan on a car to try to impress/ feel important, not because it's a hobby for them.

Most of the youtubers are sponsored, or have subs to pay for things, or rich family. I did a thread a while back about 500+hp club here, and pretty many but over all not many.

700hp in an old car with original size tires etc is insane. 700hp in a new car is like sitting in a nice gamer chair or something in a simulator.

The rattles, noises, etc make the car special to me. I always say when I step in my vette I want it to be a completely different feel and experience than my daily drivers. I rarely drive it, but when I do it feels good. It's a fun car like a go kart. Not practical, not comfortable, but fun.