Some folks just don’t get it

I’ve got a bone to pick with someone right now and that someone is Fiat. What possible reason could I have? How about the new direction they’re taking the 2012 Dodge Viper in. They’ve announced that it’s going to be much sleeker and luxury focused than the predecessor; many are speculating it will be based on the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione. Now you may be asking yourself, “So whats wrong with that? It sounds like a kick ass car.” Well now, let me explain.

This is not what a Viper should be

Those who have read my other posts have a sense of how I feel about the Dodge Viper. I had dedicated a whole post to the car on the day the last one rolled off the production line. But now, everything that I love about the Viper, everything right with the Viper, everything American about the Viper is about to be thrown out the window by some snooty espresso drinking Europeans. A Dodge Viper based around Luxury? This car has never been about luxury, it’s been about the basics and doing them well. What the new ownership of Chrysler don’t realize is that the Viper is based on very humble beginnings. Built on basically leftover parts in an attempt to recreate a modern version of the Shelby Cobra. So they went with the basics and it worked well. A thunderous V10 engine, 6 speed manual, rear wheel drive and nothing else. Why? because it didn’t need anything else.

This is what a real Viper is

However, now they’re trying to jam this thing full of what they think is refinement and class when everything about this nameplate speaks otherwise. This car was the blue collar worker of the super car world. Nothing fancy or opulent, just a real meat and potatoes approach in a world of caviar and truffles. It’s like if Coca Cola started making champagne and selling it under the same name. We’re not stupid, we know it’s not the same so don’t insult us and tell us it is. And don’t even try to tell us it’s just a better version, because it’s not.

I’m not condemning this new “Viper” completely, I mean hell, it sounds like it has potential to be a great car. But it’s not a Viper, therefore it shouldn’t be called that. I had this very same issue when Dodge took the sacred Charger nameplate and slapped it on a 4 door family sedan (although one could argue that Dodge already soiled the Charger name in the 80′s).

But I think the real issue here is a lack of understanding. Understanding from the Europeans about what an iconic American car is and symbolizes. This isn’t the first time a cool American car has been given the ax after being taken over by Europeans. Ever hear of the Dodge T-Rex? Quite possibly the most beastly and over the top truck Dodge has ever considered making. It was a 6×6 (yes thats 6×6 not 4×4) powered by the same V10 out of the present Viper. At the time, it made the Hummer H1 look like a chump to me (that’s saying a lot because I’ve always thought the H1 was the most badass truck ever). I really don’t care if you think it’s like a rednecks dream ride, because you have no appreciation of the engineering genius that went into building this things drive train, seriously go do some research on it. So why did it not go into production? When Daimler took over Chrysler they couldn’t understand why they would build such a thing, nor who would buy it (I would, and probably half the NFL players too). But what they failed to do is understand that America needs it’s balls to the wall, bringing-a-machine-gun-to-a-fistfight type cars and trucks.

Awesome? I think yes

At the risk of sounding ethnocentric, this is America and we do things a certain way here. We like our loud, insane V10 muscle cars that kick you in the ass and make you cry about it after. We like our giant trucks that could run on crushed Smart Cars for fuel and we don’t like it when someone who doesn’t understand the history and value behind an iconic name tries to change it into something it’s not. Bottom line, Europe, this is my warning to you: Don’t mess with our beloved, over the top, raw and unrefined muscle cars and giant trucks….

P.S. To our armed forces, we haven’t forgot about you. Keep up the good work!

Go America! and God bless our men and women overseas

It’s fun to dream

Every so often a certain car gets in my head and occupies my thoughts for the next few weeks. Night and day I imagine going and and buying that car and plan out every little detail of what I would do to it to customize it. There have been dozens of cars that have gone through my mind in this situation (this is how I ended up with my 1997 Mercedes S500 awhile ago), and its a good thing I don’t ever have the money to go out and buy one because I would be the worst compulsive buyer. Usually the desire passes within 2-3 weeks and I accept that I won’t be buying the car and move on with my life. However, there has been one thats stuck in my mind for a few years now and doesn’t seem to want to budge: an 02-06 White Diamond Cadillac Escalade.

