DrDiaboloco

Errrrrm.... Wouldn't a Lotus be an "import"?

Of course they "kept them". Holden and Vauxhall were not recent, foolhardly purchases like Lotus... Holden and Vauxhall have each been owned by GM for over 75 years.

Hence HOW? Holden has nothing at all to do with the Solstice and the Sky, and the only thing Vauxhall has to do with EITHER is that the Sky is similar in styling to the Vauxhall VX (??) show car... Built on a platform developed in the US of almost entirely US-market parts of other platforms. Just because the Vauxhall popped up as a concept car first doesn't mean that Vauxhall DESIGNED it. They just STYLED their concept around a platform proved to them by Father GM.

DrDiaboloco

Ohhhhhkay! If you say so. I've not driven a Z06 so I can't comment, but the last M3 was somewhere north of "firm" in my book. The kind of OVERLY-firm that we usually associate with American performance cars (like the ridiculous '84 Vette). Great on smooth pavement, but when you hit the less-than-perfect roads, time for a mouthpiece to keep your molars from cracking.

Wait a sec... Why are you even using the Z06 as a comparison? A "regular" Corvette will quite easily deal with an M3, as it will accelerate harder, turn better, stop shorter, and slalom faster than the M3. No need to go to the sooper-dooper Corvette to find a car that will 'hang' with an M3, and obviously the standard Vette will ride better.

DrDiaboloco

Do I really need to explain that I wasn't being literal?

Do I also need to explain that a lot of people buy cars that aren't appropriate for them or their needs so that they can make a "statement"?

If you guys think the M3 is "compliant", I'd like to see what your example would be of a car that rides too HARD.

BlueRenesis82

a FW28 is a great example

Ike

Toyota may hold some shares but they have no control over anything Lotus does and, I know for sure they did not when Lotus wanted to use the 2ZZ. I know in the 80s Toyota owned 20% but it appears that Proton owns Lotus and has since '96. I knew that but had a flashback to the early 90s

astro

I believe LOTUS is owned by a Malaysian car manufacturer PROTON.

alfy29

Its kinda of funny, but the first Toyota MR2 is acually a lotus concet till they gave the rights to toyota to make the car. And the Lotus concept was build with alot of Toyota parts also.

Sephiroth

wow. what a thread. All i have to say is that when it comes to V8s, nobody does it better than the American makes. Not toyota, not BMW. Ford, but especially GM, make great V8 engines.

The C6 Corvette IMO is the model sports car for America. Big engine, mountains of torque, great gas mileage, and lightweight + low slung. Perfect.

Paul_in_DC

WTF? Have you never heard of a company called Ferrari?

Great gas mileage??? If the Z06's 16/26 EPA estimated mileage is "great," they RX-8 owners should be overjoyed. And 3500 lbs is not what I would call light weight.

IMO, there may be many reasons to want a Corvette, but gas mileage and light weight certainly aren't among them.

limepro

by ferarri u mean the v12 that comes in them and with that ford made a v8 that beats them with the GT dodge has the viper with a v12 that keeps up to the ferrari and GM has a v8 that keeps up with ferraris v12.

ferrari although a great car if you spend enough money is still no match for pure american muscle lets see you go spend 150k for the cheapest ferrari oh wait they dont come that cheap but ill go spend a little over 50k for a brand new vette.

i love my 8 but no one can compare with power and price of american "muscle" cars

limepro

here ya go a ferrari with a v8 that u are gonna pay 170k for 3 years old

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Ferra...01208492QQrdZ1

and heres a brand new ford GT around the same price lets compare stats now

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Ford-...00832237QQrdZ1

BlueEyes

The Z06 is not 3500 lbs. More like 3100, if I remember right.

BlueEyes

Dude, what are you talking about?

strokercharged95gt

actually 95 was the last year of the 5.0 but i'll let that slide. Why is everyone knocking pushrod motors? Go check out the LS7 from the new Z06.

limepro

im talking about this hes saying ferrari makes better v-8 stock cars than americans

therm8

Ferrari engines are great, for the first 20-30k miles, then you gotta fix them .

The C6 (which is what the poster in your quote was referring to) does better than the Z06 mileage wise (18/28). Weighs in at 3176lbs. Hardly a gas guzzling overweight car, don't you think?

So if I were looking for a sports car that's lightweight, with lots of power, fantastic handling, and relatively good gas mileage, the Vette's a great choice.

