PetrolTed - Americans
Discussion
PetrolTed certainly rants on about our American Cousins with some vigour and a little vitriol.
Now, I would be the first to admit that the USA has produced a lot of crap in its' time but let's put some things straight.
Firstly, a modern Corvette is more than capable of rivalling any european counterpart (witness an excellent write-up in CAR recently where they raved about it). Secondly, he complains about the Chrysler PT Cruiser - it has its' flaws but is certainly a far more interesting looking and individual car than many euroboxes. The yanks are not known for their taste but at the same time we in the UK gave the the world the Austin Allegro, Montego, Hillman imp and Morris Ital to name but a few. Shameful.
The yanks gave us musclecars when we gave the world Cortinas and Maxis. They gave us the Shelby Cobra, the GT40, the Dodge Charger, the Corvette, the Camaro Z28. The list goes on. And while we ran our car industry into the gound under the expert guidance of red robbo and Lord Stokes, GM and Ford went from strength to strength. Now they own Jaguar and Aston Martin, the Germans own Rolls-Royce and Bentley and even our beloved Marcos has gone into receivership (again).
When was the last time we brought a foreign car manufacturer? Did we ever? I certainly can't remember ! Looks like we needed them.....doesn't it !
And look carefully at the cars. Compare a 1969 E-type V12 with a corvette of similar vintage. Dare I say the Jag weighs more, has crap brakes, rusts in all the wrong places, doesn't grip as well, drinks more fuel and is more expensive to buy and to fix. If you are complaining about being on the wrong side of the road in a LHD, you need to re-take you driving test, PetrolTed !
Oh, come on. You mention all the half decent spam cars and all the rubbish British ones. This is also the land of the DB4/5/6, V8 Vantage, Cerbera, and the TR6 that the yanks bought in numbers. And the McLaren F1, the best car ever bar none.
In the US, Ford made the Edsel, the Pinto and other equally fine machines...
No, I'm not a British car nut; I drive an Audi and want a Porsche.
A friend of a friend owns a new Camaro. Foul device.
I love British cars most of all but one must compare like with like, I would agree. You are quite right to mention the Aston DB's, V8s and TR6 but US muscle cars were affordable by your average Joe, just like a Cortina or Zodiac over here. But Astons clearly were affordable by Joe Bloggs at the time, were they? TR6s are good but why have one when a 'Vette has twice the horsepower, great looks and doesn't rust or have a nasty Lucas fuel injection system that was always giving trouble. And McLarens? Come on. Only the Sultan of Brunei and overpaid footballers can buy those.
There'll be a lot more of us Yankee luvvers out there soon when the Rockingham oval opens at the end of May. Gentelmen, start your (very big) engines!
Sorry, but an American "sports" car is no match for even a cheap European one.
Take the Elise for example - it would eat a Corvette for breakfast, and still be looking for a snack about 11 o'clock !!
OK, so we may have had production quality problems in the past but the underlying cars were (and are) so much better than American ones in terms of handling, performance, etc. US sports cars simply don't stand comparison - put it on a track with a European competitor and watch it get humiliated !!
Oh, and to correct a couple of your claims to fame - the Cobra was based on a British car, the AC Ace, and the GT40 was designed by a Brit.
Not wanting to cause a fight or anything and not even pretending to know a great deal about the subject - but! When us Europeans were raving about 200mph super cars with the Ferraris and Diablo's etc hadn't the Americans already done it back in the early 60's or so with a Plymouth? Not sure of the model but it had a huge rear spoiler that was higher than the roof and I'm sure I remember reading about it as a kid and it said it was a production car - probably bull!
Where the Americans DID get it right though was the level of spec you could have on a car, you could have all the sports kit with a standard engine or vice-versa they really gave what the customer wanted. However weren't/aren't the US and us building for different markets? While we have narrow bumpy twisty roads they have big fat wide straight ones, that's why their's are big wide comfy cruisers and ours are more compact. Plus what does it matter if you Caddy or whatever has an 8 litre engine when fuel is only 3p a gallon!! Big fat wide roads give me a Chevy '57 Bel Air any day, in the UK - mmmmm perhaps not.
Sorry I'm ranting on a subject I know absolutely squat about.....I'll get me coat........
There was such a car - it was something like a Plymouth Barracuda or Road Runner (something like that anyway !!).
Yes, it was a production car but in the same way that the Ford RS200 and Metro 6R4 were production cars. Those US muscle were a very short run of special editions, possibly for homologation purposes but also because Ford and GM liked to out do each other with the most powerful cars (which is no bad thing I might add !!!).
The Plymouth RoadRunner and the Dodge Charger Daytona (these are the big things with wings you are talking about) were certainly hitting over 200Mph round the ovals in the 60s. They were only built for racing with a small production run for homologation type purposes. Roadgoing versions are highly desirable (and they were good enough to appear at the Goodwood festival of speed a year or so back).
Some people need to learn their history - let's get it right about Cobras. Shelby took the pretty but under-utilised AC Ace and kept the basic original shape but that's about it ! Seven Litre Ford 'side oilers' were not built in Thames Ditton! Proper Cobras as all real cognoscenti know were called "Shelby Cobra", not AC. Carroll Shelby himself is pretty adamant about it, and Ford still owns the rights to 'Cobra', which is why AC calls them CRS or Superblower these days.