I can’t put my finger on one specific reason I have an obsession with this truck, but I can give you a couple that definitely have something to do with it.

1) It’s a Cadillac: Ever since I turned 16 and my very first car was a 1970 Cadillac Sedan Deville, I have been in love with the brand. Up until a couple years ago I would have to explain to others that I was only a fan of classic Cadillacs, as the modern ones had the stigma of cars for old retirees. In my opinion in was the 2002 Escalade and the CTS that cracked the mold on that stigma, allowing the next generation of those vehicles to completely break through it and me to claim my loyalty to both old and new.

2) It’s a truck based SUV: Remember the late 90′s and early 2000′s when SUV’s were the big fad and everyone had to have one? I do, and I kinda miss it. Nowadays SUV’s are shrinking and almost all new ones coming out are car based crossovers. Theres nothing wrong with that if thats what the average consumer wants, but being a fairly big guy myself, its not what I want. Spacious and roomy, most everyone would be comfortable in an Escalade. Why do you think almost everyone in the NBA or NFL has one? (seriously Cadillac, you guys should work out with some kind of sponsorship deal with them).

3)It’s powerful: For the past 2-3 decades GM has had a reputation of making sub par cars, however two things they’ve done well are trucks and big displacement push rod V8 engines. The second generation Escalade is no exception to this. Standard with a 6 liter Vortec engine, they were rated at 345 horsepower and offered plenty of power to move all that truck. Still not enough power for you? This engine was also used in the Hummer H2, GMC Yukon and Chevy Tahoe and a wide variety of after market performance parts are available ranging from air intakes to superchargers to headers. Still not enough? check this out then.

4) It looks amazing: This part is easily the most subjective being that it’s solely based on my opinion. However the general consensus is that it ain’t bad lookin. I never found a color they came in that I didn’t like, but my two hands down favorite are electric blue (which was only offered on the EXT) and the white diamond. To me, they just have such a high class presence that can command your attention on the road (this would be more true if there weren’t so many out there already). It’s angular and bold, which is more my style. I’m not such a fan of soft curves on big trucks which is why I’m not crazy about the current generation Escalade.

Someday soon I hope to get an 05-06 white diamond AWD model. From there my basic plans include a 3″/4″ drop, roll pan in rear, smoked taillights, 24″ rims with white accents, 10% tints in the back, 30% in the front, air intake, headers, full exhaust, ported and polished heads and manifolds, camshaft, supercharger, exhaust cutouts, performance mufflers, high flow cats and ecu flash upgrade (obviously I haven’t given this truck too much thought, I didn’t even include any upgrades to the interior). But until that day comes, I’ll have to keep dreaming

So much armor an armadillo would be jealous

Like the Ford F150 Raptor but worried about its capabilities to withstand small arms fire? Fear no more because Hennessey Performance Engineering has the solution for you, the 2012 VelociRaptor Armored SUV. Starting with the standard Raptor, the truck is converted into an SUV to accommodate more passengers comfortably. Then they add armor, and plenty of it. Applying armor strong enough to withstand gunfire to an SUV can add anywhere between 6,000-10,000 pounds of weight, usually leaving armored cars slow and sluggish. Hennessey’s solution? Use their extensive tunning and performance background to bump the horsepower up to 575 using means of forced induction.

Now I can’t quite figure out the market for a truck like this except drug runners trying to smuggle drugs in across a desert border. Smaller engined versions start at $38,000 and the larger 6.2 liter (the obvious choice in my opinion) starts at around $42,000, the performance upgrade starts at about $10,000 and the armoring can be an additional tens of thousands of dollars due to the high level of fabrication necessary to make the conversion. I wasn’t able to track down an official price of the truck, but I would say it will definitely be in the $100k+ range, as most armored vehicles are.

