New Corvette!!!

[garcon]

Tristan, pick up your rattle and your teddy bear and put them back in your pram!



You can't give up on us like that. We were just getting started!

[Bluebottle]

Please do Trissy, but lets hear things from your own experiances and observations rather than those of journalists! That's why I tend to stick to comments about what cars look and sound like, cos I havn't driven many!

[Tristan]

Well, like I say - the fastest car I've driven is a Formula Palma Audi!! Woop de doo.

I guess it's just that American cars bring me out in an irrational rash.

Except every motoring journalist EVER has the same allergy.

[Dick Spanner]

Except for those who produce Classic American mag

A friend of mine own's a Merc E class and was lent an SLK while the E was in for servicing and his observation was that if he had closed his eyes while driving the SLK he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference, he would also have probably crashed! Point is, SLK is not the taut darty sport's car he wanted it to be.

Wrenching this post back on topic, wasn't the ZR1 quite a useful driving tool in it's day? I seem to remember it getting the usual build quality grumbles but being praised for the driving experience. Don't suppose anyone here's driven one?

[Tristan]

"SLK is not the taut darty sport's car he wanted it to be."

EXACTLY. I've never driven the thing, but I heard it's a hairdressers car to drive. AUTO ONLY, for chrissakes. It's old now too, so it's up for replacement next year.

SO THEN WHY IS CHRYSLER TRYING TO KID US WITH THIS STUPID STUPID CROSSBLADE AND TRYING TO CONVINCE ANYONE IT'S A "SPORTS" CAR??

But then in the US what's the competition?? Watered down BMWs?? A whoopee cuision?? I dunno, you tell me!!

[Lee Janotta]

BMW sells more than half of their "M" series production here, Tristan.

[Dick Spanner]

Off the top of my head, Skoda took the mark 4 blamange (golf) chassis and produced the Octavia RS which by all accounts (going on mag review's, never driven either) is a car that handles pretty well, Seat managed the same trick with the Leon. Who's to say that Chrysler's chassis engineers can't polish a 3 pointed turd?

[Bluebottle]

True, sharing a floorpan and mechanical layout dosn't mean sharing handling traits, all you modders out there will know how you can drasticly change how a car feels to drive just by uprating a few components.
By the way, I went looking but I couldn't find anything on t'net about the Crossblade- all I found was stuff about the Smart Crossblade (saw one of those the other day, looks more like a dodgem car than the convertable Ka does.. )

[Tristan]

Oh what's it called. The Chrysler... Ducksarse. I dunno.

My point is - this car is being hailed as some kind of "return to the great American sports cars" and yet has a stupid V8 and a dated chassis that was never that good anyway, and CERTAINLY not designed with any entertainment value in mind. If the best car the US can produce is that sodding Corvette, that's pretty poor, IMO.

AND IT DOESN'T FINISH THERE!! US IN EUROPE HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THE STUPID DEMANDS OF THE US PUBLIC. Take the Jaguar XK8 - pitched as the new E-Type. As it turned out it was anything but. Designed for the US market, it's softly sprung and has a boot the size of an aircraft hanger (actually, I exaggerate - the boot is precisely big enough to carry two sets of golf clubs. According to Jaguar, this is a pre-requisite for success in the US) and thus looks silly. Instead of being a true replacement for the values that the E-Type represent, we instead have to put up with a car designed to transport the population of Florida to and from their local driving range. Only after the release of the European-pitched XKR-R that a half decent car came out of the project, even if it does have an awful arse.

Lee - but they're softened up for the US market. The suspension geometry on a US-spec beemer is utterly different to that of a European model. It's like saying Ferrari sell the majority of their 575s in the US - true, they're softened out. In Europe almost all the cars sold are "Fiorano" models.


I KNOW I'M RIGHT!! I WILL SWING YOU OVER TO MY SIDE!! ALL AMERICAN CARS ARE RUBBISH!!

[JonesF1]

The Crossfire is the new pinnacle of American sportscars? Bull****! I wonder what Chryslers journalist bribe budget is.

[Bluebottle]

Originally posted by Tristan
stupid V8

Oxymoron!

[garcon]

Originally posted by Bluebottle
Oxymoron!

Is that a mentally challenged bull?

Tristan, you can't possibly mean what you said. So it must be flame-bait!

