In the beginning of hemmings they usually cover an auction or two with analysis of a few selected cars from the auction.
This month they reviewed the sale of a 1987 Buick GNX, which sold for some $75 or $80k. I was surprised what they said about it. I can't repeat it verbatim, but from what I remember they said:
1. It was a very tame car. (TAME they said! Those bastards!)
2. It used to be considered quick 25 years ago but today it is totally irrelevant.
3. Because it has 5 horsepower less than a Buick Lacrosse, it is not even fast enough to be a family car. bad that it makes new car finishes look like show cars.
Or something to that effect. And they said a few other disparaging things about it, all driving the point home that the gnx is not fast, not even fast enough for basic transportation. And it is made with terrible quality. They made no mention of the 80k selling price or what the market had obviously said by bidding that high. (you don't generally pay $80k for terrible slow 1980's cars not even suitable for general transport)
I was pretty annoyed by the whole thing. Very annoyed. I know buick and pontiac play 2nd fiddle to chevy and ford, and now they even play 2nd fiddle to mitsubishi and subaru, hyundai and every SUV, but this was going too far.
I am the first guy to say that our cars (and I am lumping our cars in with gnx's for this discussion) are not as dominant as they used to be, what with 640hp vettes at the chevy dealer and so forth. But they were still quicker and faster than almost all the muscle cars that came before them, even when those muscle cars had over 400hp. And huge v8 motors. I don't see them saying hemi cudas are irrelevant and slower than a buick lacrosse, do I? Yet most hemi cudas ran 13's in magazine tests just like our cars. (and I know they can go faster on race gas, and so forth but so can our cars).
Also, about these horsepower numbers. I have seen horsepower numbers increasing for years and years, and very rarely does the performance match our cars let alone exceed it. Today, 23 years later, we have new camaros and dodge challengers, with 430+ net hp, with 6.2 liter v8's, that can not match our cars 0-60 or 1/4 mile e.t. They can't match our top speed either, because of their tree-hugger/pinko/meathead speed limiters. Yes some can do higher mph in 1/4 mi, but with 23 years of technological progress, 190hp extra, 2 extra gears, 150 extra cubic inches, and direct drive, I would hope that they could at least do something better. After all we are comparing them to a Ronald Reagan cold war era v-6 automatic in full emmissions trim, in a family oriented full frame 5 passenger buick. Or a tta. take your pick. I just read a test of a 550hp Mustang Shelby GT500, where it did 0-60 in 4.75 seconds. Our car did 4.6 with 245hp. They have 305 extra horsepower and still can't match the performance of a 25 year old v6 family car. These horsepower ratings are useless if the cars can't do anything with them. I remember, when the lt1 firebirds, camaros and vettes came out. With 275-300hp. And v8, 6-speeds all these fancy modern things. I beat the hell out of every one of them and even got a license plate that said lt1 eatr. Then it was the ls1. great. 305-350hp. Still beat them. In real and in the magazine tests. Now we have 425hp camaros, 435hp challengers, that still can't beat our cars. 550hp mustangs that can't match our 0-60 in the test I just read online here: Camaro SS: All Out Bonneville Unlimited Speed Test - Camaro5 Chevy Camaro Forum / Camaro ZL1, SS and V6 Forums - Camaro5.com
Dont tell me that because a buick lacrosse has 5hp more than a gnx that that has anything to do with anything else. If a camaro or challenger can't beat the gnx, certainly a lacrosse can't. (why do they mention that lacrosse anyway? I don't compare the breasts of pamela anderson to the breasts of a chicken at the grocery store, do I?)
I remember when I used to go to car shows and gawk at the 427/435 vettes with the tripower 4 speeds, no emmissions rat motors etc. I used to think that those vettes could surely thrash a turbo ta. I later learned what we all know which is, they can't. They run 13's just like all the other super muscle cars from the 60's. (yeah I know you can put slicks and advance the timing and put rocket fuel and open the headers and powershift and get solid motor mounts etc and run tens but dont get me started on the possibilities for speed with the turbo v6. And don't forget the v6 does it on less cylinders, less displacement, better fuel mileage, and no noxious emissions. And has air conditioning and can restart when it is hot without waiting an hour for it to cool off. And you can ride around without getting an immediate headache from exhaust.
About the paint. If the gnx had too much orange peel, that is the owners fault for not polishing it out. Ever heard of sand paper? don't give me that orange peel sh!t. The guy probably left it that way to increase the value with the fanatics and crazies who would rather have overspray, crayon marks, and bad panel gaps over a clean perfect car. These guys live for winning trophies and one upsmanship. I have seen an amc pacer win best of show over an L88 vette because of overspray and crayon marks.
