Doug T.
Lifetime Member
Pettin' The Gator
Posts: 1,199
|
Post by Doug T. on Mar 7, 2011 17:08:30 GMT -5
Hi All, There was a car show at the local shopping mall this past weekend, so we went to see what they had. I haven't been to an indoor mall in quite a while. The first thing that I noticed when we entered, was the enormous number of teenagers running about. The second thing was that most of these kids must have bathed in cheap perfume and cologne. Oh yes, there were a few cars there as well This one's a 70's Dodge Dart. Doug
|
|
|
Post by vintageslrs on Mar 7, 2011 18:17:13 GMT -5
Wow! Nice Dart!!!
Bob
|
|
daveh
Lifetime Member
Posts: 4,696
|
Post by daveh on Mar 8, 2011 1:22:31 GMT -5
I can't say that the Dart does too much for me - at least looking coldly at the vehicle it doesn't.
|
|
|
Post by vintageslrs on Mar 8, 2011 8:31:32 GMT -5
Well, that is understandable....(no offense intended)... but Americans and Brits often tend to like cars with different looks from one another and often a different set of priorities. Perhaps the space, roads and fuels costs and interstate highway systems are some of the reasons. Maybe PeterW (a retired car magazine owner, editor and writer would like to weigh in?
Bob
|
|
Doug T.
Lifetime Member
Pettin' The Gator
Posts: 1,199
|
Post by Doug T. on Mar 8, 2011 11:11:24 GMT -5
Hi! The exhibit was actually called " Raceworld". The local tracks and racing clubs put on an exhibition to promote the coming racing season. The Dart ( I think it was a Super Bee),was shown for the Skyview Drag Strip, which is situated on top of a mountain with a great view of the valley below. This one.... is a class called "Legends". They're miniature reproductions of old oval track racers of the 50's. They're powered by motorcycle engines of 850cc or larger, and are VERY fast. They're also meant as an affordable alternative to these.... These are called Modifieds and are loud, dirty, and SCARY fast. Racing is a lot of fun and somthing to look forward to every spring ;D Doug
|
|
daveh
Lifetime Member
Posts: 4,696
|
Post by daveh on Mar 8, 2011 12:09:30 GMT -5
Sorry, I should have elaborated more. As far as I can recall we didn't get the Dodge Dart over here - at least not in any numbers. Thus it doesn't hold any sort of memories, either as road car or as a race car. This is what I meant when I said "looking coldly at the vehicle".
A friend used to go drag racing in the 70s. His cars were immaculately turned out as the family firm was in the motor panel/body spraying/sign writing business. Later they made bin wagons, becoming, I think, the second largest in Europe.
|
|
|
Post by Randy on Mar 8, 2011 12:37:12 GMT -5
Dodge Darts were also made in Australia and New Zealand. Being a MOPAR fan, I can appreciate that Dart! I have a 1/18 scale diecast that looks similar.
|
|
photax
Lifetime Member
Posts: 1,915
|
Post by photax on Mar 8, 2011 13:35:29 GMT -5
Doug,
Never seen a Dart before, This car looks really mean and well motorized, I like it ;D What is this monster in your third picture ? It looks like a oversized toy car.
MIK
|
|
|
Post by vintageslrs on Mar 8, 2011 16:38:27 GMT -5
69DartGTSdcBronze by bob40caliber, on Flickr One of my all-time favorites....1969 Dodge Dart GT Sport 340 small block in color Bronze. Would give my left ____ for one of these. Once was a time I could have afforded one but now I can just afford this model of one. Bob
|
|
PeterW
Lifetime Member
Member has Passed
Posts: 3,804
|
Post by PeterW on Mar 8, 2011 16:53:03 GMT -5
Bob, You wrote: Thanks for the invitation to weigh in, Bob. An involved subject, and I feel this may be quite a long posting though I'll try to keep it as concise as I can. If you're not interested in European cars move on. If you are stay with me and I'll try to explain how European preferences grew up. For that I need to delve back a little into history. I agree with you that space, roads and fuel costs all dictated the way British, and for that matter European, cars developed. Ever since the first car trundled its way along the road drivers have wanted to go faster than the next guy. It is a natural instinct of competition. In the early days of motor cars, European makers tended to agree with the American way of thinking that there was no substitute for cubic inches. People built cars that were more like projectiles than useful transport. Some even used ex-aero engines in flexible chassis that made roadholding a bad joke and brakes that brought the thing to a stop ... eventually. Even through the 1920s the philosophy that, for sports and racing cars big engines equals high speed prevailed. Very similar to American thinking. 