I wasn't a spoiled kid-really! But this looks exactly like the only car my parents had and I learned to drive in and passed the license exam in, a '67 911. Same green color. It weighed 2200lbs I think, seems that their weight target was 1000kilos. The engine put out 120-130 hp so even at that weight it wasn't fast. And you had to move the shifter 30cm to change gears. But it was light and responsive, so really fun, but had the horrific oversteer issue if you pushed it too far.(racers could exploit that but you had to be very good) I ended going backwards down the road twice! Plenty of trees where we lived so I'm lucky.
Eventually my parents got divorced and my mother discovered that the monthly payments were a lot, so she sold it. It cost $6500 which was about as cheap as they got, had no options, but that was a lot then. Certainly equal to 40k or more now.
Eventually my parents got divorced and my mother discovered that the monthly payments were a lot, so she sold it. It cost $6500 which was about as cheap as they got, had no options, but that was a lot then. Certainly equal to 40k or more now.
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Anyone remember this?
The ultimate polished turd.
Best friend's mom had one - came with a matching hard top and bunch of other stuff. People can have different tastes, it was by no means a turd.
We called it the Dodgearati.
Challenge accepted.
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Lawyers technicity is bluring the lines, i've worked in a automotive factory in the 90' and discovered that some premum French motors were designed by Porsche, it was not marked on the motor and neither divulged in the medias.
Who's buying who, the one that have enough money and the associated opportunity, the technicity is mostly ignored and the "technical commercial history" is laughable IMHO.
"Some of us have brains that are always trying to optimize whatever thing looms largest in our attention at the time. Doesn't matter if it's a car, a loudspeaker system, or a balky furnace."
Yes I fit into that category, I look at everything, even when new, and attempt to increase efficiency, reliability, and longevity. People think I'm nuts, (which may be true), with potential warranty issues, but I usually don't make mistakes.
Re cars, I do not have one, no real need ATM, but I had been a biker for many years, and have been considering buying the top BMW bike, but three factors stick out; if I drop it at my age, that weight could really do some relatively irreparable damage to me, I do not have a need to get away from polluted London any more, and the roads are so busy and there are so many speed cameras, that the freedom of a bike is increasingly a thing of the past.
Yes I fit into that category, I look at everything, even when new, and attempt to increase efficiency, reliability, and longevity. People think I'm nuts, (which may be true), with potential warranty issues, but I usually don't make mistakes.
Re cars, I do not have one, no real need ATM, but I had been a biker for many years, and have been considering buying the top BMW bike, but three factors stick out; if I drop it at my age, that weight could really do some relatively irreparable damage to me, I do not have a need to get away from polluted London any more, and the roads are so busy and there are so many speed cameras, that the freedom of a bike is increasingly a thing of the past.
You win. I can't think of a bigger POS than the GM X body car, especially when they stuck a Cadillac badge on it.
It did find a little resurgence with the car hackers in the late 2000's when GM made the same 60 degree V6 in a 3.9L size. People would stuff one of them (removed from a minivan complete with automatic transaxle) in an old Cadillac Cimarron or other X car and go racing. Nobody sees that one coming at the late night street races for $$$$. I would imagine that finding a usable X car would be the biggest challenge here.
Ultimate car hack from the past.....Find a Corvair with a blown or melted engine, flip the transaxle over and hook it to a small block Chevy engine mounted on frame rails where the back seat used to be. This was so common in the 70's that there was a complete conversion kit available called the Corv-8. Mid engine V8 in a lightweight car. I got a ride in one, scared the $&% out of me!
Corvair Crown Corv-8 conversion
Popping the clutch doesn't shatter the drivers rear window like the V8 Fierro does.
At one point in my life, I had a dealer license and saw an awful lot of odd stuff at the used car dealer auctions. Never saw a Corv-8, but did see a few examples of that vollkswagon - porsche ( 914 ? ) that had a small V8 under the rear deck. Can't recall if they were Chevy small blocks or something like Ford 260-289.
I imagine they were quick in a straight line.
I'm thinking the Cimmaron was on the J car chassis, but it's been decades since I thought about it.
Speaking of honking big engines in little cars, I bought a brand new, loaded out Solstice when Pontiac went tits up - it's sat here in the garage at the lake under a cover ever since. If I ever get pocket money again, it will get a supercharger or a V8.
I imagine they were quick in a straight line.
I'm thinking the Cimmaron was on the J car chassis, but it's been decades since I thought about it.
Speaking of honking big engines in little cars, I bought a brand new, loaded out Solstice when Pontiac went tits up - it's sat here in the garage at the lake under a cover ever since. If I ever get pocket money again, it will get a supercharger or a V8.
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Google tells me that you are right....My memory doesn't hold worthless information too well, and there isn't much worth remembering from those cars. A friend of my mother had a Cimarron and it was a genuine POS. It leaked water every time it rained and always smelled like a dirty gym sock.
Nearly 20 years later we would buy a brand new 1999 Pontiac Sunfire GT convertible. The Oldsmobile quad four engine and the funky GT only exhaust system were it's only good points. It spent most of the year and a half we had it at the dealership dead. We only got to drive it for 4000 miles. The muffler in the Pontiac had one pipe going in, and two coming out. At idle and normal driving speed only one outlet was active. When there was sufficient exhaust velocity a weighted valve opened bypassing the muffler entirely through the second outlet. That way the car passed noise regulations for most driving, yet let out a loud scream when floored and the RPM went over about 3000.
It leaked water every time it rained, filling up to the level where water got into the ECU killing it resulting in a tow to the dealership. The carpet was always wet, even after a light rain. The car smelled worse than the Cimarron.