Besides, most of todays finishes are so full of orange peel you can't see anything in them. And about the quality of the car. Are you kidding? Modern gm cars are so bad the company went bankrupt. They are made with mostly chinese parts, plastic engine parts, no chassis frames at all, very thin steel and mostly plastic bodies, and cant be expected to last more than a few years before going to the junkyard because of overly expensive repair bills. Just check your local junkyard, and there is a huge selection of 5-8 year old gm cars in beautiful condition except for the yellow plastic headlights. The owners can't stomach a $1000/month repair schedule. Once the warranty runs out, they break like crazy. All the chinese parts stop working, and because everything is connected to computers and data lines, you can't drive the car if everything is not working. And the dealers charge huge money to fix very small problems. These days the average alternator replacement cost is some $600.00. Imagine if something important went bad. These modern computerized shock absorbers are about $2500 to replace, and they go bad at about 60k miles, right about when the warranty is over and the car is not worth much money. corvette owners are helpless because they can't get the computer in their car to unlock the steering column, and there is nothing gm can do about it except remove the steering lock so there is no lock at all. And even then, the car can become inoperable because the computer needs to know that the column is unlocked. and sometimes it doesn't. For many different reasons.
What happened to the simple key/transmission/steering lock that served perfectly well from 1969 to 2002? Computers locking steering columns? Not very intellegent engineering. I guess a plastic, chinese, motor-actuated lock mechanism controlled by some chinese silicon chips is cheaper to buy than a piece of metal attached to a key tumbler in the column.
And you have to love mercedes with their brake by wire systems and worldwide recalls on that system when it fails, which it does repeatedly. Just imagine. If windows 7 crashes, you have no brakes. Real good, mercedes. Real good. Just google "mercedes nightmare" or Mercedes lemon disaster, or anything like that, and you will find hundreds of sites dedicated to documenting the horrible experiences people are having with these cars. (In case you don't know, mercedes benz used to make the most reliable, best engineered cars in the world, and these cars did not break and the people who bought them did so because they knew they would not break and that their resale value would be so high as to enable them to profit from the depreciation in their tax returns.
Anyway, today, with the new "terrible mercedes cars", These people spend $100,000 or more on a car that can't run for 30 days in a row, and has to get towed in an average of 14 times a year. For a brand new car under warranty. And then mercedes tries to get the customer to pay for the repairs instead of covering it under warranty. And these repairs range from $10,000-$30,000 each. Because of the chinese computers and the data lines. There is no wiring harness any more, with discrete circuits. It all goes through a single wire and a bunch of computers. Brake by wire. With billionaires behind the wheel. We are nearing soylent green territory here guys. What will happen next? modern 50 story skyscrapers imploding for no reason at 5 o clock in the afternoon? Oh yeah, that already happened.
This month they reviewed the sale of a 1987 Buick GNX, which sold for some $75 or $80k. I was surprised what they said about it. I can't repeat it verbatim, but from what I remember they said:
1. It was a very tame car. (TAME they said! Those bastards!)
2. It used to be considered quick 25 years ago but today it is totally irrelevant.
3. Because it has 5 horsepower less than a Buick Lacrosse, it is not even fast enough to be a family car. bad that it makes new car finishes look like show cars.
Or something to that effect. And they said a few other disparaging things about it, all driving the point home that the gnx is not fast, not even fast enough for basic transportation. And it is made with terrible quality. They made no mention of the 80k selling price or what the market had obviously said by bidding that high. (you don't generally pay $80k for terrible slow 1980's cars not even suitable for general transport)
I was pretty annoyed by the whole thing. Very annoyed. I know buick and pontiac play 2nd fiddle to chevy and ford, and now they even play 2nd fiddle to mitsubishi and subaru, hyundai and every SUV, but this was going too far.
I am the first guy to say that our cars (and I am lumping our cars in with gnx's for this discussion) are not as dominant as they used to be, what with 640hp vettes at the chevy dealer and so forth. But they were still quicker and faster than almost all the muscle cars that came before them, even when those muscle cars had over 400hp. And huge v8 motors. I don't see them saying hemi cudas are irrelevant and slower than a buick lacrosse, do I? Yet most hemi cudas ran 13's in magazine tests just like our cars. (and I know they can go faster on race gas, and so forth but so can our cars).
