"crowmolly" (crowmolly)
04/28/2015 at 12:28 • Filed to: None
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"crowmolly" (crowmolly)
04/28/2015 at 12:28 • Filed to: None | 2
| 10 |
Every so often, you get what sounds like a perfect recipe. It has all the right ingredients, seemingly in all the right proportions. Then they’re all added together, and the result is a bit crap.
All the ingredients were there, and yet the end results simply didn’t add up.
See, I read these statements as “What cars/configurations looked good on paper but were lackluster or meh when they were actually built” not “What cars should have/could have been good”. Z8 is a good example to me. Maybe the Shelby Series 1?
The mid-late C3 thing is what hangs me up.
It’s very obvious that the car can be great (hell, maybe even deserves to be great) with little more than the money under your couch cushions. The aftermarket is huge and you can modify the hell out of it.
But that doesn’t jive with the tagline. The ingredients are NOT there. You need to put them in yourself, with the exception of the trans and center section. The pieces were not there to make it a good car.
Anybody else read the question like I did? Looks like I’m in the strong minority.
LongbowMkII
> crowmolly
04/28/2015 at 12:34 |
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Well, the ingredients are there, but they’ve been so highly processed as to be unrecognizable. It wasn’t the strongest choice.
Poor Cosworth Vega.... what could have been...
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> crowmolly
04/28/2015 at 12:44 |
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I’d say the quibble between “has a crappily set up version of a good engine” and “engine really isn’t an included ingredient” is a thorny issue. It’s hard for me to process convincingly what the difference is between a ruined ingredient and an ingredient that isn’t there - it’s also tricky when looking at when we actually call it “good”. If we call it good or great after the improvement of a carb swap and emissions delete, then the argument might be made that the ingredients *were* there, but if the standards are higher... Most other cars, the engine would count as an included ingredient, but with *better* SBCs, BBCs, and LS engines being easier than a good and proper fix to the engine that’s there, the “not included” argument becomes stronger through a fluke of circumstance.
Anything other than the engine, of course - suspension, etc. - might be considered “not included”.
Mattbob
> crowmolly
04/28/2015 at 12:45 |
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the tagline and example given fit your understanding of the question better than what most people understood it as. People don’t read carefully. You are in the minority, but you are correct.
lone_liberal
> crowmolly
04/28/2015 at 12:47 |
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I agree with you but I’ll play devil’s advocate. You have a good looking V8 powered two-seat GT/sports car (I’m not going to get in to that argument). That should be the recipe for a great car but an emissions strangled engine lets it down.
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crowmolly
> lone_liberal
04/28/2015 at 14:12 |
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At a high level you’ve got me:
2 seat/V8/4 spd/RWD/4 wheel discs/4 wheel independent susp should a good car make.
But that’s a bit too general in my humble opinion. A lot of cars “should be good” under a broad definition like that.
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crowmolly
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
04/28/2015 at 14:18 |
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I would contend that it’s a “Ship of Theseus” type of deal.
Once you toss the intake, cam, heads, and carb/ignition tune (and possibly do a piston swap) it’s not really the same engine anymore.
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lone_liberal
> crowmolly
04/28/2015 at 14:18 |
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Yep. I agree. I just think that’s what they were going for and it let them take a shot at a car that people, especially people who weren’t born yet when they were new, like to take shots at.
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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> crowmolly
04/28/2015 at 14:35 |
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In other words, while it could be improved at least some by doing relatively minor things, since getting improvement far beyond even that is something within reach, why settle? And since *that* improvement is more fundamental, the “ingrediency” of the original engine has no value - while there’s a good car in the original bits waiting to be let out, there’s an even better car at almost equal reach. The only cost - not being like a crazy hoarding bag lady and trying to cling to things that *as weighed* aren’t worth holding onto.
I’d say the *ability* to make a good (if not great) car from what’s there and not huge amounts of swapping counts for its inclusion on the list, even if practicality says “please, for all that’s holy, do something better!” The criteria for things on the list, after all, don’t mandate that it even be possible that somebody can work with the ingredients that are there, just that they are. Making a Z8 “good” in the way it should have been would require more pragmatic and involved ingredient swaps than the ‘vette, I’d wager. Not even counting the travails of making a “good” DeLorean...
Axial
> crowmolly
04/28/2015 at 18:45 |
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But the C3 was good until ‘74. It was little more than a C2 with new body-work. Seriously. Same frame, same steering, same suspension, same power trains, and same drive trains. So given that the early C3 was good, the late C3 also had every right to be good because a car ought to get better as it matures. But it wasn’t good and it didn’t get better for reasons we are all familiar with.
Actually, that’s a bit disingenuous. It got way worse in the engine department in ‘75 to a low in but started getting consistently better in 1979. By 1980, we were back above 200 and in 1982 we saw the return of fuel injection, something not seen since 1965.
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crowmolly
> Axial
04/28/2015 at 19:42 |
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Counterpoint: You can say that about just about every car during that time period. Taking the ‘75 L48 at base value, for what it is regardless of heritage or future and what is left?