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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  4694 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Kids don't care about cars as much as they used to.
Deloreans are available now, new:

http://delorean.com/

There were an assload of parts left over when John DeLorean got arrested. Those parts were bought up by Big Lots (you can't make this shit up). There are still plenty available.

Problem with the DeLorean is it's a miserable vehicle. It has half the engine it was supposed to and they leak. I've looked at buying them a few times, but the bottom line is they always suck. I've known people who own them; they say it's kind of like driving a really cool-looking station wagon.

The Lamborghini Countach, by comparison, is a wild'n'wooly vehicle. It was Lamborghini's second rear-engined car (after the Miura, a lovely machine that commands a substantial premium over the Countach these days), Lamborghini's whole raison d'etre (Old Man Lamborghini, who had made a fortune building and selling farm equipment, took exception to Enzo Ferrari's assertion that rear-engined sports cars were too twitchy and dangerous to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public so he created his own). Marcello Gandini designed it before he really knew what the fuck he was doing - and he was given free reign to do all the goofy shit that he wasn't allowed to do on the Miura or Espada. This is the primary reason why the Countach is loved by "teenaged boys who are now in their 30s and 40s" but generally reviled by the automotive press - it sucks as a car.

The visibility is horrible. They're impossible to get into - the door sills are 18" wide. The windows only open 3". And they're made of lightweight enough aluminum that if you lean against the car you will dent it forever. Combine that with the fact that Lamborghini went broke making them - by 1985 the V12 had inch-tall deck plates to increase the stroke (and radically decrease the reliability of what is already a DOHC Italian V-12 with extremely problematic aspiration). Combined that with the fact that the original prototype didn't have nearly the cooling to satisfy said-same problematic Italian V12, and what you end up with is a sleek space ship covered in ridonkulous ducts everywhere.

And, of course, as performance "improved" the ducts got more ridonkulous. The 1988 Countach LP5000S has a higher drag coefficient - .41 - than the Camaro Iroc Z of the time. The little monsters got a whopping 4MPG, yet they couldn't go much over 150. They were far more "show" than "go" which is why you see lots of pictures of people around them, but rarely pictures of people in them.

That said, I have a soft spot in my heart for them simply because I grew up at the right time. For me, though, it's all about the original LP400:

http://autowallpapers.net/m/lamborghini/wallpaper/Lamborghin...

No stupid wings, no stupid bumpers, minimal ducting, and goddamn 70-series tires. That car came out the year before Starsky and Hutch. Some contemporaries:

http://www.carlustblog.com/2008/07/car-lust--1974.html

http://www.lovelyabandon.com/uploads/2011/04/amc_gremlin_74_...

(and a favorite: http://www.festivals-and-shows.com/images/1974-corvette-stin...)





ecib  ·  4693 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Growing up, one of my cousins has that same Vette as a show car. It was a deep midnight blue, with a bit of sparkle to the paint, and he had some ridiculous number of coats applied to achieve the finish. It was actually roped off and displayed at the Detroit Auto Show one year. He had the underside of the hood airbrushed so you could only see it when you were looking at the pristine engine, -a fully nude pinup portrait. I remember he had to put a sticker over each nipple while it was on display. Good times.
ecib  ·  4693 days ago  ·  link  ·  
This comment has been deleted.
mk  ·  4694 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Goddamn that 1974 corvette is my other dream car.

I had a dream where I had a silver one with maroon interior. I hate maroon.

I always wished this car was real: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coyote_024.JPG

kleinbl00  ·  4694 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Watchoo talkin' about, Willis? That's just a mild iteration on the McLaren Mk 6GT:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_M6A

They were just space frames with fiberglass bodies and a Chevy V8. Granted, they were these things in a combination that did pretty damn well on the race track. The Manta Mirage, one of the most popular kit cars ever made, is a pseudo-okay knock-off:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manta_Mirage

They aren't the best, however. There was a company called Marauder Cars whose replicas were faithful enough that they got certified for vintage racing. I've been next to one at the Vintage Races (didn't get to sit in it) and they're fucking works of art:

http://www.kitcars.com/classifieds/addetails.asp?classified_...

(they were active from '91 to around '97 or so; a shame because they also had a rippin' Lola T70 and a Porsche 917 that were also stupid accurate).

There are finished versions of said-same available for not too much money, comparatively speaking:

http://www.carpictures.com/McLaren/-M6-GT-by-Active-Power-Ca...

http://www.mclaren69.com/coupe.html

Along those lines, the one I keep toying with is a Factory Five GTM:

http://www.factoryfive.com/table/ffrkits/GTM/GTMkit.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofafHe5tlI (The GT Malan is just a GTM built by Alan Fuckhead)

...and then I realize that for the money of a finished GTM, my dad bought a fucking airplane and then I think maybe that's too much to spend on a car.

http://www.airmodsflightcenter.com/forsale/N6984V#/sites/air...