Also, about these horsepower numbers. I have seen horsepower numbers increasing for years and years, and very rarely does the performance match our cars let alone exceed it. Today, 23 years later, we have new camaros and dodge challengers, with 430+ net hp, with 6.2 liter v8's, that can not match our cars 0-60 or 1/4 mile e.t. They can't match our top speed either, because of their tree-hugger/pinko/meathead speed limiters. Yes some can do higher mph in 1/4 mi, but with 23 years of technological progress, 190hp extra, 2 extra gears, 150 extra cubic inches, and direct drive, I would hope that they could at least do something better. After all we are comparing them to a Ronald Reagan cold war era v-6 automatic in full emmissions trim, in a family oriented full frame 5 passenger buick. Or a tta. take your pick. I just read a test of a 550hp Mustang Shelby GT500, where it did 0-60 in 4.75 seconds. Our car did 4.6 with 245hp. They have 305 extra horsepower and still can't match the performance of a 25 year old v6 family car. These horsepower ratings are useless if the cars can't do anything with them. I remember, when the lt1 firebirds, camaros and vettes came out. With 275-300hp. And v8, 6-speeds all these fancy modern things. I beat the hell out of every one of them and even got a license plate that said lt1 eatr. Then it was the ls1. great. 305-350hp. Still beat them. In real and in the magazine tests. Now we have 425hp camaros, 435hp challengers, that still can't beat our cars. 550hp mustangs that can't match our 0-60 in the test I just read online here: Camaro SS: All Out Bonneville Unlimited Speed Test - Camaro5 Chevy Camaro Forum / Camaro ZL1, SS and V6 Forums - Camaro5.com
Dont tell me that because a buick lacrosse has 5hp more than a gnx that that has anything to do with anything else. If a camaro or challenger can't beat the gnx, certainly a lacrosse can't. (why do they mention that lacrosse anyway? I don't compare the breasts of pamela anderson to the breasts of a chicken at the grocery store, do I?)
I remember when I used to go to car shows and gawk at the 427/435 vettes with the tripower 4 speeds, no emmissions rat motors etc. I used to think that those vettes could surely thrash a turbo ta. I later learned what we all know which is, they can't. They run 13's just like all the other super muscle cars from the 60's. (yeah I know you can put slicks and advance the timing and put rocket fuel and open the headers and powershift and get solid motor mounts etc and run tens but dont get me started on the possibilities for speed with the turbo v6. And don't forget the v6 does it on less cylinders, less displacement, better fuel mileage, and no noxious emissions. And has air conditioning and can restart when it is hot without waiting an hour for it to cool off. And you can ride around without getting an immediate headache from exhaust.
About the paint. If the gnx had too much orange peel, that is the owners fault for not polishing it out. Ever heard of sand paper? don't give me that orange peel sh!t. The guy probably left it that way to increase the value with the fanatics and crazies who would rather have overspray, crayon marks, and bad panel gaps over a clean perfect car. These guys live for winning trophies and one upsmanship. I have seen an amc pacer win best of show over an L88 vette because of overspray and crayon marks.
Besides, most of todays finishes are so full of orange peel you can't see anything in them. And about the quality of the car. Are you kidding? Modern gm cars are so bad the company went bankrupt. They are made with mostly chinese parts, plastic engine parts, no chassis frames at all, very thin steel and mostly plastic bodies, and cant be expected to last more than a few years before going to the junkyard because of overly expensive repair bills. Just check your local junkyard, and there is a huge selection of 5-8 year old gm cars in beautiful condition except for the yellow plastic headlights. The owners can't stomach a $1000/month repair schedule. Once the warranty runs out, they break like crazy. All the chinese parts stop working, and because everything is connected to computers and data lines, you can't drive the car if everything is not working. And the dealers charge huge money to fix very small problems. These days the average alternator replacement cost is some $600.00. Imagine if something important went bad. These modern computerized shock absorbers are about $2500 to replace, and they go bad at about 60k miles, right about when the warranty is over and the car is not worth much money. corvette owners are helpless because they can't get the computer in their car to unlock the steering column, and there is nothing gm can do about it except remove the steering lock so there is no lock at all. And even then, the car can become inoperable because the computer needs to know that the column is unlocked. and sometimes it doesn't. For many different reasons.
What happened to the simple key/transmission/steering lock that served perfectly well from 1969 to 2002? Computers locking steering columns? Not very intellegent engineering. I guess a plastic, chinese, motor-actuated lock mechanism controlled by some chinese silicon chips is cheaper to buy than a piece of metal attached to a key tumbler in the column.
And you have to love mercedes with their brake by wire systems and worldwide recalls on that system when it fails, which it does repeatedly. Just imagine. If windows 7 crashes, you have no brakes. Real good, mercedes. Real good. Just google "mercedes nightmare" or Mercedes lemon disaster, or anything like that, and you will find hundreds of sites dedicated to documenting the horrible experiences people are having with these cars. (In case you don't know, mercedes benz used to make the most reliable, best engineered cars in the world, and these cars did not break and the people who bought them did so because they knew they would not break and that their resale value would be so high as to enable them to profit from the depreciation in their tax returns.
Anyway, today, with the new "terrible mercedes cars", These people spend $100,000 or more on a car that can't run for 30 days in a row, and has to get towed in an average of 14 times a year. For a brand new car under warranty. And then mercedes tries to get the customer to pay for the repairs instead of covering it under warranty. And these repairs range from $10,000-$30,000 each. Because of the chinese computers and the data lines. There is no wiring harness any more, with discrete circuits. It all goes through a single wire and a bunch of computers. Brake by wire. With billionaires behind the wheel. We are nearing soylent green territory here guys. What will happen next? modern 50 story skyscrapers imploding for no reason at 5 o clock in the afternoon? Oh yeah, that already happened.
)
