Often a comment sparks an entire blog entry. Nothing gets me going more than a discussion about US auto makers, especially if I can lay out my thoughts about “what’s happened to (insert brand here)”.
In a comment to my Auto Factoids for the Week of Aug 19, 2012 (http://wp.me/pKHNM-1fG) Bill wrote:
“If I were in charge of GM, I would not have left Oldsmobile for death. I liked the idea of ‘Saturn-izing’ Olds into a Lexus level car. There might have been only one, or two models under the Olds badge, but I would not have left the world’s oldest car company for dead.
Oldsmobile was GM’s ‘experimental’ division both in terms of engineering and product marketing. Many automotive firsts such as automatic transmission (Hydramatic), OHV V8s, and even the ‘self winding’ car clock……….Which brings me to the time I find myself saying in many of my comments in your BLOG:
“What happend to GM????””
I’ve mentioned this before, it never really made any sense to me why you would have so many divisions in a car company as GM did. Some say, it was to offer different levels of options that were affordable on up to expensive. But lets take the Chevrolet for instance. At one time they had the Biscayne, Belair, Impala and Caprice (and I think that was the correct order from lowest optioned to the highest) as option levels and pricing to reach everyone. This doesn’t seem too bad. But now add in the other divisions with Chevy being the lowest, then there’s Pontiac, Buick, Olds, and Caddy and I think that would be the correct order for options and pricing as well. A further break down in what as suppose to be different classes of automobile for different classes of society was the norm for those divisions as well. For example the Tempest and La Mans, GTO were basically the same car with different options.
I understand brand/model loyalty, especially at the initial merging/acquisition of a brand, but at some point that stopped being the only valid reason for keeping them separate. By the time the ’70s and ’80s rolled around they all started looking the same. For example take the Chevy Monte Carlo for 1978 and compare with the Buick and Olds of the same year:
78 Buick Regal
78 Chevy Monte Carlo
1978 Olds Cutlass
Minus the big tires on the Olds, tell me why I should purchase one over the other or purchase one at all (beside the fact they were fairly ugly)?
Frankly, I would have kept Pontiac over Olds any day but then again the difference between a Camaro and a Firebird in 2000 wasn’t much -but they are both gone now.
2000 Firebird
2000 Camaro
There just wasn’t much different. They diluted the brand and it became impossible to find any major differences – unless you were a gear head and most consumers were not.
The necessity to cut cost and share parts made it nearly mandatory to have them all made from the same cookie cutter.
Now don’t get me started on the purchase of oversea brands and becoming a finance/mortgage company to defray cost. (Did you know that at one time GM did more business in home/real estate loans then they did with their core car brands?
Meet Jon, one of our engineers here at Prestolite Performance. He is the focus of our first installment of What We Drive, our series of stories about the cars of Prestolite Performance employees. Jon got into cars when he was about 13 years old. His first car was a 1986 Ford Tempo that he worked on, but never got it to the road. His college car was a 1989 Chevy S10, which he beefed up by replacing the original 4 cylinder with a V8.
How Jon’s Camaro Went From 230 hp to Over 700 hp
Jon had been looking for a ’91 Camaro for some time, finding it difficult to locate one that wasn’t a rust bucket. In 2000, his search paid off and he purchased a nearly bone stock ’91 Camaro with only about 57,000 miles. The only performance upgrade on the car was a Flowmaster exhaust. Originally, the car made about 230 hp and 300 ft. lbs of torque.
The LB9 305 small block Chevy engine that was stock in Jon’s Camaro was removed to make way for a 355 small block. He hand ported aluminum Corvette heads and installed a Holley Stealth Ram intake with Mr. Gasket Ultra-Seal intake gaskets. Jon also made sure his engine was sealed for higher horsepower with Multi-Layered Steel head gaskets from Mr. Gasket. He made the engine even tougher with a forged ZZ4 crank, SRP forged pistons and a Comp camshaft.
Beefing up the drivetrain was also a priority so Jon installed a 4L80E transmission (built to handle 1000hp), Transgo shift kit, Lakewood transmission mount, SPOHN driveshaft, Detroit locker and Lakewood U-joints.
