American Muscle or Asian Invasion??

[beefy242]

Me, i used to be completely obsessed with American Muscle and drag racing.

now, i love just about all cars. I might have a slight bias against Hondas but realistically i will not hate them if they are tuned to compete or especially if they can beat some of the big dogs.

Domestics that I like are the vette, stang, viper, GT40, and it would be the challenger if it came in stick and the charger if it was 2 doors and actually, well, reliable...

but i no longer think of drag racing in the same manner. sure its a great way to test your cars acceleration, but i think that an even better way than that would be to have a half-mile on a runway like the major magazines do. Im more of a rally, touge, auto-x and the like kinda guy but stuck with a truck. i actually plan on getting an SE-R or a 300zx(n/a) for something reliable and kinda quick (plus, unlike a truck, can turn faster without that whole rollover risk) but thats a few years from now. i gotta throw on some bigger wheels and tires onto this bad boy first!

[gr8-wrx]

See my sig... I'd choose a GT-R without hesitation...

My WRX works for me now as a fun commuter and Auto-X when I have the time. AWD + turbo =

I think the only American car I'd buy is a Corvette. However, Consumer Reports did not give high reliability ratings for the C6. Maybe that would be okay, though, since if I got one it wouldn't be driven very often.

[ochsbeatdown]

1970 chevelle ss 454 ls-6, 4 spd muncie m22, hugger orange with white stripes.....SEX!

[TheRealDoug]

american muscle. nothing like the hit nitrous on a stroked v8 and reving as high as many imports. I've ridden in 460hp turbo 4cyl, 600hp supercharged cobras and vettes, and NOTHING. NOTHING is more fun than hitting the second stage of nitrous on a stroked smallblock.

My cobra is a stroked 4.6L DOHC cam car at 301cid. Revs to 7200 rpms. There is nothing like leaving on 28" tall ET Drags at 6800rpms on 150 shot of nitrous. Its incredible. On a 125 shot of nitrous, my car picked up 140hp and 251ft/lbs of torque (443hp/ 551ft/lbs at the rear tires). Then driving home from the track, then driving it to work the next morning with the A/C blowing ice cold and sitting in traffic.

Sure i've been beat by imports, but they just aren't fun. They don't hold together.

[Zero Six LE]

Originally Posted by ochsbeatdown

1970 chevelle ss 454 ls-6, 4 spd muncie m22, hugger orange with white stripes.....SEX!

Or red with black stripes.

[TheRealDoug]

Originally Posted by W4RFIGHT3R

I had a "Ford" Probe GT and it went to crap after about 90,000 miles. My son has a Honda Civic and it has 120,000 with not a single problem. I do not trust or believe in American cars and I am a retired serviceman (23 years). I would buy a Asian Invasion sportscar in a heartbeat. A 350 Z...

my 1997 ford expedition had 214K miles on it when i gave it back to my parents. Original Motor, and original Trans. I abuse the hell out of that car. I went an ENTIRE year without changing the oil. and it still runs. has a slight ignition problem. keeps fouling the #2 cylinder plug wire but that's all that's wrong with it...

oh, it needs a new heater core - but many cars do at that mileage. For every POS crap amercian car you find, i can find you two foreign ones that brake down.

The bottom line is that all cars break down. The reason you hear of so many domestic cars is because the number of domestic cars far outweigh foreign cars. but that paradigm is beginning to shift.

[Upgraded]

I'm pretty suprised at how close the poll is. I have always been a big import guy as far as what I have owned, but I grew up with my uncle and his collection of musclecars. I think I got my love of allcars from him. He's owned a few VW bugs, BMW's, 70 Nova, 68 road runner, 70 GT500, a porche or two and more. I love them all, I can find something good in just about any car.

[CT_Nismo]

Originally Posted by Upgraded

I'm pretty suprised at how close the poll is. I have always been a big import guy as far as what I have owned, but I grew up with my uncle and his collection of musclecars. I think I got my love of allcars from him. He's owned a few VW bugs, BMW's, 70 Nova, 68 road runner, 70 GT500, a porche or two and more. I love them all, I can find something good in just about any car.

I think this poll is unbalanced resulting in a skewed data.

It seems we are comparing red blooded, testosterone dripping, Beach Boys singing, American MUSCLE CARS to asian daily drivers. The survey is split between these two camps.

However, if we compare asian DD cars to US DD cars, the asian invasion would win hands down. Why? Because a car cannot be a daily driver if it is in the repair shop all the time! LOL!

BTW, the reliability of American muscle cars were not that good. And rust? You could hear the rust termites consume your car every winter.

[ochsbeatdown]

Originally Posted by Zero Six LE

Or red with black stripes.

mmmmm...i think i'll put bandaid stripes on my frontier!




and "beach boys singing"? come on. i'd be blasting some zep and sabbath...none of that beach boys shiz....

[Mainerunr]

Originally Posted by TheRealDoug

my 1997 ford expedition had 214K miles on it when i gave it back to my parents. Original Motor, and original Trans. I abuse the hell out of that car. I went an ENTIRE year without changing the oil. and it still runs. has a slight ignition problem. keeps fouling the #2 cylinder plug wire but that's all that's wrong with it...

oh, it needs a new heater core - but many cars do at that mileage. For every POS crap amercian car you find, i can find you two foreign ones that brake down.

The bottom line is that all cars break down. The reason you hear of so many domestic cars is because the number of domestic cars far outweigh foreign cars. but that paradigm is beginning to shift.

um no no and no. the reason you hear of so many 'american' cars broken down is because they cut corners and typically are junk. also, going an ENTIRE year without changing the oil...big woop.

the paradigm is starting to change because there are a lot of crappy korean cars out there now (and soon to be chinese garbage too) and because toyota has forgotten what got it where it is and has let quality control slip.

I had an S-10 for 2 years. after 2 years and 43k, that thing had so many rattles it wasnt funny. had my first nissan after that, bought it 2 years old with 34k on the clock (was the same year as the S-10), ran it to 145k, beat it offroad (S-10 never saw dirt) and it had ZERO rattles, ran like a clock. only reason I traded it was because I needed to be able to put car seats in the truck.

As for your cobra, dont get me wrong, I like V-8's with a lot of power but a 300hp STi will kill a 400hp mustang off the line. You think your cobra can launch, AWD kills. a puny little 227hp 2.0 liter will beat a stock mustang gt through the 1/8 and nearly through the 1/4 all while giving up 73hp (which is damn near 1.3 of what it has). and I've seen guys get 400+hp out of that same 2.0 liter engine. can it break, sure but it's not going to be any more likely to break than your modified V-8.

Of course, since there's more to life than a straight line, your cobra gets left far behind on the twisties unless you've dropped some serious coin into the suspension.

the one thing the imports will never have is that V-8 rumble and that rumble is worth something in my book. Mustang is probably the only new american 'muscle' I'd buy and even then it would be a GT because the 4.6 with an aftermarket supercharger will outhandle the gt500...that 5.4 just shifts the weight bias farther to the front.

in the end, it's irrelevant, I think we're about to start seeing hp drop except on the high end stuff. and I'm keeping my truck until the wheels fall off (which will take a lot longer than if I were driving a ford, dodge or chevy).