An extremely wet but not extremely windy hurricane passed through. I got my camera and took pictures as I opened the Pontiac and the 1966 Mustang convertible parked next to it. The Mustang was mostly dry, while water flowed out of the Pontiac when I opened the door.
After 2 years of fighting with the dealership, and GM, we got them to make it run and replace most of the interior. We drove it to Carmax and traded it in on a 1999 Mustang convertible which I kept for 8 years replacing only the tires and battery. That Pontiac was the last GM car I ever bought.
The tail end of the green Pontiac can be seen hiding behind the red minivan in my front yard where it was best sheltered from the storm. The 66 Mustang is under the Walmart grade car cover up in the yard to avoid most of the flooding. These pictures were taken from the front porch of the house across the street by the owner.....Her Comet started right up after the storm. Her Chevy Citation (X car) had been towed to the junkyard a few months before the storm after sitting lifeless for a couple years. It was replaced by the Comet.
Hurricane.....No problem, the mail gets delivered. Two more old Mustangs owned by her boyfriend under bags in her front yard. I'm standing on the sidewalk in water up to my knees.
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I havent ridden for 20 years, due to such factors. Other drivers are so contentious, you'd have to be hyper-vigilant every instant riding a bike.
I've noticed that's gone up even more since the pandemic started and I'm wondering if it'll stick for some years after things get to whatever new normal is going to be.
At 63, my nerves couldnt take it. I'm content within the 4 wheel cage - and looking with awe at the kids who can do their mile long wheelies at 75 mph in the fast lane of our local highway. I could never balance like that at any speed!
I just gave up trackdays on my bike last year. Aged 70. I high-sided in the wet at Brands Hatch the previous year, but couldn't let it end at that. Did one more, in the dry, last year, but found I was worrying more about crashing than riding, decided to stop. But I'll keep on the road for as long as I can. There are enough twisty country roads here to have fun on without speeding, and I always take the view that everyone is out to get me. Having been a driving instructor for a few years helps.
I recall a local big block Corvair as a teen but never saw it under power. Didn't know it was a thing until today!
One of my mother's friends was killed on her tiny little Honda 50 (cc) in Miami traffic. That was in the 1960's, and seeing what was left of her and the motorcycle stuck in my mind forever.
Fast forward to the mid 1970's I'm living in a rented house with a bunch of people my age that I worked with. One of them has an old Honda 305 (the two cylinder version) that didn't run and he gives it to me. I got the engine running and used two pair of Vice Grips for the shifter. I rode it like that for about two months when a coworker was killed in a motorcycle crash. I haven't been on a motorcycle since then. The traffic in South Florida got real bad once text messaging became a thing and Florida was one of the last states to ban it.
I hung around a hot rod shop as a teenager. One of the guys was building a Crown Conversion Corvair with a Chevy 327 engine. I got a ride on US-1 in South Miami that scared the bleep out of me. He was winding that thing through the curved sections of US-1 which was then 3 lanes in each direction. The speedometer hit 100 MPH several times, although I don't know how accurate it was. I know that the car and the driver were still very much alive when I left Miami 4 years later.
There were al least two different kits to put a small block Chevy into a Pontiac Fiero and several frequented the south Florida car shows and drag strips. Attempting to wind one through a road course under power often broke the driver side rear window.
GM created a one off Pontiac Solstice / Saturn Sky with a 350 V8 in it, and published a sheet with every GM part number used for the conversion which could be done without welding. A feature article in Hot Rod Magazine include the parts list, and prompted a few DIY builds. Rumors circulated about a production car, but the 2007-08 collapse of GM killed both the Pontiac and Saturn divisions, and ended the car with a short life.
The first car I bought new was a Mazda RX7 with the rotary engine. But you guys are probably not impressed by that ;-)
Jan
Jan
Actually rather impressed, the Mazda 787b is probably my all time favourite race car!
I've probably only seen one first generation rx7 in my life!
I've probably only seen one first generation rx7 in my life!
Mallett Performance makes Solstice kits up to, and including, the dry sump 427 LS7. Just in case you want to drive inverted.
There are quite a few supercharger kits out there, that avoid a lot of the extra weight over the front end.
Both the Solstice, and Torrent GXP that I bought for my wife, when they blew the cars out, are 2009 MY, and both are 1 of 1's in that no other vehicle in that MY has the exact same build sheet. But I suspect that is rather common given they didn't get to build out that many cars. I nearly got a G8 GXP to go with my other G8, but just didn't.
Some of the car makers are in pretty rocky shape. Might be more going out of business sales.
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I know it was a nice car. It also had a reputation for needing expensive repairs.
A car like this, with low production and lots of goodies, should be collectible. It's not. Cadillac Allante, with much higher production numbers and all its warts (head gasket problems), is more collectible.
Ultimately, it was a gussied up K-car. And the K-car is a turd. So this car is a polished turd.
There was a very active RX7 club of America at the time doing conversions and upgrades.
The only car I know of that sounded an aircraft-like audible warning when the revs went over 7k, as it wasn't self-limiting and would self-destruct if you kept the throttle down.
Jan
Cimmaron
!!! Hopefully it will be decades before you have to think of it again! Jeez, a Cadillac Cavalier with a $12k base price. It purely pissed me off, and I was only 16 then! Still raises my blood pressure... I'm so glad Ford didn't respond with a Lincoln Escort. The exec who came up with that should have been forced to drive one for the rest of his life.
rdf, curse you for bringing up such a heinous memory. However, I do think it's dead on-topic as a high-end fallacy!
w5jag, I knew a fellow who insisted on referring to his father's TC as his Maserati. I always assumed they were V-6's, didn't realize they were 4C.
Peak crazy achieved. And people thought the Datsun 240 Scarab kits were overkill.