And as for an Elise vs. a Corvette Z06 around a track like Goodwood, the Elise would get itself well and truly whipped my friends. The 'vette is not a Ford Galaxie and handles extremely well these days. And in real world driving, there is no comparison. 'Car' reckoned that the 'vette outperformed a Subaru Impreza Turbo around the mountain passes, saying it was a really great motor.
An Elise is a car designed and built in the best Colin Chapman traditions but this is it's problem....I prefer to be able to get in and out of my car with the roof up - something that Elise owners know all too well is a difficut feat unless you are a double-jointed midget...........
As an Elise owner I know all it's downfalls, but I still love it, and this whole argument boils down to personal taste. I think ALL American cars without exception are ugly, but that is my personal opinion, and you could counter my argument by trying to throw different models at me till the end of time - it won't change my outlook.
You've got to admit that if you want to go in a straight line then big muscle cars are a winner, but 99% of them would get their arses kicked by even a fairly tame european sports car on our roads.
Jim
The point I was trying to make was that Carroll Shelby, for whatever reason, clearly couldn't find any domestic cars worthy of his skills so he used a British car as the basis of the Cobra. And I'm well aware that there's not much of the original drive train left - somehow I don't think drum brakes would be up to the job of stopping a 7.0 litre monster !!
As for the Elise / Vette argument, I chose something as far opposed to a big American muscle car as I could think of. You then chose a very fast circuit !! You can't have it both ways. Put them both on Brands Hatch or round Oulton Park and we'll see who comes out tops. And it *won't* be the Vette.
And I like the way "Car" (the US version by any chance ??) compares a Vette with a Scooby - one's supposed to be a sports car and the other is a saloon !!! With less than half the capacity and half the number of cylinders. A road test like that would be a bit like comparing an Elise with a Ford Mondeo....
Sorry, but you're *never* going to convince me that any American sportscars are a match, let alone superior, to a European one. They never have been, and they never will...
I personally love European sports cars, particularly British and Italian ones, but let's not get carried away here! Respect a car on its merits, not where it got assembled. Yes, most American cars are generally crap and don't adjust well to roads with corners (though they have the best cup holders in the world). However, Vipers (and possibly the Saleen thing) are arguably not bad on the track from time to time.
YeeeeeeeHaaaaww! Right turn, Clyde.
If you were a kid (or maybe not even a kid) of a certain age, your imagination and future interest in cars was bound to be fuelled by watching The Dukes of Hazzard, Knight rider, Smokey & the Bandit, The Cannonball run, The Gumball rally, etc etc. Who didn't imagine themselves in a Dodge Charger with "General Lee" on it? Come on, bet you did. We ALL DID. Besides, perhaps it might pull Daisy or a good look-alike. Such are the desires of a pre-pubescent teenager.
It was the yanks that ignited our passion for cars and for a few of us, even after all these years of sampling the best Europe has to offer, there just "ain't no substitute for capacity". Have you ever driven a big block corvette or a hemi-engined musclecar? Only then do you know the TRUE meaning of torque.
The Elise is a beautiful design, true (and I would have brought one myself but there are too many Elises and TVR's where I live so I got a silly 1969 Corvette Roadster to stand out from the crowd). But it's downright silly to say all yank cars are ugly. Maybe you haven't seen a Duesenburg, Cord, Packard, Corvette (I had to throw that in). Ever been to Pebble Beach? Or seen the Cartier style et Luxe at Goodwood? Overdone some of them may be, but ugly? There is no accounting for taste as they say. Especially where Americans are concerned.
Yes, once had a 7.6litre Pontiac Transam for a while, never forget the looks that got driving round I think I was about 18 or 19 (worked in my dad's garage that's how it was insured!) if memory serves me right the speedo only went up to about 100 - 110mph, but it sure knew how to get there! That was 13 years ago though so maybe my thoughts are a little 'rose tinted'! Fantastic fun car used to put 2* petrol in it!!
Think I'll stick to my Blackpool Rocket now though.
You cant say that an opinion on looks is "silly" cos its an opinion...
an elise 'eat' a new 'Vette...I think you might be a slightly over optimistic elise owner??!! would require a rather tiny and twisted track for that to happen methinks....
but to be honest, with regards to this topic, I think Teds rant might be a fraction tongue in cheek, like his other rants! (certainly hope so anyway...)
And until you've driven things like a Viper on track, you're simply relaying other poeples impressions and making them your own. Top Gear taught me that Vipers were "big, stodgy, fast in straight lines and cant corner" yank tanks. Well from driving one round Snetterton I would totally disagree....thought it was great. but thats MY opinion, and not fact...
Night
Night Great thread but the point is this Septic Tanks ( yanks ) are on there way to owning the lot, PT Cruisers the size on minis for the UK. They are changing history books (didn’t see one Brit. in Private Ryan – Su27 ). We need as much support for the elise, TVRs and even McClarens as possible, nothing wrong with nationalism, septics don’t think so either. The US sits on the back of globalisation but looking at most industries they colonise.
Mind you a big block Chevy in a Vauxhall Viva two door,,,,,, Nice
Nothing wrong with supporting ones' own lot and as a true Brit I'd be the first to do so. I just like cars that stand out from the crowd but also go like stink. Owning a daft yank convertible follows on from this. But 'Nationalism' is not a very PC word these days - it carries the wrong connotations in these times of polical correctness gone mad.
Just to be un-pc however, let me end by saying that George 'Dubya' is an idiot, and that's not opinion, that's scientific fact!!!!
Oh, and don't vote for Blair because Labour are NOT car friendly.
Edited by Yank Tank on Friday 27th April 14:18
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