Well this lightly posted semi humorous off topic thread sure turned out great. Mental illness, drum brakes and mopars suck, ok sounds good to me. Who started this stupid thread anyway?
Graveyard Carz show
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Model T's weigh 1,200 lbs and has a top speed of 45mph and if you get rear ended by one in a G-body, it will likely buff out.
The bumper of a manual drum brake, big block B-Body mopar will make it to the back of the driver seat of a G-body before it stops.
I Like Mopars. I think they are cool. They are $10K - $20K cool, not $200K cool. The only reason Mopars got to be $200K (and didn't top out at $20K) is because people test drove them in 1970, said "This sucks. I can't live with this" and bought something else. Its ONLY the rarity that makes them expensive, not the fact that they are great cars. They are some of the worse cars I've ever owned/driven... but nobody knows they drive awful because there are so few of them. One of my Mopar friends in SC daily drove an '83 Yugo he paid $2,300 for new. He told me it was one of the "greatest cars he had ever owned" (he only drove Mopars before that).
A full GYC resto costs around $60 -100K. There are so many GREAT cars that can be bought for $60K -100K. People getting those cars restored are buying an expensive piece of garage art and not a car they can drive and enjoy (unless their enjoyment consists solely of sitting in a chair and looking at it).
If I'm going to spend $60K-$100K ON A CAR, it better be able to do ALL the things a $60K-$100K CAR is supposed to do... but then I'm not brain damaged.
I Love this show! Uh Wait a minute, maybe I just love Alyssa....Uh Ok I better think about this...
The thing about the resto people to me is that somehow, the car as-produced is, in their mind, the best it can be.
EVERY new production car since the beginning has been a compromise, designed and approved by a committee, and pretty much every aspect of it is subject to improvement, and might have in fact been designed with those improvements already in place, but committee and bean-counter politics have diluted the end product. Also have to understand that in order to maximize the profits, the vehicles are built to satisfy the majority of consumers, rather than the extremes at either end of the market. I recall reading a discussion a few years back where people were complaining that you couldn't order a new Camaro with the biggest engine, manual trans, roll-up windows and just a heater. No money in it for GM on the 8 units they'd sell like that.
I'm a fan of making changes to suit one's tastes/needs, been down the resto road,it was interesting, but not for me. IMO G bodies can all use some improvements, but I get that some people think the way they left the plant is all they need/want.
EVERY new production car since the beginning has been a compromise, designed and approved by a committee, and pretty much every aspect of it is subject to improvement, and might have in fact been designed with those improvements already in place, but committee and bean-counter politics have diluted the end product. Also have to understand that in order to maximize the profits, the vehicles are built to satisfy the majority of consumers, rather than the extremes at either end of the market. I recall reading a discussion a few years back where people were complaining that you couldn't order a new Camaro with the biggest engine, manual trans, roll-up windows and just a heater. No money in it for GM on the 8 units they'd sell like that.
I'm a fan of making changes to suit one's tastes/needs, been down the resto road,it was interesting, but not for me. IMO G bodies can all use some improvements, but I get that some people think the way they left the plant is all they need/want.
You can use our cars as an example compromise by bean counters (thin gauge metal, no roll down rear windows on 4 doors/wagons, lack of attention to manual shifting.) Like with the Camaro issue on ordering the way you want it, all cars have trim levels instead of options & it has been like that over 20 years. In order to get one option you have to get alot you don't with a jacked up price.
I think the lack of movable rear door glass has more to do with the downsizing and packaging than cost savings. The rear doors, as designed, simply have nowhere for the glass to go beyond a couple of inches needed to install it.
That is why I bought a 5.0L in 2013 instead of a Camaro. By the time I would get the Camaro with the performance options I wanted, the options I didn't want made the car $7K more than the Mustang. Dodge realized it was losing market share to Mustang 5.0 and came out with the "scat pack" cars, so you didn't have to build a loaded pig just to get the big motor and good brakes.
There's a lot of high energy here...a lot of it negative...technically correct...mopars had flimsy bodies...rusted bad...drum brakes inadequate for other than trips to work or the store...I don't like them either...buddies and i in high school used to roar with laughter every time a local dude fired up his daytona superbird in lime green and rattled and clanked around town...everyone wanted chevelle or vette big block cars...I get the cargument...but...I'm still old school...I go to my local club cruise on "survivor" night and shake my head at nothing but ls resto mods...technically superior yes, but only touches one aspect of the hobby...I agree about trailer queens and bolt head stamping nit pickers...but its their money...one other thing...in 1962 that max wedge was one dreaded muther...drum brakes were cool because we didn't even have an expressway yet...cause there were so few people then...was no thing back then...if somebody wants to whiz away $200k on a mopar...its not my money...my ford pals think I'm nuts cause I like gm...live and let live...if they blow their dough on mopars thats more gms available for us...
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