With twin 60mm Garret Turbos and his ACCEL 1000cfm throttle body and ACCEL Gen7 engine management system, Jon needed a hefty fuel delivery. His 5160FI fuel pump (now under Mallory) along with Mallory filters and high performance regulator provides the elite system needed for such a setup. For ignition, Jon used an ACCEL 300+ box with an ACCEL ultra coil and Extreme 9000 ceramic boot wires.
Now that Jon’s Camaro had been beefed up, he needed to harness the power with Lakewood 90/10 drag struts, panhard bar and control arms. He also needed better braking, so he installed 2002 SS Camaro brakes on all 4 corners.
All said and done, Jon’s beefed up ’91 Camaro now makes 700 hp and 800 ft. lbs of torque. That’s quite the improvement from stock.
Meanwhile, manual-shift enthusiasts are upgrading to modern units packing more heavy-duty horsepower capacity—and more gear ratios.
“The generation that is now in their 60s can afford to build the cars that they wanted to build when they were in high school,” said Dick Hill, sales manager for Centerforce Clutches in Prescott, Arizona. And while those folks are not usually looking to build a race car, “they do want a four- or five-speed manual transmission,” he said.
More surprisingly, the trend extends beyond muscle cars and into traditional hot rods as well.
“I have friends who are building Deuce roadsters and they are putting LS motors in them, with a five- or six-speed manual transmission,” Hill said. “There are people who put Cadillac V-8s in 1949–1951 Mercs, and they want a stick. They want a three-pedal car. So that, too, is contributing to the growth of the high-performance clutch market.”
Hot rodders who already own or have owned multiple cars are now looking for something different.
“It’s like the people who buy their first Harley, they want it with every doo-dad they can get, where older bikers are turning back to the Knucklehead or even Flathead motors,” Hill said. “It’s the same with the hot rodder who already has two or three or four toys in the garage. The newest toy is going to be a stick car. And it’s for the same reason that someone will buy a brand-new Camaro, put 1,000 horsepower in it, and drive it on the street while blowing cold air and playing tunes. They want a manual not because they’re going to race it, but because they can have it. That’s what we hear all the time: ‘Because I can.’”
Rating the Ratios
American Powertrain of Cookeville, Tennessee, sells a broad range of high-performance drivetrain components, from complete crate engines to driveshafts and pedals. The company also distributes Tremec transmissions.
“The hot market right now is for the Magnum six-speed in a classic muscle car,” said Gray Frederick. “The Magnum is Tremec’s replacement for the T-56 is the aftermarket version of what you would get in a new Shelby GT500 or Camaro SS.” Frederick added that people are putting them into classic Mustangs Cougars, Camaros Firebirds, Barracudas and Challengers.
“The cars that people spend the most money on are the cars that [are] getting Magnum six-speeds,” Frederick added.
The Magnum is available with two sets of ratios, with the closer-ratio unit being the more popular of the two.
“The wide-ratio box has a 0.5 overdrive, which is very tall; a lot of engines can’t pull that much overdrive,” Frederick said.
But when it comes to overdrive, isn’t more better?
“That’s a myth,” Frederick said. “You can say, ‘Alright, I’m at the ragged edge of my cam, where if I’m on flat ground I can hold 70 mph all day.’ In a perfect world, that would be great. [I]n the real world, at some point you’re going to have to slow down for construction, and then speed up again; or you’re going to hit a rise, or something else that causes your engine to run out of breath. [T]hen you’re going to have to shift and that’s what you’re trying to avoid.
“You want to put it in sixth gear and leave it sixth gear,” he continued. “You don’t want to run down the highway at your cam’s peak performance, which would be 3,000–4,000 rpm. But you do want an rpm where your engine can pull your car up hills, and pass without dropping a gear. If every time you put your foot in the gas the engine lugs and you have to shift, that becomes very inefficient. We’re helping the customer understand that, even on the highway, you want to stay in your powerband. Otherwise the overdrive doesn’t do you any good.”
Frederick recommends the wide-ratio unit mostly for torquey big blocks.