As badass as this truck sounds, say you want something just a little bit more practical to ride around in while taking small arms fire from attackers, well you don’t even have to leave the state of Texas because Texas Armoring Corp has you covered. These guys have been doing commercial and private armored vehicles for years and have a reputation as one of the better companies out there. They can fix up your car to withstand anything from a 9mm handgun all the way up to military assault rifles with armor piercing rounds. Better yet, they’ll do it on any vehicle you want. So say you want the security of an armored car but don’t want to call attention to yourself in a high profile Escalade or Mercedes S65, you can bring in your Jeep Cherokee and let them take care of it.

Armored car technology has made some major strides over the past decades and will no doubt continue to progress. We may not be able to go out and get our Aston Martins and BMW’s retrofitted like James Bond’s with rocket launchers behind the headlights, ejector seats, smoke screens, oil slicks, self repairing tires, saws popping up under the hood emblem, multiple rotating license plates, the ability to convert into an airplane or submarine, cement blasters, retractable skis or the ability to drive it from a cell phone, but someday soon we may start to see similar looking things.

We can only hope someday we can have a car as cool as his. His actual smoothness however, probably not

Why the BMW 3 series is so popular

The other day I went with my friend to help him buy a car. This was his first car he’s ever bought and wasn’t too familiar with the process, so I offered to help him out. I was trying to get a feel of what exactly he was looking for so I asked him some of the basic questions I would ask to anybody buying a car. “Do you want comfort, sport, looks or a combination of those?” “Are there any particular brands or models that you like?” and most importantly “What don’t you want?”. After the brief Q and A round we arrived at one answer that met all the qualities he was looking for, a BMW 3 series.

Personally, I’m not a BMW guy. They’re great cars and they perform excellent, but they’re not for me. When I was younger, I was actually a big fan of these cars. Recently I almost acquired a 1997 740iL and in my early childhood I wanted nothing more than a black 1988 BMW M3. I had planned out all the details of what I wanted, down to the brand of wheels I was going to get when I got it ( A couple years later my uncle introduced me to his 1973 Dodge Charger with a built 383 and I saw the light and became an avid muscle car enthusiast. But this is beside the point). Now it seems like as I get older, I get more put off from these cars. Not by the actual cars themselves, but by the people who buy them. Maybe I’m letting a few bad apples ruin the whole apple orchard, but a BMW “enthusiast” is one of the most annoying car types out there in my opinion. Now If you are a BMW fan, don’t close out the page just yet, I’m simply stating my views, and I invite you to do the same in the comments or email me (I’m always welcoming for car debates).

So what is it about the 3 series that makes it so popular amongst both the average consumer and car enthusiasts? Let me tell you. It starts with the look of the car, BMW has done a nice job blending hard angles with soft curves to create a good looking car. However they didn’t go overboard with it and create something so extreme that it creates a love it or hate it feeling amongst people (i.e the Nissan Joke…I mean Juke). Previous generations of the car have followed a similar formula, keeping the styling understated, but with just enough flair to make it stand out a little more so than most other sedans or coupes on the road. Moving on to the interior, these cars are definitely nice. One would expect that since BMW is a luxury car, the interiors would live up to certain standards. I’ve always thought the interiors were good and felt like they were constructed with solid material and have some detail to them. However I’ve always felt like the materials they use are a bit rough for what I would expect in a luxury car, but I guess BMW chooses to do that because they want to distinguish themselves as a drivers luxury car, not some cushy luxo sled. Pricing on these cars also helps to further my case. Brand new a 3 series goes from usually around the mid $30′s on up to probably high $40′s maybe occasionally into the $50′s, but for the most part they aren’t overwhelmingly expensive by comparison to other BMW’s. 2-3 year old used ones in good condition can be picked up for mid to high $20′s opening them up to a broader market. You don’t have to be a high roller executive to be able to pick one of these up, just someone with a decent paying job and a sound sense of financial responsibility.

