1987 Car and Driver "Hot-Shot Shoot-Out"

jetsetter

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Seren?sima Rep?blica de California
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1997 BMW 528i
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Wow, I didn't know Car and Driver was in Honda's pocket since I was born.
 
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And what's with their use of a B-70 in the background, the overweight muscle car of the Mach 3 crowd? They should've had a Starfighter instead. End airplane pedantry.
 
Thanks for the interesting read.
All these articles from the 80s and early 90s make me wonder - what has happened to the American driving style in the past decade? Why most new american vehicles didn't even have the option for a manual gearbox, or if they did it was a rarity?
 
If we still had steering wheels like that, I'd end my self.
 
Speaking of Pontiacs...

Friend had a 1989 Firebird GTA with virtually the same seats (except they were leather) as the ones in the Sunbird; We drove down to St. Louis from Wisconsin and never once was I uncomfortable. Actually, those seats were top notch.
See, GM can never make an extraordinary overall car, just a few extraordinary features on a car.

The Sunfire I used to own? It was a piece of junk, but by far the best throttle feel and control I have felt in ANY car, and I have driven a few exotics in my time. It was almost telepathic.
 
It's amazing to think that some people actually considered some of those to be fast cars, especially when most modern lawn mowers have more power.
 
Thanks for the interesting read.
All these articles from the 80s and early 90s make me wonder - what has happened to the American driving style in the past decade? Why most new american vehicles didn't even have the option for a manual gearbox, or if they did it was a rarity?

It was heading for an almost-all-automatic-trans market back in the 60s and 70s, then we had the two gas crises and the unwashed masses went to manual cars as a money/fuel saving option.

Now, we could all have stayed there, but then city traffic got *really* bad, so people went back to auto boxes even on econoboxen because sitting in traffic with a manual can suck.
 
It's amazing to think that some people actually considered some of those to be fast cars, especially when most modern lawn mowers have more power.

Yeah, but those modern law mowers weight as much as jupiter.
 
It was heading for an almost-all-automatic-trans market back in the 60s and 70s, then we had the two gas crises and the unwashed masses went to manual cars as a money/fuel saving option.

Now, we could all have stayed there, but then city traffic got *really* bad, so people went back to auto boxes even on econoboxen because sitting in traffic with a manual can suck.

People here are lazy.
 
Yep I know the Honda is good (my mate had one) but I would have preferred the GTI actually. The other stuff I have not encountered.
 
People here are lazy.

There's some of that, but there's also the whole "have to replace clutches every 30,000 miles because of the 60-mile-each-way commute between Orange County and Pasadena that takes three hours and involves lots of clutch slippage" issue...
 
There's some of that, but there's also the whole "have to replace clutches every 30,000 miles because of the 60-mile-each-way commute between Orange County and Pasadena that takes three hours and involves lots of clutch slippage" issue...

Who makes that commute (anymore?) they all moved to San Bernardino and further :p
 
My stepmother did for years and years. *I* made that commute for a while, so I wouldn't have to transfer high schools mid semester. So did a bunch of other people in LB and HB.

Which, of course, explains why I got into motorcycles so early - motorcycles are the only thing going more than 20mph on LA freeways in rush hour. :D
 
People are lazy.

FTFY. If people weren't lazy, they wouldn't have invented the wheel, not to mention the car.

But they're also cheap, which is why manual boxes are so popular in Europe. In the states, the extra fuel needed for using a bigger engine to haul a slushmobile around was simply inconsiquential, hence the slushbox popularity.
 
See, GM can never make an extraordinary overall car, just a few extraordinary features on a car.

The Sunfire I used to own? It was a piece of junk, but by far the best throttle feel and control I have felt in ANY car, and I have driven a few exotics in my time. It was almost telepathic.

I completely agree. My first car was a '91 Saturn SL1, and it was, admittedly, not a car to get the adrenaline flowing and the heart really pumping, BUT the manual transmission in that thing shifted better than many modern mid-range cars I've driven. Clutch was responsive, but not too grabby, and shifts were light, quick, and well-defined. Never missed a gear, always hit the downshift, and LOVED every minute driving it.
 
The Sunfire I used to own? It was a piece of junk, but by far the best throttle feel and control I have felt in ANY car, and I have driven a few exotics in my time. It was almost telepathic.

It's the same way with my 1990 Grand Am (which I think is on similar if not the same architecture?). Overall it isn't the best car in the world, but damn if it doesn't tell you what it's doing at any given moment.
 
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