“A Pontiac 455 will pull a stump out of the ground at 800 rpm; it doesn’t have trouble pulling a car at whatever rpm you’re running,” he said. “A Mopar 440 and some other big blocks with a lot of low-end grunt can usually handle the taller overdrive, too. And of course we’re dealing with a lot of electronically fuel-injected (EFI) engines now, and most of them have computers that can cope with low rpm very well.
They can retard the spark, they can meter the fuel differently, they can do all kinds of things.
“We help the customer choose a rearend ratio and a gear set that’s going to give them the best performance, from top to bottom,” Frederick said.
Pedal Pressure Another concern, according to Hill of Centerforce Clutches, is the physical effort once associated with a high-performance clutch.
“Our customers all ask, ‘How stiff is the pedal?’” he said. “That’s why we’ve been very successful, whether it’s a single-disc clutch for mild upgrade vehicle, or dual-disc unit that can hold 1,300 lbs./ft. of torque, we’ve been very successful in making them streetable.”
The average consumer, Hill said, could climb into a car with a Centerforce dual-disc clutch, push the pedal to the floor, and not realize that the car was modified.
“[T]he person who has a $75,000 Camaro or Corvette wants race-car performance without the race-car effort, so this is pretty significant,” he said.
Still, selecting the optimal clutch for any particular application is a complex task best left to experts.
“There are different linings and different friction materials on the pressure plate,” Hill said. “Heat is a factor. The first thing you have to know is how the vehicle is going to be used. Drag racers realize they are going to drive their car until they break it, where hot rodders don’t beat their cars up as bad. They are very proud of their cars and they want to drive them, not break them. And unless the car has been tubbed, a street machine generally runs smaller tires, so you want to tune the clutch for that.”
McLeod Racing of Placentia, California, offers its RST and RXT Street Twin clutches, both double-disc units that hold up to 1,000 horsepower, with the pedal pressure of a stock clutch, said President Paul Lee. Contributing to this low effort—and to easier installation—are McLeod’s hydraulic release bearings, “which fit most applications, replacing worn and/or outdated mechanical linkages,” he said.
“We’re selling more clutches for vehicles from the 1960s and 1970s, and installing a new hydraulic clutch in one of these cars can significantly reduce pedal effort,” said Rich Barsamian, national sales manager for Advanced Clutch Technology (ACT) in Lancaster, California. The company also offers a wide range of clutches for GM, Ford and Mopar applications, each rated for torque at the crankshaft.
When installing an aftermarket clutch, Barsamian suggested, “be sure to use the right amount of lube on the input shaft—it is possible to use too much. Be sure parts are free from dirt and oil, and washed in a non-petroleum-based cleaner such as acetone, alcohol or brake cleaner. Be sure to follow the correct torque and tightening sequence when installing the clutch cover—and do not use impact tools.”
It’s nearing the peak of summer, which means 2013 model year cars are only weeks away from being released. But before we can welcome in the last of the C6 models for next year, we owe it to the 2012′s to take a look back and see just how well the Corvette did this year. So here are some of the production numbers for the Corvette’s 2012 model year compliments of CorvetteBlogger, and some of them may just surprise you.
Just like in the 2010 and 2011 model years, the Grand Sport got the most amount of buys for 2012. Between the Grand Sport coupe (5,056 sold) and the GS convertible (2,268 sold) , the model made up nearly 63 percent of all Corvette sales. Coming in at a far second, was the base model with 2,820 coupes and just 651 convertibles sold to make up 29.5 percent of Corvette sales.
As far as the high-rolling Z06 and ZR1′s go, only 478 Z06 models were sold, making up 4.1 percent of total sales, and only a measly 404 ZR1′s were sold, making up just 3.5 percent of sales. In total, 11,647 Corvettes were manufactured for the 2012 model year.
Not surprisingly, the most popular color among the 2012 models was Torch Red with 19.5 percent of Corvettes sold sporting the color. The vibrant shade was closely followed by the Carbon Flash Metallic paint of the special Centennial Edition cars. Nearly 19 percent of Corvettes sold featured the special edition package.