The final, and probably most important aspect, of what makes the 3 series stand out is the performance of the car. Over it’s lifespan it’s won countless awards and been the starting point of many tuners to create well performing machines. This couldn’t be accomplished if the car couldn’t perform so well to start out. Being a smaller car it’s very nimble and agile, you always feel like you can maneuver through just about any situation with ease. In addition they also feel very stable and tight during cornering to where losing traction takes a back seat in your mind. They don’t stay as tight as a comparable Audi A4 or S4 might because the Audi holds the AWD over it, but still well for a RWD car. Engine choices come in a wide enough range to offer whatever level of performance you may want. Even the low end 328i of the current generation offers a decent amount of get up and go, but I’ve always felt that they’re quick through the first couple gears, but then responsiveness drops significantly. I’ve never gotten the chance to spend much time behind the wheel of the top of the line M3, and I’m sure thats not an issue at all with it, but for the sake of sticking to the topic and my knowledge base I’m going to ignore the M3.

All in all it’s a very well built car thats hard to not like, despite what you think of the pretentious, stubborn, any car sucks if its not a BMW because you don’t fully appreciate the driving dynamics and culture of what it truly means to own a BMW unless you have one therefore I’m better than you because I drive a BMW and you don’t drive a BMW and I drool at the thought of spending $2000 on anything carbon fiber that will make my car look shiny and fast even though my car isn’t actually fast enough for a rear diffuser and front lip spoiler to be effective…. type owner. It gives me hope to see that a car with some substance is still popular among the masses. Sometimes I lose faith when I drive down the street and all I see are Camrys, Corollas and Civics, I wonder when people decided to stop buying cars with some excitement and go for ones more bland than buttered noodles. They may not be the American muscle cars that I love and cherish, buy those boys over in Munich have been building a solid car for years, now lets hope they have a saying in Germany like they do here:

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”

Why you shouldn’t bag your everyday car

Alright so I’m back from vacation and I feel its time for a few tweaks for the website. The layout will still be pretty much the same, but it’s time to update the content and make some changes. So before I begin, yes I am using a new tool for my blog posts. I felt that this would be a cleaner and easier set up to use, let me know what you think of it.

I’m still figuring out all the different tools and resources of this blog tool, so bear with me for a bit. Instead of having a topic that I make points and give insight about, I’m going to tell you a story. A story about why you shouldn’t do air suspension on your daily driver.

If you follow my blog, then you know my daily driven car is a 1996 Chevy Impala SS on airbags. Now when I bought the car a few years ago it already had bags on the rear but not on the front. This would cause problems for me whenever I would encounter bumps or pot holes in the road as my car would dip down and my tires would rub the wheel wells in the front. I had always planned to get bags back on the front to eliminate this problem, but as fate would have it, I had to do it sooner than expected. I actually chronicled this event last year with the whole fiasco of trying to drive the car from Arizona to LA and having a bag blow out on me twice.

So being my young, foolish and stupid self, I decided that it was the perfect time to have my whole system redone. I’m talking dual compressors and air tanks, bigger air lines and bags all the way around, show quality stuff. Now I could have been rational and just said “get rid of the bags on the back and I’ll go with a standard suspension”, but the little kid in me was too excited at the coolness of being able to pull up to my destination and set the car on the ground as I hear the “pshhh” from the air being let out. So I have the car for a while and I love it, I completely ignore the fact that the car rides very harsh and I have minimal dampening so the car almost literally floats down the road. There have been times driving on the 405 freeway where I hit a series of bumps that are so bad my car actually gains air in the front from a combination of the rebound of the bags and another bump in the road.

Moving past that, recently I had a bag go out on me again only this time in the front. And yet again, I had an ordeal just getting the car into the shop (trying to drive a car with the front end near slammed on the ground is not a fun experience). I get the car there and come to find out that the spring pocket had not been cut out deep enough and the airbag had been rubbing on the frame, therefore making a hole in it. I got that fixed and it did ride a little better, but I still have no dampening whatsoever.

So my bottom line is this. I love having a bagged car, it’s fun, flashy and gets my friends talking about my car. However, in retrospect I would not do it again. Airbags are a fun thing to have on a weekend cruiser or even your secondary “sunny day” car, but I would advise against doing it on a car you drive everyday. If you were planning on doing it, and I’ve been unable to convince you, just heed my advice: make sure you have them done properly, you will pay dearly if you don’t and be prepared to feel every pot hole, bump, crack, dip and uneven transition in the road.