1905 Itala racing car with the very brave riding mechanic standing behind it. With massive engines and light whippy chassis cars like this stayed on the road at speed by the grace of God and the skill of the driver. For safety reasons, racing on public roads was banned, except once a year in the Isle of Man and Italy where rods were closed and the race closely controlled. We also got banked racing circuits, such as Brooklands in the UK. Before long, to make racing a better spectator sport, artificial bends and wiggles, known as chicanes, were introduced on banked oval circuits. We also had "road racing" circuits built on private land, mostly in mainland Europe, with plenty of bends and curves to negotiate. They were supplemented after World War 2 by companies that took over disused airfields. Bentley from the 1920s. Massively over-engineered. They had style, even though Bugatti called them "The fastest lorries in Europe". Car makers, particularly makers of sports cars, embraced this pseudo-road-racing as a form of publicity and offered the public sports cars which looked the same as those built for racing but were in most cases not so highly tuned or they would have been mechanically too temperamental. Huge engines gave way to highly-tuned engines of much smaller capacity. SS Jaguar open sports car from the late 1930s. A real "Promenade Percy's" car. More and more attention began to be paid to road holding and braking, and the lessons learned on the circuits were applied to mass-produced small family cars. Rallying, with off-road sections on private land, was actively pursued for publicity by many makers using works-prepared cars that looked very similar to the family saloons offered to the public, but underneath the paint they were very different and cost four or five times the price of cars in dealers' showrooms. Groups of enthusiasts soon wanted to make their family saloons look like the works rally cars and a whole industry grew up to supply things like wheel arch extensions to accommodate wide wheels, and front and rear air dams and spoilers that really did almost nothing to help roadholding at speeds below about 150 mph. Some were content to leave it at that, but others wanted more power. So firms grew up to offer engine tuning or parts for engine tuning like special camshafts, gas-flowed cylinder heads, special exhausts and so on. People who cherished the more traditional type of race-bred sports car often looked down on these "boy racers" as they termed the rally car lookalike builders. A popular saying among them was "Take a cheap tin box and throw a lot of money at it, and you end up with a very fast dolled-up cheap tin box". It all boils down to a matter of image, and possibly the impression certain cars made on you as you grew up. We very seldom saw any of the big American muscle cars in the UK. I've certainly never driven one. Like Dave, the outside image of the Dodge Dart does nothing for me. It reminds me of a Ford Granada with a big air intake grafted on. I have to smile sometimes when I watch in a movie American police sedans in a chase displaying so much oversteer on corners that they go sideways and almost backwards with much screeching of rubber. I know the very skilful studio stunt drivers overdo this for effect, but they couldn't do it with a lot of European cars with race-bred roadholding. Possibly for many Americans a picture of the works-built Ford Escort World Cup Rally winner, or a mid 1930s Lagonda, or late 1930s SS Jaguar, open sports car would do very little. I've tried to put the European point of view. Perhaps someone across the pond can express how American preferences in cars grew up, and what impresses Americans when they see them on show. PeterW
|
|
|
Post by Randy on Mar 8, 2011 18:45:25 GMT -5
That photo of the Dart shows a scoop used for drag racing. From the showroom this was not an option, but the 2 small scoops were. I remember a car from England that had a Chrysler HEMI, what car was that Peter?
I see Bob and I are both diecast car collectors, is there anyone else here?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2011 19:39:06 GMT -5
Peter:
I remember reading in Road & Track once that the best way to define "Oversteer" and "Understeer" was whether you went off the road front end first or rear end first.
The best cornering car I ever drove was back in the late 1960s or early 1970s. It was a Matra GT powered by, I believe, a Renault engine in the rear. A local car dealer had one. That car went around corners like it was on rails. The salesman said the big problem was when it finally "broke loose" it wasn't gradual but happened all at once, leaving the driver with a lot of problems to deal with--all at the same time. But the Matra wasn't as much fun as the Sunbeam Tiger--an Alpine body powered by a 260 cubic inch Ford V8. It was the only car I ever drove that you could blow up the engine in high gear. When they came out (about the same time as the Ford Cobra) they were less than $5,000 here in the states. It's my understand you can't touch a restord on now for less than $80,000.
|
|
Doug T.