Other interesting tidbits we found browsing through the 2012 production numbers were that 62.3 percent of Corvettes were sold with Ebony interiors while only 88 were sold with yellow stitching accents and 105 sold with blue stitching accents.
Option packages appear to have been popular with 2,416 Corvettes sold with the 1LT option package, 1,691 sold with the 2LT package, and 5,510, or 47.3 percent, sold with the 3LT package.
For more of the 2012 model year numbers, check out the full report from CorvetteBlogger.com.
Remember a few post ago that covered MOPAR’s in Sweden? (Short Link: http://wp.me/pKHNM-174) I wrote how interesting it was to see US sheet metal in other countries.
Well check out this car show in Rothrist, Switzerland. This is from Andres Palomares who lives in Bern, Switzerland. There are some great examples of US car history in this show.
Switzerland is beautiful and visited Interlaken several times while living in Europe.
Another classic spotted in my local supermarket (does anyone actually use the word ‘supermarket” any more?).
This 1957 Chevy has all the chrome you might want. It appears to have fairly new paint. I love the wrap around windows and the exhaust exiting the rear bumper. (If I could figure out how to make that happen with my Mustang I would!!)
Of course I couldn’t hang around in the parking lot waiting for the owner, but would have loved to see the engine compartment.
You can tell the ’57’s a mile away.
Love bumper chrome and the wrap around windshield. Oh…that’s my grocery cart in the background.
Paint looked flawless on this car. Not labeled as a Bel Air or Impala and clearly not a ‘plan jane’ One Fifty.
Love the exhaust exit location on these cars!!
Chevy‘s standard engine for these cars was the 6 cylinder. The V8’s were considered a separate series and not an option. Chevy produced over 1.5 million cars in 1957, second only to Ford.
Have a really cool parking lot find? Drop me a note and we get it posted up.
I love this Impala and I don’t care that it has 4 ways to get in!!!!!!
By Angelo Van Bogart
Chevrolet built 497,048 four-door sedans in 1960. No one knows how many of those sedans were Impalas, Bel Airs or Biscaynes, but you can bet the farm that many went to rural America.
Determining how many 1960 Chevy sedans went to farmers is likewise impossible, but John Broucker isn’t concerned about that figure. What he’d really like to know is how many of those 1960 Impala sedans were equipped with a 348-cid V-8 and a four-speed manual transmission like his central Ohio sleeper ordered new by a farmer?
“I called General Motors and all they could tell me was how many were four-door sedans,” he said.
Chevrolet was not particular about the details of its production in this era, but Broucker’s car is certainly rare. Maybe even as rare as hen’s teeth. Broucker himself had a hard time believing the car’s combination when he first heard about the four-speed Impala sedan in 1980.
“The farmer that bought it new, I worked with his sister’s son, his nephew, and he said, ‘My uncle has a 348 four-speed,’ and when I [saw it], I said, ‘That’s a four-door.’ My buddy said it can’t be, it just can’t be, so I called the guy and I bought it.”
Even after buying the car from the original owner, and running into a mechanic who watched the car get unloaded at Progressive Chevrolet in 1960, Broucker sometimes has to defend what some people assume is a clone.
“Honestly, if I was going to clone a car, I wouldn’t clone a four-door ’60 Chevy,” he said.
That still begs the question: Why does a four-door 1960 Chevrolet Impala four-door sedan with a 250-hp Turbo-Thrust 348 and a four-speed with Posi-Traction even exist?
“Back then, if your buddy drove up to you in a four-door four-speed, you’d say, ‘You’re crazy,’” Broucker admits. “But he said he didn’t like the Impala (hardtop), it had the big back window, and he wanted a ‘fooler.’”
For the full fooler (a.k.a. “sleeper”) effect, the original owner even ran little hubcaps and blackwall tires to help the finned Impala fly under the radar. Aside from its performance options, the Impala is otherwise a typical farm sedan and generally lacks creature comforts.
“It doesn’t even have the rear-view mirror on the outside,” Broucker said. “It does have an AM radio, a heater, and the only thing that doesn’t work is the clock in the dash.”
