It's not that this change is happening. It's the logic that's driving it. Remember in the 70s when emissions ruined performance? Look at us now. I've long wondered what would bring down this age of muscle cars. Now I know. Adapt or die, I get it. But every step of the way it gets more expensive to do so, and that's not cool. On the other hand it must, also not cool.
Did "emissions" really "ruin performance" though? 1970(?) the insurance companies started cracking down on muscle cars, which resulted in mfr's under-reporting HP/Torque numbers in crazy ways so their cars wouldn't be flagged "dangerous" or whatever, insurance caught on and '71 and '72 models were neutered. Then there was the whole oil embargo thing that drove the price of gas through the roof and made people consider how much gas (and $$$) they were actually using. Hello fuel-efficient tiny cars from Japan. (omg they terk er jerbs) And yeah, smog controls came about because smog was actually a thing. Cripes even I remember 20y ago seeing Tulsa covered in a brown blanket of the stuff and dealing with "ozone alerts" and crap all summer long. Now? not so much in either case. And now we have 800HP+ vehicles that pass emissions driving off the lot. Expensive AF but looks like performance still exists.
I expect there to be some back and forth on this plan, I mean 2035 is still 14 years away. That's quite a long time. I mean, 1993 to 2007 was 14 years. 2007 to NOW was 14 years. *shudder*. Doesn't seem all that long when you live it, but it is.
...
Just for fun I went back and looked at the first post in the thread. Where the kids thought a stick shifter and the "antique car" was quaint and cool. That's now. That's not in 14 years. In 50 years they'll be looking at us (well not us bc we'll probably all be pushing up daisies) and our stinky oil-burning death trap antique Hellcat Chargers and 2SS Camaros as "cool and quaint." Then get back in their Mr. Fusion hover cars and head back to the launchpad for another stint on Mars.
[Edited bc I can’t do math first thing Saturday morning. Yeah it’s only 14y but that’s still a while. ]
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