Japan8

What's low tech about it? The throttle by wire? The variable valve timing? The varible intake manifold? The ECU that's programmed for running on Premium Unleaded, but the car sold as regular unleaded with the necessary timing and such adjustments handled by said ECU (thus the engine is always running as aggressively as possible)? How about the "low tech" live axel suspension that's been kicking *** in professional racing? Not stiff structure? The 2005/2006 platform? Particularly after strut tower bars are added?

Paul_in_DC

No, I mean the V8 that comes in some of them.

You're dreaming.

Ah, well if you want to mention price then yeah, the Corvette is okay. But if price is no object, European supercars will leave a Corvette in the dust.

BTW - try using some punctuation once in a while.

EDIT: A selection of European V8's listed at Edmunds:

2006 Ferrari F430

2006 Aston Martin V8 Vantage

2006 Maserati GranSport

2007 Mercedes-Benz SL-Class

2006 Panoz Esperante

Paul_in_DC

From Edmunds.com:

Oops... my bad - I was looking at the Gross Weight instead of the Curb Weight. I stand corrected.

daisuke

Ferraris are better than american cars in stock form, but not because of quality, it's just the price difference. You can't really compare american cars to ferraris because, next to them, muscle cars all look like worthless junk. It's all about cred, ultimate style and presence. If you have a mint condition ferrari 308 parked next to a brand new corvette Z06, most everyone is going to look at the ferrari because of what it is, and not care about the fact that the vette could blow it to pieces every single time.

In response to the original question... I don't think there really is a reliability gap, engine life depends mostly on care and driving style. If you trick out a V8 or a subaru engine, you can get more power but you reduce engine life proportionately as well. Extreme example being dragster V8s, good for 7000 hp but lasts 4 races if you're lucky before needing a rebuild. You still see plenty of 70's cars driving around with 200k+ miles on them.

I tend to rip on american cars and will buy an import next time for sure (RX-8 and mostly because of the engine), but my saturn will go over 250,000 miles today and is still running very well, it's not falling apart any more, and probably much less so, than a honda or mazda or toyota would after so many miles...

The reason I really rip on the mainstream american car is that they use so much more gas and raw materials to produce the same amount of power that japanese cars can have while carrying a similar load. I drove a pontiac grand prix the other day that got 20 miles per gallon and handled like rotten jell-o. They sre the quintesential expresion of american wastefulness.There are tons of imports that cost less, go faster, use less gas, are just as comfortable and are just better overall quality and value.

speak of build quality and fords, I've owned a ranger pickup and a thunderbird, both were garbage for different reasons. driving the ranger on a dirt road was asking for death, and it was gutless... the thunderbird had only 120k miles on it and the plastic was cracking all over the dash, the paint was starting to crack all over and most of the trim was coming apart.

anyway, my opinion on why imported muscle is better is because it's better engineering. The japs want to pound a nail, they take the right sized hammer, add some cams and rotors and valves and make it fly. cost effective! The americans just take a 12 pound sledge hammer and beat the living crap out of the nail, you get the job done but you probably will have to buy more wood and remake what you were doing because you smashed the board in the process. NOT cost effective. And the fact that the US auto makers are in deep financial trouble while toyota makes money just goes to prove my point. They've been pretty much missing the mark for the better part of 30 years, hoping americans will keep buying their enormous land yachts.

Oh and regarding the vette, it's probably the car with the best dollar per hp/ft-lb value out there right now.

Doomcue

I think that would probably go to the Dodge SRT-4. Doesn't mean I'd own one, though....

-djb

limepro

first off sorry i didnt know this was english 101 where punctuation makes a damn bit of difference but lets see stock for stock



ferrari f430 v ford gt

aston martin does 1/4 mile in 13.6 seconds ford gt 1/4 mile 11.78
maserati 0-60 in 4.9 seconds ford GT in uh oh 3.6

mercedes 0-60 4.5 seconds

panoz 0-60 in 4.2 seconds

got anymore you wanna throw out there so ford can embarrass them with their crude power thats cheaper than all those cars? before you say european will blow american away why dont you do some searching on what the actually times are for some of those vehicles you hold so highly.

limepro

heres some more of that crude american muscle if you really wanna throw some v12 european cars out there to get spanked by american companies

1996-2002 Viper Hennessey Venom 1000TT 2.3 9.52
2003 Dodge Viper SRT-10 3.9 11.7
2001 Chevrolet Corvette C5-R 3.5 10.3

find something that beats those times and then come post it

BlueEyes

It boggles my mind how an Rx8 owner can be so narrow minded about engine performance, and car performance as a whole. News flash, nobody cares.

dillsrotary

the c5-r is a full on race car, no reason to include it's times