With only 56,000 miles on the odometer, the rest of the Impala works as new, and Broucker said it remains largely original.
“It still has the original clutch,” he said. “I put front brakes and maybe a fan belt on and that’s about it. It has the original paint, original interior and original chrome. Sometimes, people look at the bumpers and say they’re a little wavy, but that’s they way it was. It even has the original generator, and the right rear tailpipe has a couple holes, but it’s the original exhaust.
“Behind all of the six tail lights, they have those little plastic cups on them. These are still on there. Any time anyone changed a light they threw them away.”
The unrestored Impala shows so well, it’s even placed second at the Stan Hywet car show in Akron, Ohio, against restored cars. Broucker believes the car’s excellent level of preservation is partly due to how the original owner stored the car.
“This farmer also worked at the railroad, and [he and his brothers] brought cabooses home and they made garages out of them,” he said. “I bet the thing was 3 feet off the ground and the wood floor helped preserve the car.”
When Broucker first saw the Impala, it was wedged in one of those cabooses.
“It was a real tight fit,” he said. “There was a pot belly stove in the caboose and I don’t know if he used the stove or not. They say the wood doesn’t sweat, it absorbs the moisture.”
The storage served the Impala well through 20 years and 50,000 miles with the original owner. Today, Broucker remains thrilled with the Impala’s condition. However, he hasn’t always found the car thrilling, which is why he’s only added about 6,000 miles to the odometer in his 32 years of ownership.
“Back then, I bought and sold a lot of cars, and for some reason I just held on to this,” he said. “I did think it was neat at first — I just thought it couldn’t be real, but it was. Honestly, I think I kind of lost interest and wondered, ‘Why did I buy a four-door?’ Then I would take it out and drive it and think, ‘This drives pretty nice.’ I was really happy with that.”
Many vehicles have come and gone from Broucker’s collection, but the Impala has been a mainstay. In fact, Broucker has pared his collection down to a 1969 Dodge Dart he races in the 1/8 mile and this oddly optioned Impala. That raises the question, would he ever race his Impala?
“I have [thought about it], but I might be embarrassed by it,” he said. “It has a lot of torque, but the point I am at, I don’t want to tear up the clutch.”
Instead, Broucker is content to blend into the car show landscape, making his Impala blend into the sea of hobby cars. For those collectors who enjoy the unusual, stumbling onto this rarity is like finding treasure. Maybe as exciting as finding that needle in the haystack.
I know the owner and this car has had the best care. It is an AZ car and is always garaged or covered when it’s not moving and it DOES move.
What’s under the hood?
GM’s Generation III V-8 engine as configured in the Corvette. It is the all-aluminum 5.7-liter (350-cubic-inch) produce up to 350 horsepower in the two-seat sports car.
100% Stock. More Pics To come.
Interested? Call me at 520-405-5314 or email me at timsweet@cox.net.
Asking $9k. That’s a steal in this condition. This isn’t my car, but if you buy and don’t like, I’ll buy it from you!!!!…Actually, I ought to buy it myself!!! I”m going to think about that some.
She looks great with the T’s off!!!!
Engine Pic1 – SOOOO CLEAN!!!
Engine Pic 2. Nicely Maintained!!!
Perfect Stock Interior!!!
Room for 2 in the back. Although it doesn’t look like anyone has ever sat back there!!!!
Interested? Call me at 520-405-5314 or email me at timsweet@cox.net.
Ok..this guy is clearly lost…Who brings a Mustang (even an extremely nice one) to an All Chevy Show:
Listen to this Chevy:
Two more to listen too:
And although there were a lot more entries for this show I’m going to end this series with one that brought back a lot of memories. This wasn’t a 1966 like my very first car, but it was pretty closed. Look over this Impala.
Meet Jon, one of our engineers here at Prestolite Performance. He is the focus of our first installment of What We Drive, our series of stories about the cars of Prestolite Performance employees. Jon got into cars when he was about 13 years old. His first car was a 1986 Ford Tempo that he worked on, but never got it to the road. His college car was a 1989 Chevy S10, which he beefed up by replacing the original 4 cylinder with a V8.
