RossD
SuperDork
8/4/11 12:29 p.m.
I started thinking about all the neat things you could get in vehicles and when they happened. It seems for the Big Three, that most of the 'cool stuff' happend in the '50s and '60s.
My arguements:
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Chevies with Fuel Injection
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Pontiac Tempest with a rear transaxle
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Aluminum V8 Buicks
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Aluminum Slant Six Mopars
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Ford had Lotus design DOHC Ally head for the Kent
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The Corvair (rear engine, turbo)
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The Corvette (IRS, Fiberglass, Fuel Injection)
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The Hemi
My list appears to have more GM stuff on it. Maybe its was GM's Engineering golden age...
Side note: I think Toyota (and maybe other Japanese companies) had a similar periord but that was in the '80s.
What else am I missing?
Am I off my preverbial rocker?
What does GRM think?
Raze
Dork
8/4/11 12:36 p.m.
RossD wrote:
What does GRM think?
I try not to, makes life more palatable...
T.J.
SuperDork
8/4/11 1:01 p.m.
Ford winning LeMans with the GT40. The Daytona Coupe winning it's class at LeMans.
tuna55
SuperDork
8/4/11 1:01 p.m.
Since then most gains seem to come from driveability, fit and finish, NVH and emissions. It's been huge gains in each but it's not exactly exciting.
Engineering? Today. Every year is better than the previous from an engineering point of view.
Early to mid-1990's are kind of my personal sweet spot. It's the beginning of truly reliable cars that'd do 200K miles without fuss, with modern fuel injection and reasonable safety features like airbags and ABS, but still before they got numb and full of nanny systems and stupid nav/entertainment systems that can't be removed or upgraded to be useful. Take your pick of the semi-exotic european cars that offered real driving engagement without the troubles that a mid-1980's car might have had: E34/E39 M5, E30/E36 M3, Audi 20v turbo UrS4/S6, MB 500E, etc. It was a pretty damn good time for Japanese cars, too. American cars? Not so much.
1990s - Semi-automatic transmissions....
RossD
SuperDork
8/4/11 3:30 p.m.
Maybe what I should have said was engineering inventiveness or creativity. It just seems like there are relatively little cars made today that break the mold of whats the current trends are.
Direct Injection. More power, more mileage...win/win.
Then there are always 4-door 5 seat cars with 470 hp that'll smoke the F.I. chebbie in every aspect. I'm not saying the 50's and 60's wasn't cool, but we've made HUGE jumps today.
I just don't like all the jumps (lane departure warning, smart cruise, blind-spot monitoring etc.)
More for GM's golden era: the front-wheel-drive 66 Olds Toronado with a longitudinal V8 and a chain-drive tested for a million miles.
Fit_Is_Slo wrote:
Cone_Junky wrote:
Direct Injection. More power, more mileage...win/win.
more problems..
How so? My Mazdaspeed3 has been very reliable, and we're talking about a car with a D.I. engine with lots o' boost and somewhat weak internals. The only inherent problem with D.I. cars is carbon buildup on the intake valves because they don't get "washed" by the air-fuel charge. Even then, it's relatively minor and nothing a good Seafoaming won't fix.