Lifetime Member
Pettin' The Gator
Posts: 1,199
|
Post by Doug T. on Mar 8, 2011 20:04:10 GMT -5
I've always had a soft spot for European automobiles. There was a time before Japan became big in the American marketplace when you could get a decent "sports car" for a reasonable price. If I could have, I'd have bought a GT6, Alpine Renault, Matra Djet, or any other auto of that sort. I don't believe that size and power is all that we Americans are after, but we take what is available to us, try to personalize it, and make it better. The American auto industry in the 60's caught on, and gave us what we were already building. That's how Muscle Cars came to be. If I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me on this one. I did have a Chevy Impala with a 409 in it while I was in the service. It was big and fast Doug In Germany I had a DAF, it wasn't so fast ;D
|
|
daveh
Lifetime Member
Posts: 4,696
|
Post by daveh on Mar 9, 2011 3:15:14 GMT -5
The DAF was Dutch, and at least some of them had a system of belts forming an automatic transmission system, the variomatic.
If anything quick came out of France in the 60s and 70s it always seemed to have Renault in its name somewhere. I have been a passenger with drivers of differing abilities, but I have never been with anyone as good as the French driver in his Renault Gordini. It was the summer of 1969. I had been to Italy in my MGTD, which decided, in mid-France, to throw an exhaust valve head which promptly went through the piston. I returned home to get spares (there aren't too many 40 thou oversize pistons available in France). Initially I had a lift from an English family up to Rouen. I then needed to get to Dieppe. It was pouring with rain. A stripped out Gordini with roll-over bar stopped and the driver said he wasn't really going there but would take a few miles where I would be better placed to catch traffic coming through.
I have never been that fast before, even in the dry and yet I felt the safest I ever have in a car. I always wonder who he might have been.
|
|
|
Post by vintageslrs on Mar 9, 2011 9:54:43 GMT -5
OK Peter I will take the challenge...I guess I will explain the USA car memories and our collector car market (which today is driven by the vintage muscle car market). As a teenager growing up in the muscle car era, (let me define muscle car for all--it was Detriot's idea to take a smaller, lighter weight body and stuff a large motor into it. Giving you a high Horsepower per lb. ratio---technically the early 60's Chevy 409's as was mentioned earlier, by strict definition, were not musclecars, because they were a full-size body.) I have very fond memories. Although arguments can be made otherwise, it is generally accepted that the credit for the first mass produced "musclecar" goes to the 1964 Pontiac GTO. Pontiac put a 389 c.i. 325 hp motor into a Tempest/Le Mans body and had an option for a 348hp 389c.i. motor with 3 2bbl carbs. The youth market loved it. The demand was great and the musclecar race was on. Following years brought musclecars from all makes and in varying body styles. Through the years the motors grew to 400c.i. to even many 455c.i. motors in these cars. Some of the ones fond to me include the Pontiac GTO, Olds 442, Chevrolet Chevelle SS and Nova SS, Buick GS and GSX, Ford Mustang and Torino, Dodge Super Bee, Super Bird and Dart, Plymouth Belvedere, Road Runner, AMC AMX and Javelin and many more. For a boy/young man in the US--nothing was more thrilling (well, almost nothing) than to be able to drive one of these powerful high horsepowered cars on our streets, highways and interstates. These cars sounded loud and strong. They looked beautiful--kept polished and loved by their mostly, younger owners. They were raced every night on neighborhood streets and became our identity...our very soul. They were way more than transportation--they were our pride, our proof of hard labor, our reason to feel good. They were clearly our most important reason to rise each morning. Nothing felt better than to fire one up and hear the roar of the exhaust, lay rubber on the street, hear and feel what happened when you stomped on the accelorator and that four barrel carb opened up and race your rival and be seen in your gorgeous car. It was the source of getting girls, friends and your social standing. And these cars were real performers. 1/4 mile runs in factory stock conditions of 14 sec. were common. They were strong, well built and had heavy duty suspensions to handle the speed and torque. And let's remember---these cars new were about $3000. or less and used as low as $800. and gasoline was $0.29 per gallon. Ahhh--they were great times. They lasted without being reigned in through the 1970 models. The 1970 model year for most is considered the peak of the musclecar era. And in 1971 it became clear that wonderful era was beginning to wind down. Some manufactorers reduced compression ratios and that reduced horsepower as well. Also the industry changed how they rated horsepower (in effect lower the HP ratings). And there was disappointment. By the next year all manufacturers lowered compression ratios and thereby horsepower to run on lower octane fuel and cheaper fuel. And more disappointment followed. We knew the era was just about over and we would never see the widespread likes of musclecars (reasonable and obtainable by many youth drivers) with all that raw power and speed and status. What followed was viewed by most of us as inferior cars, poor performance and generally not as good times as we had been fortunate to live, partake in and enjoy! So, when one of us Americans from that amazing era, see that Dart or that Charger or that 442 or that Mustang or that Vette, we remember the best of times and all that it represented and we would go back there in a second if we could! And that is our attraction and our LOVE of the automobile!
Bob
|
|