Mods! Banish him to EERO's cupboard at once!

"Stupid V8" indeed!

[Tristan]

When I say "V8" I reffer to it in terms of the American meaning of the word (kinda like a "hood" in the UK is something attached to a coat to keep your head dry, not a bonnet or indeed the place where you grew up). In the US, a V8 weighs three tonnes, is made from cast iron, has a rev limiter at 1500rpm and has a fuel economy of 3mpg. It doesn't "run", it warbles. Any power that it manages to wheeze out of its fifty year old frame is lost in its mating to a three speed automatic "gear box", which is in fact a small Mexican boy operating some levers. Slowly.

A "V8" isn't the same as a V8.

[Lee Janotta]

Tristan, have a drink, calm down, you're scaring me.

[garcon]

Tristan, you may be horribly misguided, but that was q

[garcon]

Right - what's the hot key for posting a post then? I just posted that halfway through writing a sente

[garcon]

[garcon]

What I meant to say was...

Tristan, you may be horribly misguided, but that was very funny.

For you.

[Bluebottle]

Indeed, another great post from the Jeremy Clarkson school of writing

[Tristan]

See how they bang their heads as an admission of inferiority??

Tristan wins again...

[gttouring]

most american cars are rubbish- but leave the Z06 Vette and Viper out of this, maybe the new Mustang Cobra- oh wait the Gt40, oh the old Gt40 as well...SRT-4 turbo, Oh i am sorry only **** comes from here, tell me why again.... The US does have some good offereings, unless you want to pair a Vaux-can't-haul with The Neon SRT4 or a rover moves like my dog...Even Italy where cars are glorious comes ****- like the punto and hmm what other Fiat or alfa...Oh I mean the VW fox german ****, or the SEAT, I mean the renault or citroen...
SEE THE POINT? Garbage comes from evrywhere and at certain times a shining turd does come from these manufacturers and sadly it often shares the same nameplate. I happen to love my Locost, British by soul American by donor parts- and i have spanked many a porsche and BMW with it, even a silly Vette. Open you mind people, a good example shows up once in a while even a turd (porsche 924) from a great arse

[Bluebottle]

Originally posted by Tristan
See how they bang their heads as an admission of inferiority??

Tristan wins again...

(10 tenths rule: attack the post, not the poster...)

That post is an idiot!

[Smokey 6 litre]

i do like the Corvette C5, and the Convertible Corvette that Christ Tucker drove in Rush Hour, unfortunatly due to Mr Kelletes technical wizardry i'm unable to see the images or load the sites, damn him.

[Dick Spanner]

Originally posted by Tristan
When I say "V8" I reffer to it in terms of the American meaning of the word (kinda like a "hood" in the UK is something attached to a coat to keep your head dry, not a bonnet or indeed the place where you grew up). In the US, a V8 weighs three tonnes, is made from cast iron, has a rev limiter at 1500rpm and has a fuel economy of 3mpg. It doesn't "run", it warbles. Any power that it manages to wheeze out of its fifty year old frame is lost in its mating to a three speed automatic "gear box", which is in fact a small Mexican boy operating some levers. Slowly.

A "V8" isn't the same as a V8.

Sorry Tristan, I want to agree I really do, but I give you exhibit A. The Rover V8 - Or rather the 1961 Buick built V8. Lightweight, cast from aluminium and powered myriad British car's from Range rover's to TVR's from 1969 through to... er not long ago! In it's ultimate guise it was cut down into a V6, turbocharged and put into the Metro 6R4 and formed the basis for the motor in the Jaguar XJ220 (Not a lot of people know that!) And all from an american "V8".

(Maybe of interest to some, apparently the Repco Brabham engine which won Jack Brabham the championship was based on the early Buick version.)

[krt917]

Fantastic! This argument has entertained me more than ost of the other threads put together

I agree with some of your sentiments Tristan. My own little pet-hate about Americam motorists is their insistance on using 15mpg 4x4 Bricks to go to the shops, burning all the world's resources whilst telling the rest of us to stop it! Then again, we're starting to do the first bit ourselves!

However, some US cars ARE good. I wouldn't say know to a Viper, for example, and I'm afraid Dick has a point about their engines too.

Now, which one of the sides is going to shoot me down in flames!?