Tangentially, the 3rd generation F-body design sure has aged gracefully. I think that may have been one of the high water marks of GM styling. They fruited some of the last ones up with too much aero gingerbread and fake scoopery, and then went whole hog with the study hall doodle/Texas lawn dart proportions of the 4th generation.
The 4th gen cars were better in every way, and some of the best bang-for-the-buck performance deals ever, but I can't see pulling into valet parking at a formal affair in one, unless you were crashing the party like something out of a Dee Snyder video.
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No spinners.
ReplyDeleteYes, the F was one of the things GM left blissfully alone, for the most part, and it paid off. Some people will always strive to make a car "Their own" by personalizing it, and when you stand back and look at a ride with 36" rims and tires like rubber bands wrapped around a tin can, and say "This car is ME!" you are letting all the world know just who "Me" is. And you should stay away.
My fave was always the 4wd craze of the 70's and early 80's. Had a co-worker that wrecked his big block lifted Chevy Truck, and bought the hearse from the local funeral home, and just welded it onto the old truck frame. The wheels lined up with the wheel wells. That boy got more goth tail than he could shake his moneymaker at, before goth was a thing. We all looked at his 4wd hears and shook our heads, and he laughed and drove off with a carload of girls.
Excellent point... I remember watching one of those with the roller skate wheels break BOTH front hubs off on a bump on I-5 many years ago... Thankfully it didn't cause a massive wreck, but he came damn close!
ReplyDelete3rd-gen Camaros look cool, but (and I'm aware that this marks me as a weirdo) I never really warmed up to the looks of the Firebird variants.
ReplyDeleteI never owned a 3rd gen Camaro, but I had a 4th gen from before they figured out that the base model should have a 3800 V6 at a minimum. Ours had a 3.4L V6 that I think must have been designed by Tesla, since it operated primarily by vibration.
I hated that thing. Maybe if it'd had a small-block and a manual transmission, I'd have developed a greater fondness.
I don't get this trend, where the wheels are the size of Submarine Hatches, yet I have rubber bands that have more substance than what is put on those rims.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it is funny to see an Escalade on the side of the road because the rims are bent after driving over a typical Northern Ohio Pothole, which seems to have dominated about 30% of the roads up here after this last spell of Global Warming. They're starting to grow like Kudzu.
Schadenfreunde Rules!
Ah, the rubber band on the edge of a coin look. Very urban. And tacky. Probably enticing to cops out on patrol, I'm guessing.
ReplyDeleteMike James
The thing I don't get about those rims is why anyone would put them on something like an Expedition or an Escalade.
ReplyDeleteThe boy and I saw an Escalade all tricked out with low-profile rims this morning and neither of us could understand it.
Ugly and about as useless as...well, fill in the blank :)
I believe that the type of wheels on a car can be used to profile the ethnicity of the driver.
ReplyDeleteI've seen some of those on cars that cost less than the wheels, NOT a good look.
ReplyDeleteI hate those rims, especially on older/classic cars.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Camaro, well, as Jeremy Clarkson says, "murderer's car". ;^)
The current Camaro looks like Dodge should be selling it.
ReplyDeleteFor all time loser, I nominate one I saw in college: Purple and lowered YJ Wrangler on 10" gold spokes.
ReplyDeleteI always liked the big rims. They let me know who the drug dealer was. ;)
ReplyDeleteSome forget what the "pneuma" in "pneumatic tires" were designed to do.
ReplyDeleteI prefer my 24" rims to be made of oak and rolling under a Hupmobile or REO or some such.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to the Camaro, I've lusted after the '70 1/2 - '72 Z28 and SS models for so long that I'll have to continue to appreciate them from afar...
Funny, I don't see Joe Biden anywhere...
ReplyDelete"Bling", defined.....
ReplyDeleteOg reminds me, back in the late `80s, my cousin put a `70-something Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser on top of a K5 Blazer frame.
ReplyDeleteBut speaking of F-bodies, my neighbor the mechanic once showed me a charity case car he was working on, a 4th gen Trans-Am. It had a bullet hole through the front of the driver-side rear fender, where some body had shot the tire and wasn't particular about his aim. I wasn't the least bit surprised.
Obviously the parents are out of town and the boys spent the lawn service money down at the local "Rent a Rim"
ReplyDeleteI just threw up in my mouth a bit. :(
ReplyDeleteAren't the big hoops so you can put a chain through 'em and lock it to the bike-rack?
ReplyDeleteDave you and I seem to have similar taste in cars and motorcycles. Now that it has become apparent my spine and I disagree on the wisdom of going round and round on dirt ovals in 500hp cars I've started planning the purchase of a 4th Gen F body because I don't have the cash for a clean 70 to 74 here in the frozen north. My Buell is less likely to get me a ticket though.
ReplyDeleteWe had Bigger is Better, and Different is Better - now we have Broken is Better.
ReplyDeleteI have acquaintances that are young and car crazy - They seem to like Very High Trucks, and Very Low Cars. The Cars have VERY large rims with Very Skinny tires, while the trucks have relatively small rims with HUGE tires. Occasionally they get confused and put the huge rims with rubber bands on the trucks. fortunately the smaller rims with the HUGE tires don't fit on the cars.
The things they do... Makes me want to cry.